"Diana Wynne Jones - The Game" - читать интересную книгу автора (Jones Diana Wynne)

from Alice all right. But this isn’t a walking stick, Oliver. It looks
like a broom handle to me.”
 “But I was in the inn when Blind Pugh arrived!” Oliver protested.
“Then he must have fooled you,” Harmony replied. “He may be
blind, but he is a pirate, you know. Yes, the drinking horn truly
was used by Beowulf. That can go in the cabinet and so can this
One Ring. No, don’t put it on, you fool! It’s dangerous!”
All this time, the tune from the clock was going slower and
slower. Just as the last three notes were dragging out, Tollie came
staggering up, looking exhausted but pleased with himself. “Here
you are,” he said. “Bowl of porridge from the Three Bears!” and he
dumped it on the table.
Harmony looked at it and sighed. “That’s from the kitchen here,”
she said. “Why must you always cheat, Tollie?”
“Because he wastes his time rushing about the strands trying to
put the rest of us off!” James said. “I don’t think he should be
allowed to play.”
“Hear, hear!” said almost everybody else. “He’s a pest!”
“We’ll see,” Harmony said soothingly. “Everyone come indoors to
the cabinet for the presentation.”
As they all trooped towards the house, where Sarah joined them,
looking decidedly ashamed of herself, Hayley whispered to Troy,
“Why did she let Tollie get away with it?”
Troy made a face. “Because he’s quite capable of telling his
dad—Mercer, you know—and Mercer would tell Uncle Jolyon at
once. It’s blackmail really.”
The trophy cabinet was in a small room off the lounge. Although
the lounge was now dry and polished, nobody had yet got round to
the small room. On its wet and muddy floor stood a tall
glass-fronted cupboard which Harmony unlocked with a special key
from the plastic bag. Inside, on the rather dirty shelves, were little
heaps of tiny objects: quite a pile of inch-long glass shoes, almost a
nest of grey curly hairs, six miniature Aladdin’s lamps, a bunch of
tiny bright feathers and a cluster of little bottles, among other
things. Harmony ceremoniously put the new objects beside the old,
small ones, where they sat dwarfing them. Last of all, she put
Troy’s big gleaming dragon scale beside the three tiny ones already
there. Then she locked the cupboard and turned to give the plastic
apple into Hayley’s hands.
“There,” she said. “I’m giving the prize to Hayley because she was
pretty brave to go. Is that OK, Troy?”
“Fine,” Troy said, in his calm way. “I’ve won a hundred times
anyway.”



7
«^»
For the next few days, Hayley enjoyed herself more than she had
ever done. Once the aunts had finished drying and cleaning the