"Tim LaHaye - Left Behind Kids 02 - Second Chance" - читать интересную книгу автора (LaHaye Tim)

"Don't keep me out of this, Lionel! " Ryan said. "I got to keep myself busy or I'll be thinking about the
same thing your uncle is thinking about."

"Let's hope he's still just thinking about it."

Lionel turned the machine on again and could hear what sounded like a bottle being poured into a glass.
Also, if he had to guess, he would have assumed andré was downing some pills. andré's voice became
slower and more slurred, and he cried more as he spoke. "Lionel, don't make the same mistakes I made.
I was wrong, totally wrong. I heard all my life that God loved me and that Jesus died for me and that I
was a sinner. I knew it. I believed it. I just never bought into it for myself. I told you a lot of it was fairy
tales, and I hoped I was right. But I was wrong. I was wrong."

Lionel didn't think he had any more tears to shed, but he could feel them welling up again. andré
sounded so lost, so empty. Lionel thought about whom he could call, where he could possibly find andré.
He won-dered if anyone left behind at the church might have any idea where andré was. He flipped off
the machine and dialed the church. The line was busy. He tried time and again, but always it was busy.
He asked Ryan to take over and keep dialing. Meanwhile, he listened to the rest of the tape, which went
on for more than twenty minutes. In it, his uncle andré simply repeated how sorry he was, how sick he
was of himself, how much he hated his life, and what a waste it had been. In the end, he resorted to
simply apologizing over and over and saying good-bye. He was still talking, mumbling, ram-bling, when
the tape ran out.

Ryan said, "It's ringing!"

Lionel grabbed the phone. When the machine at the church picked up, however, it merely signaled a
long tone as well. The tape was full, and no one was there to answer either.

"I've got to get to andré's place," Lionel said.

"Where's that?" Ryan said.

"In Chicago."

"How are you going to get there?"

"On my bike, I guess," Lionel said. "You want to go with me?"

"Sure. But I've never ridden a bike to Chi-cago."

"You can use my sisters bike," Lionel said.

"No, I've got my own. Just give me a ride back to my house and I'll get mine."

Half an hour later, Lionel and Ryan were pedaling quickly out of Mount Prospect, heading toward
Chicago. Lionel hoped he would recognize the same landmarks he did while riding in the car. It seemed
to take so long to get to each one while riding bikes. He soon realized he was going too fast to keep up
his endurance. "Let's slow down," he hol-lered. "Let's save our strength. It's going to be a long trip."

The boys reached andré's neighborhood around eleven o'clock. Lionel had never been out that late