"Jane Yolen - Lost Girls" - читать интересную книгу автора (Yolen Jane)

accusingly into her cup, as if the cup had spoken and not she.
"Well!" Wendy said, sounding so much like Darla's home ec teacher that
Darla had to laugh out loud.
As if the laugh freed them, the girls suddenly stood up one after
another, voicing complaints. And as each one rose, little Lizzy clapped her
hands and skipped around the table, chanting, "Start with one, you're
halfway done! Start with one, you're halfway done!"
Darla didn't say a word more. She didn't have to. She just listened as
the first trickle of angry voices became a stream and the stream turned
into a flood. The girls spoke of the boys' mess and being underappreciated
and wanting a larger share of the food. They spoke about needing to go
outside every once in a while. They spoke of longing for new stockings and
a bathing room all to themselves, not one shared with the boys, who left
rings around the tub and dirty underwear everywhere. They spoke of the
long hours and the lack of fresh air, and Barbara said they really could use
every other Saturday off, at least. It seemed once they started complaining
they couldn't stop.
Darla's mom would have understood what had just happened, but Darla
was clearly as stunned as Wendy by the rush of demands. They stared at
one another, almost like comrades.
The other girls kept on for long minutes, each one stumbling over the
next to be heard, until the room positively rocked with complaints. And
then, as suddenly as they had begun, they stopped. Red faced, they all sat
down again, except for Lizzy, who still capered around the room, but now
did it wordlessly.
Into the sudden silence, Wendy rose. "How could you…" she began. She
leaned over the table, clutching the top, her entire body trembling. "After
all Peter has done for you, taking you in when no one else wanted you,
when you had been tossed aside by the world, when you'd been crushed
and corrupted and canceled. How could you?"
Lizzy stopped skipping in front of Darla. "Is it time for signs and 'ines
now?" she asked, her marble-blue eyes wide.
Darla couldn't help it. She laughed again. Then she held out her arms to
Lizzy, who cuddled right in. "Time indeed," Darla said. She looked up at
Wendy. "Like it or not, Miss Management, the Lost Girls are going out on
strike."



Wendy sat in her rocker, arms folded, a scowl on her face. She looked
like a four-year-old having a temper tantrum. But of course it was
something worse than that.
The girls ignored her. They threw themselves into making signs with a
kind of manic energy and in about an hour they had a whole range of
them, using the backs of their old signs, pages torn from cookbooks, and
flattened flour bags.
WENDYS WON'T WORK, One read. EQUAL PLAY FOR EQUAL
WORK, went another. MY NAME'S NOT WENDY! said a third, and
FRESH AIR IS ONLY FAIR a fourth. Lizzy's sign was decorated with stick
figures carrying what Darla took to be swords, or maybe wands. Lizzy had