"Laymon, Richard - The Traveling Vampire Show" - читать интересную книгу автора (Laymon Richard)

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FIRST EDITION

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 tHE summer I was sixteen, the Traveling Vampire Show came to town.

I heard about it first from my two best friends, Rusty and Slim.
Rusty's real name was Russell, which he pretty much hated.

Slim's real name was Frances. She had to put up with it from her
parents and teachers, but not from other kids. She'd tell them,
"Frances is a talking mule." Asked what she wanted to be called, her
answer pretty much depended on what book she happened to be reading.
She'd say, "Nancy" or "Holmes" or "Scout" or "Zock" or "Phoebe." All
last summer, she wanted to be called Dagny. Now, it was Slim. A name
like that, I figured maybe she'd started reading westerns. But I
didn't ask.

My name is Dwight, by the way. Named after the Commander of the Allied
Expeditionary Forces in Europe. He didn't get elected President until
after I'd already been born and named.

Anyway, it was a hot August morning, school wouldn't be starting again
for another month, and I was out in front of our house mowing the lawn
with a push mower. We must've been the only family in Grandville that
didn't have a power mower. Not that we couldn't afford

one. Dad was the town's chief of police and Morn taught English at
the high school. So we had the money for a power mower, or even a
riding mower, but not the inclination.

Not Dad, anyway. Long before anyone ever heard of language like "noise
pollution," Dad was doing everything in his power to prevent this or
that "godawful racket."

Mso, he was opposed to any sort of device that might make life easier
on me or my two brothers. He wanted us to work hard, sweat and suffer.
He'd lived through the Great Depression and World War Two, so he knew
all about suffering. According to him, kids these days've got it too
easy." So he did what he could to make life tougher on us.

That's why I was out there pushing the mower, sweating my ass off, when
along came Rusty and Slim.

It was one of those gray mornings when the sun is just a dim glow
through the clouds and you know by the smell that rain's on the way and
you wish it would hurry up and get here because the day is so damn hot
and muggy.