"Mary Rosenblum - Color Vision" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rosenblum Mary)

floor, clicks on the light. “I’m grounded forever for skipping school, and your
dad called the police, I guess. When you didn’t come home. And
somebody saw us leave together. I said you were really upset and I was
just trying to counsel you and you wouldn’t talk to me, so then I figured as
long as I was already outside, I might as well enjoy the skip. My mom liked
the trying-to-counsel-you part, so I think she sort of believes me. Maybe. I
brought you guys some water—filled up an empty milk jug—and I snuck
some stuff out of the pantry in the garage. I didn’t dare go into the kitchen ...
I have to go right past Mom and Dad’s bedroom. They’re hav-ing a fight
right now about whose fault I am.” He grins, but it’s kind of weak. “I think
Mom’s winning and I’m Dad’s fault.”

The water tastes a little like sour milk, but I’m not complaining and
neither is Cris. Jeremy brought peanut butter and a box of Saltines, too.
“This is the best I could do.” He makes a face. “Everything else is in cans.
So okay.” He digs a battered old table knife out of an apple crate and starts
slathering peanut butter on crackers. “You want to tell me what’s going on,
Cris? Before the police show up and we all get arrested or something?”

“Don’t worry about the police.” Cris starts stuffing crackers into his
mouth and I think again about him maybe stuck in his chair, night and day, in
those vines. “Worry about Zoroan,” Cris says, with his mouth full. “He wants
all the First Born power.” He swallows, gulps more water. “It’s get-ting more
concentrated. The First Born power. Used to be a lot of First Born. But
some people don’t have kids before they die, you know? So fewer and
fewer share it. If he ever got it all...” Cris shrugs. “I think . . . our world would
just go away or something. Or maybe Zoroan would turn it into something
different or use the power to mess with you all. I just. . . don’t know. But he’s
been secretly kidnapping the First Born for, oh ... maybe a thousand years
or so. People figured it out after a while, so we’re real careful. But he has
so much of the power now that you can’t really fight him. It’s more a matter
of staying out of his traps. Like the one I was in.” Cris looks away. “It takes
him a while to empty all the First Born power out of one of us.”
 I shiver and Jeremy’s looking real wide-eyed. “What happens when
he ... takes it all out of you?” he finally asks.

“I don’t know.” Cris looks down at the cracker in his hand. “I guess
you just die. I mean . . . nobody has ever come back. There’s this prophecy
. . . that he can be destroyed only by a First Born using a true-shape
weapon. And I guessed ... it was a trap.” He stares at the cracker, all
squashed to crumbs in his hand. “I guess ... I just hoped ... I thought. . .
What did I have to lose?” His voice is dull, like old metal now. “I thought... it
might bring them back.”

I’d have tried it, too. If I thought maybe it would bring my mom back.

“Okay, okay, time-out here.” Jeremy starts waving his hands. “I now
believe in magic. I am grounded for the rest of my life for skipping school. I
am probably going to get arrested for kidnapping. For that, I want to hear
what is going on in English please.” He glares at Cris. “What is all this First