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

to talk about them all together, you call them the Hesperides.”
 Hayley looked from one to another of these five pretty ladies.
There was a strong family likeness among them all, although
Arethusa was fair and rounded and Erytheia thin and dark, with
the others in between in various ways. They were each wearing a
different coloured gown and all smiled at Hayley as if they were
delighted to meet her. So many aunts! Hayley thought. Oh, I
understand! This is Grandad’s other family that he goes to see.
“Now I’ve got nine aunts!” she said wonderingly.
“Well, actually you’ve got eleven really,” Grandad said. “There
are seven of the Pleiades, you know. There must be two you haven’t
met yet.”
“Oh, yes. There’s Harmony and Troy’s mother,” Hayley
remembered. “None of them are as beautiful as you,” she said to the
five new aunts.
They laughed, and laughed again when Grandad protested, “Oh, I
don’t know! Alcyone is quite a looker, don’t you think? Even Maia
could be if she tried. And Asterope would be prettiest of all if she
wasn’t such a mouse. I love and admire all my daughters, Hayley.”
Then he turned a little stern and asked, “Now what are you doing
here? Did you just wander along, or did you come for a reason?”
“We were wondering that too,” said Hespere, the one in green.
“For a reason,” Hayley said. “For Harmony’s game. I have to
bring back a golden apple from the Garden of the Hesperides.
That’s from you, isn’t it?”
The new aunts looked at one another and then at Grandad,
anxiously. “That’s not as easy as you’d think,” said Arethusa, the
one in blue. “We’d give you an apple, gladly, if it was only up to us.”
Aigley, the flute player, who wore a dress like a daffodil,
explained, “The apple trees are very well guarded, you see, by a
dragon called Ladon.”
“And they all belong to the king,” Erytheia said, propping her
banjolike instrument against the garden seat, “who knows exactly
how many apples there are.”
“You, Grandad?” Hayley asked hopefully. “Are you king here?”
Grandad shook his head. “Not me, my love. I’m only a Titan. I’m
not that grand.”
Erytheia stood up and straightened her white dress. “I’ll take her
to the gate and show her,” she said. “I can advise her at least.”
“I’ll come too,” Hesperethusa said, laying down her rattle.
“Good. Bless you both,” Grandad said. “Tell her what to do. And
come back in one piece, Hayley, even if you have to do it without an
apple.” He gave her another hug and pushed her towards her two
aunts.
Feeling very nervous now, Hayley set off with Erytheia rippling
along in her white dress on one side and Hesperethusa floating
gracefully on the other. Hesperethusa’s dress was a lovely blushing
pink, like the best kind of sunset. Hayley was sure that, if her
aunts had not been there, she would have run away and cheated
like Tollie, probably by bringing Harmony the plastic apple she had