"Diana Wynne Jones - Howl's Moving Castle" - читать интересную книгу автора (Jones Diana Wynne)

"I feel bad about spying on Howl," he announced as he pounded a third set of ingredients to death in a
bowl. "He may be fickle to females, but he's been awfully good to me. He took me in when I was just
an unwanted orphan sitting on his doorstep in Porthaven."
"How did that come about?" asked Sophie as she snipped put another blue triangle.
"My mother died and my father got drowned in a storm," Michael said. "And nobody wants you when
that happens. I had to leave our house because I couldn't pay rent, and I tried to live in the streets but
people kept turning me off doorsteps and out of boats until the only place I could think of to go was
somewhere everyone was too scared to interfere with. Howl had just started up in a small way as
Sorcerer Jenkin then. But everyone said his house had devils in it, so I slept on his doorstep for a couple
of nights until Howl opened the door one morning on his way to buy bread and I fell inside. So he said I
could wait indoors while he got something to eat. I went in, and there was Calcifer, and I started talking
to him because I'd never met a demon before."
"What did you talk about?" said Sophie, wondering if Calcifer had asked Michael to break his contract
too.
"He told me his troubles and dripped on me. Didn't you?" said Calcifer. "It didn't seem to occur to him
that I might have troubles as well."
"I don't think you have. You just grumble a lot," Michael said. "You were quite nice to me that
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morning, and I think Howl was impressed. But you know how he is. He didn't tell me I could stay. But
he just didn't tell me to go. So I started being useful wherever I could, like looking after money so that
he didn't spend it all as soon as he'd got it, and so on."
The spell gave a sort of a whuff then and exploded mildly. Michael brushed soot off the skull, sighing,
and tried new ingredients. Sophie began making a patchwork of blue triangles round her feet on the
floor.
"I did make lots of stupid mistakes when I first started," Michael went on. "Howl was awfully nice
about it. I thought I'd got over that now. And I think I do help with money. Howl buys such expensive
clothes. He says no one's going to employ a wizard who looks as if he can't make money at the trade."
"That's just because he likes clothes," said Calcifer. His orange eyes watched Sophie at work rather
meaningly.
"This suit was spoiled," Sophie said.
"It isn't just clothes," Michael said. "Remember last winter when we were down to your last log and
Howl went off and bought the skull and that stupid guitar? I was really annoyed with him. He said they
looked good."
"What did you do about logs?" Sophie asked.
"Howl conjured some from someone who owed him money," Michael said. "At least, he said they did,
and I just hoped he was telling the truth. And we ate seaweed. Howl says it's good for you."
"Nice stuff," murmured Calcifer. "Dry and crackly."
"I hate it," said Michael staring abstractedly at his bowl of pounded stuff. "I don't know-there should be
seven ingredients, unless it's seven processes, but let's try it in a pentacle anyway." He put the bowl on
the floor and chalked a sort of five-pointed star round it.
The powder exploded with a force that blew Sophie's triangles into the hearth. Michael swore and
hurriedly rubbed out the chalk.
"Sophie," he said, "I'm stuck in this spell. You don't think you could possibly help me, do you?"
Just like someone bringing their homework to their granny, Sophie thought, collecting triangles and
patiently laying them out again. "Let's have a look," she said cautiously. "I don't know anything about
magic, you know."
Michael eagerly thrust a strange, slightly shiny paper into her hand. It looked unusual, even for a spell.
It was printed in bold letters, but they were slightly gray and blurred, and there were gray blurs, like
retreating stormclouds, round all the edges. "See what you think," said Michael.