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

cheerful voice. “I hope you realise you’ve spoilt your own fun too.”
Tollie pointed at Hayley. “It’s her fault. She shouldn’t be playing.”
Harmony tossed her hair back angrily. “ None of us should be
playing,” she said. “Don’t you understand, you silly little brat? No,
you don’t, do you? Right, everyone. As this is our last game, we’ll
add a bit of variety. Each of you take your own marker and plant it
where you like. That should change the strands you use quite
radically. Then come back and get your card.” She spread the
markers out in a fan on the table and then picked up the cards and
shuffled them, still staring at Tollie. “If I didn’t know you’d cheat,”
she said, as Hayley picked up her marker and went off beside Troy
to plant it, “I’d make sure you got the Slough of Despond or the
Cave of Polyphemus, Tollie. Polyphemus is a man-eating giant and
just what you deserve.”
Tollie gave Harmony a smirk. He planted his marker right beside
the card table and held out his hand for a card. Harmony handed it
to him with a sugary smile. “There you are, dear Tollie. Fetch a
roc’s egg and I hope it chokes you. And I warn you—if you bring me
the ostrich egg from Aunt May’s office, I shall break all my
promises to Mercer and spank you.”
She handed cards out to everyone else. From the looks on all
their faces, the instructions on the cards were not the usual ones.
Lucy went quite white as she read hers. “I’m afraid of witches!” she
whispered to James.
“Bad luck,” James said unsympathetically. “You’re lucky— I’ve
got to get through a dirty great thorn hedge, and I don’t even know
what a spindle looks like! What happens if I wake Sleeping Beauty
up?” he asked Harmony.
She handed a card to Hayley. “Why, you get married and live
happily ever after, James my sweetheart,” she said. “Look on the
bright side. You’ll be safe away from Uncle Jolyon if that happens.”
It was evident that Harmony was very angry indeed. As they
went back to their markers, Troy said nervously to Hayley, “What
does she want us to do?”
Hayley looked at her card. It said, FETCH A GOLDEN APPLE
FROM THE ORCHARD OF THE HESPERIDES. Though it was as
used and battered-looking as any of the other cards, when she
showed it to Troy, he said, “I’ve never seen that one before! But it
doesn’t look too bad. Last time she got this angry, I had to go to
Mercury and bring her a mad robot. And the time before that, I had
to pinch Arthur’s sword out of the stone. I couldn’t pull it out and he
came along and hit me for trying to steal it. And before that—Oh,
forget it. Let’s go.”
 Behind them, the clock started to tinkle. This time its tune was
“Over the Rainbow,”which made Hayley laugh, because it seemed
exactly right. She followed Troy down to the bottom of the paddock,
where there was a small gate that led into the orchard. That struck
her as exactly right too.
The next moment she was wondering if it was right. Troy pushed
the gate open and walked in among all the bushy apple trees.