"Stephen King. The Girl who loved Tom Gordon." - читать интересную книгу автора

Trisha had never felt less blessed in her life.
She looked along the length of the tree, even scuffed one sneakered
foot through the leaves, but there was no sign of the snake. It probably
hadn't been one of the biting kind, anyway, but God, they were so horrible.
All legless and slithery, flipping their nasty tongues in and out. She
could hardly stand to think of it, even now-how it had pulsed under her
palm like a cold muscle.
Why didn't I wear boots? Trisha thought, looking at her lowtopped
Reeboks. Why am I out here in a pair of damned sneakers? The answer, of
course, was because sneakers were fine for the path ... and the plan had
been to stay on the path.
Trisha closed her eyes for a moment. "I'm okay, though," she said.
"All I have to do is keep my head and not go bazonka. I'll hear people over
there in a minute or two, anyway.
This time her voice convinced her a little and she felt better. She
turned around, placed her feet on either side of the black divot where she
had lain, and put her butt against the mossy trunk of the tree. There.
Straight ahead. The main trail. Had to be.
Maybe, And maybe I better wait here. Wait for voices. Make sure I'm
going the right way.
But she couldn't bear to wait. She wanted to be back on the path and
putting these scary ten minutes (or maybe now it was fifteen) behind her as
soon as she could. So she slipped her pack over her shoulders again-there
was no angry, distracted, but basically nice big brother to check the
straps for her this time - and set off again. The minges and noseeums had
found her now, so many of them buzzing around her head that her vision
seemed to dance with black specks. She waved at them but didn't slap. Slap
at mosquitoes, but it's better just to wave at the little ones, her Mom had
told her ... perhaps on the same day she had taught Trisha how girls peed
in the woods. Quilla Andersen (only then she had still been Quilla
McFarland) said that slapping actually seemed to draw the minges and
noseeums ... and of course It made the slapper increasingly aware of her
discomfort. When it comes to bugs in the woods, Trisha's Mom had said, it's
better to think like a horse. Pretend you've got a tail to swish em away
with.
Standing by the fallen tree, waving at the bugs but not slapping at
them, Trisha had fixed her eyes on a tall pine about forty yards away ...
forty yards north, if she still had her bearings. She walked to this, and
once she was standing there with her hand on the big pine's sap-tacky
trunk, she looked back at the fallen tree. Straight line? She thought so.
Encouraged, she now sighted on a clump of bushes dotted with bright
red berries. Her mother had pointed them out on one of their nature-walks,
and when Trisha explained they were birdberries and deadly poison-Pepsi
Robichaud had told her so-her mother had laughed and said, The famous Pepsi
doesn't know everything after all. That's kind of a relief Those are
checkerberries, Trish. They're not a bit poison. They taste like Teaberry
gum, the kind that comes in the pink pack. Her mother had tossed a handful
of the berries into her mouth, and when she didn't fall down, choking and
convulsing, Trisha had tried a few herself. To her they had tasted like
gumdrops, the green ones that made your mouth feel kind of tingly.