"Susan Palwick - Going After Bobo" - читать интересную книгу автора (Palwick Susan)

Mom shook her head. "Honey—no. You can't go up there."

"Mom, he could be hurt! He could have a broken leg or something and not be able
to move and just be lying there!" The signal hadn't moved at all. If it had been lower
down the mountain, I would have thought that maybe some family had taken Bobo
in, but there still weren't any houses that high. The top of Peavine was one of the few
places the developers hadn't got to yet.

"Sweetheart," Mom's voice was very quiet. "Michael, turn around. Come on. Turn
around and look at me."

I didn't turn around. I stuffed a few more energy bars in my pack, and Mom put her
hands on my shoulders and said, "Michael, he's dead."

I still kept my back to her. "You don't know that!"

"He's been gone for five days now, and the signal's on top of Peavine. He has to be
dead. A coyote got him and dragged him up there. He's never gone that high by
himself, has he?"

She was right. In the year he'd had the transmitter, Bobo had never gone anywhere
much, certainly not anywhere far. He'd liked exploring the neighbours' yards, and the
strips of wild land between the developments, where there were voles and mice. And
coyotes.

"So he decided to go exploring," I said, and zipped my pack shut. "I have to go find
out, anyway."

"Michael, there's nothing to find out. He's dead. You know that."

"I do not know that! I don't know anything." Except that David's a piece of shit. I
did turn around, then, because I wanted to see her face when I said, "He hasn't been
home since Monday, Mom, so how do I know what's happened? I haven't even seen
him."

I guess I was up to fighting, after all. It was an awful thing to say, because it would
only remind her of what we were all trying to forget, but I was still happy when she
looked away from me, sharply, with a hiss of indrawn breath. She didn't curse me
out, though, even though I deserved it. She didn't even leave the room. Instead she
looked back at me, after a minute, and put her hands on my shoulders again. "You
can't go out there. Not in this weather. It wouldn't even be safe to take the SUV, or
I'd drive you—"

"He could be lying hurt in the snow," I said. "Or holed up somewhere, or—"

"Michael, he's dead." I didn't answer. Mom squeezed my shoulders and said gently,
"And even if he were alive, you couldn't reach him in time. Not all that way; not in
this weather. Not even in the SUV."

"I just want to know," I said. I looked right at her when I said it. I wasn't saying it to