"Marta Randall - The Dark Boy" - читать интересную книгу автора (Randall Marta)

“No, please.” She felt spotlighted; the heat of embarrassment rose toward her
face.

Again his goods vanished and now he held small wooden sharks painted
magenta and lemon and turquoise, the words “Cabo San Lucas” lettered on their
fins.

“No!” She looked toward the shopkeepers but they ignored her, busy
dragging displays onto the sidewalks. “Nada!”

The children tittered. “Un dlar!” he said.

Ahead she saw the sign for the Hotel Plaza Las Glorias. The expedition office
would be around its other side, fronting the marina.

This time he had tiny ocarinas, shaped like turtles. He put one to his lips and
blew a thin, three-note melody. “Muy bonito,” he said. “You kids they like. You
like. Un dlar. Ver’ cheap.”

She ducked around him and ran the remaining block to and then through the
hotel’s interconnected buildings, to the broad stone quay. The chirping laughter
faded; the boy didn’t follow. She put her hands to the metal guardrail and gasped,
waiting to cool down, while gulls and pelicans swooped over the fishing boats
returning from the night’s work. The operators of parasails, jet skis, and party boats
prepared their equipment on the wharfs or stood talking and laughing in casual
groups. She breathed in the harbor’s aroma of salt and fish and cigarette smoke.

Ginny wouldn’t have run, or let an insistent boy rattle her; Ginny wouldn’t
have been frightened by the staring, inquisitive tourists of the resort. The heat
retreated from her cheeks and neck. Nancy took another, deeper breath, and
straightened away from the guardrail. She flew home tomorrow; she had promised
herself that she would see this one adventure through. She could do this. This, at
least, Ginny could not take with her.

She didn’t see the dark boy anywhere along the quay. After a moment she
went to find the expedition office.
 The hallway was noisy, crowded with young Americans barely out of their
teens, so intent on themselves that they paid no attention as they let her pass. At the
counter a short, bearded man and the clerk talked in a hodgepodge of English and
Spanish. Apparently satisfied, the man gathered up a handful of papers and
disappeared into the crowd.

“Students from California,” the clerk told her. “They come to cruise el Golfo
de California, to study, but before they go they whale-watch with us. You do not
mind? We had to find another boat.” The clerk cocked her head. “It is okay for you,
yes? There is still much room.”

To them, she was just another piece of adult furniture. It was okay for her, she
realized. She nodded.