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

"What's funny?" Mom asked..
'Just me thinks," Trisha replied, and Quilla frowned "me thinks" was a
Larry McFarland-ism. Well let her frown, Trisha thought. Let her frown all
she wants. I'm with her, and I don't complain about it like old grouchy
there, hut he's still my Dad and I still love him.
Trisha touched the brim of her signed cap, as if to prove it.
"Okay, kids, let's go," Quilla said. 'And keep your eyes open.
"I hate this," Pete almost groaned-it was the first clearly
articulated thing he'd said since they got out of the van, and Trisha
thought: Please God, send something. A deer or a dinosaur or a UFO. Because
if You don't, they're going right back at it.
God sent nothing but a few mosquito scouts that would no doubt soon be
reporting back to the main army that fresh meat was on the move, and by the
time they passed a sign reading NO. CONWAY STATION 5.5 mi., the two of them
were at it full-bore again, ignoring the woods, ignoring her, ignoring
everything but each other. Yatata-yatata-yatata. It was, Trisha thought,
like some sick kind of making out.
It was a shame, too, because they were missing stuff that was actually
pretty neat. The sweet, resiny smell of the pines, for instance, and the
way the clouds seemed so close - less like clouds than like draggles of
whitish-gray smoke. She guessed you'd have to be an adult to call something
as boring as walking one of your hobbles, but this really wasn't bad. She
didn't know if the entire Appalachian Trail was as well-maintained as
this-probably not-but if it was, she guessed she could understand why
people with nothing better to do decided to walk all umpty-thousand miles
of it. Trisha thought it was like walking on a broad, winding avenue
through the woods. It wasn't paved, of course, and it ran steadily uphill,
but it was easy enough walking. There was even a little hut with a pump
inside it and a sign which read: WATER TESTS OK FOR DRINKING. PLEASE FILL
PRIMER JUG FOR NEXT PERSON.
She had a bottle of water in her pack - a big one with a squeeze-top -
but suddenly all Trisha wanted in the world was to prime the pump in the
little hut and get a drink, cold and fresh, from its rusty lip. She would
drink and pretend she was Bilbo Baggins, on his way to the Misty Mountains.
"Mom?" she asked from behind them. "Could we stop long enough to-"
"Making friends is a job, Peter," her mother was saying. She didn't
look back at Trisha. "You can't just stand around and wait for kids to come
to you."
"Mom? Pete? Could we please stop for just a-"
"You don't understand," he said heatedly. "You don't have a clue, I
don't know how things were when you were in junior high, but they're a lot
different now."
"Pete? Mom? Mommy? There's a pump-" Actually there was a pump; that
was now the grammatically correct way to put it, because the pump was
behind them, and getting farther behind all the time.
"I don't accept that," Mom said briskly, all business, and Trisha
thought: No wonder she drives him crazy. Then, resentfully: They don't even
know I'm here. The Invisible Girl, that's me. I might as well have stayed
home. A mosquito whined in her ear and she slapped at it irritably.
They came to a fork in the trail. The main branch-not quite as wide as