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

She was still only halfway through that thought, when the
person in the sun waved at her and shouted. “ Stop!” he yelled.
“Match velocities now !”
Hayley found herself—not exactly slowing—gliding beside the
sun at about the same speed and much too near for comfort. The
heat of it uncurled her, melting her from around her apple. “Don’t
do that!” she shouted. And found herself looking across at Flute.
“Oh, of course,” she said. “Fiddle said you stood in the sun.”
Flute stood with his arms folded, surrounded in leaping hissing
heat. He did not look entirely friendly. “Until this morning,” he
said, “I had a thousand and one golden apples. Now I’ve only got a
thousand.”
“Are they yours ?” Hayley said. “I didn’t know—”
 Flute nodded, his hair leaping among the white hot flames. “And
you’ve got another one in your pocket,” he said.
Up until then, Hayley had clean forgotten that she had zipped
Harmony’s prize apple into one of her trouser pockets.
She would have liked to pat that pocket to make sure the plastic
apple there was still safe, but she was a little too icy and curled up
to do that. She said airily, “Oh, that’s only a plastic apple Harmony
gave me for a prize in the game.”
Flute grinned a little. “ Is it? That girl Harmony has stolen more
of my apples than I care to think of. She now has the run of the
universe, probably the whole multiverse . She’s everywhere , in spite
of your uncle Jolyon’s orders. Don’t go giving her that new one.”
“I won’t then,” Hayley said. “I want to keep it.”
Flute lost his grin. “Do you? Then you realise you’ll have to pay
me for it, don’t you? My apples are never free.”
“Oh,” said Hayley. It was a relief, in a way, to know that she
need not be a thief. She hated the idea that she had been stealing
from Flute of all people. But it had never occurred to Grandma to
give Hayley any money before sending her away. Glumly, knowing
she was penniless, Hayley asked, “How much do you want for it?”
“I’ll take,” said Flute, “one of the stars from Orion’s bow. We
want that quite urgently, as it happens.”
“Er—” Hayley began.
“I know you haven’t got it now,” said Flute. “You can give it me
when you next see me. And I want your promise that you will.”
“I promise,” Hayley said, feeling small and sad. She thought, I’ll
have to ask Harmony what I do about that. Oh, dear .
“Very well,” said Flute. “Off you go then.”
Hayley peered through the cloudy spout of her hair and tried to
turn herself towards Earth, which had moved quite a way farther
in its orbit while they talked. She would never have managed it, if
Flute had not reached out and given her a shove. This sent her
gliding off on a course that would meet Earth as it went on round.
“See you soon,” he called as Hayley headed away.
 She was still moving quite fast, but to her disappointment not
hurtling along anymore. She was simply travelling on her own
inertia and getting cooler again as she moved. She went from hot,