"Masterton, Graham - Plague" - читать интересную книгу автора (Masterton Graham)

'Are you sure? I mean-'

Dr. Petrie shrugged. 'I can't be sure until the experts are sure. But I wasn't close to that boy for very long, and the chances are that I probably haven't caught it.'

Adelaide sat down. She watched Prickles playing for a while, and then said, 'I just find it so hard to believe.

I thought plague was one of those things they had in Europe, in the Middle Ages. It just seems so weird.'

Dr. Petrie sat on the arm of the settee opposite. Unconsciously, he felt he ought to keep his distance. There was something about the word Plague that made him think of infection and putrescence and teeming bacteria, and until he knew for certain he was clean and clear, he didn't feel like breathing too closely in Adelaide's direction.

He sipped his drink. 'I was reading about it the other day, in a medical journal. We've had plague in America since the turn of the century. We've still got it - particularly in the west. They had to lift the ban on DDT not long ago, so that they could disinfect rats' nests and ground squirrels' burrows. Don't look so worried. It's just one of these things that sounds more frightening than it really is.'

Adelaide looked up, and gave him a twitchy smile. 'Plague. The Black Death. Who's frightened?' she said softly.

Prickles was shaking her doll. 'Dolly,' she said crossly, 'are you feeling giddy again?'

Dr. Petrie smiled. 'Is dolly feeling sick, too?' he asked. 'Maybe she needs a good night's sleep, like you.'

Prickles shook her head seriously. 'Oh, no. Dolly's not tired. Dolly doesn't feel like going to bed yet. Dolly's just feeling giddy.'

Dr. Petrie looked at his little daughter closely! Her hair was drawn back in a pony-tail, and her profile was just like his. When she grew up, and lost some of that six-year-old chubbiness, she would probably be pretty. Margaret, when he had first married her, had been one of the prettiest girls on the north beach.

'Well,' he said, 'if dolly's feeling giddy, perhaps dolly would like some nice streptomycin.'

Prickles frowned. 'No, dolly doesn't want any of that. Dolly doesn't like it. She's just feeling giddy, like Mommy.'

Dr. Petrie stared at Prickles intently. 'What did you say?' he asked her. He said it so sharply that she looked up at him with her mouth open, as if she'd done something wrong.

He knelt on the floor beside her. 'I'm not angry, darling,' he said. 'But did you say that Mommy was giddy?'

Prickles nodded. 'Mommy went swimming, and when she came back she said she felt sick, and the next day she was giddy.'

Dr. Petrie leaned back against the settee. The creeping sensation of anxiety was spreading all over him.

Adelaide, her face pale, said, 'Leonard ... you don't think that Margaret...?'

Dr. Petrie stood up. 'I don't know,' he said hoarsely. 'What worries me is how many other people have caught it. I think I'd better get down to the hospital and find out what's going on.'

'Is Mommy all right?' said Prickles, frowning. Dr. Petrie forced a smile, and laid a gentle hand on his daughter's pony-tail.

'Yes, honey. Mommy's all right. Now - don't you think it's time that dolly went to bed?'

Prickles sighed. 'I suppose so. She has been very giddy today. Do all dollies get giddy? All the dollies in Miami?'

Dr. Petrie picked Prickles up in his arms, and held her close against him. The doll was made of lurid pink plastic, with a shock of brassy blonde nylon hair. He examined it closely, and then pronounced his diagnosis.

'I think that dolly's going to get better. And I don't think that all the dollies in Miami will get giddy. At least-'

He couldn't help noticing Adelaide's anxious, attractive face.