The Merlin Conspiracy. Diana Wynne Jones

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      I have been with the Court all my life, travelling with the King’s Progress.

      I didn’t know how to go on. I sat and stared at this sentence, until Grundo said, “If you can’t do it, I will.” If you didn’t know Grundo, you’d think this was a generous offer, but it was a threat really. Grundo is dyslexic. Unless he thinks hard, he writes inside out and backwards. He was threatening me with half a page of crooked writing with words like “inside” turning up as “sindie” and “story” as “otsyr.”

      Anything but that! I thought. So I decided to start with Grundo – and me. I am Arianrhod Hyde, only I prefer people to call me Roddy, and I’ve looked after Grundo for years now, ever since Grundo was a small, pale, freckled boy in rompers, sitting completely silently in the back of the children’s bus. He was so miserable that he had wet himself. I was only about five myself at the time, but I somehow realised that he was too miserable even to cry. I got up and staggered through the bumping, rushing bus to the clothes lockers. I found some clean rompers and persuaded Grundo to get into them.

      This wasn’t easy, because Grundo has always been very proud. While I was working at it, Grundo’s sister Alicia turned round from where she was sitting with the big ones. “What are you bothering with Cesspit for?” she said, tipping up her long, freckled nose. “There’s no point. He’s useless.” She was eight at the time, but she still looks just the same: straight fair hair, thick body, and an air of being the person, the one everyone else has to look up to. “And he’s ugly,” she said. “He’s got a long nose.”

      “So have you got a long nose,” I said, “Lady Sneeze.” I always called her “Lady Sneeze” when I wanted to annoy her. If you say “Alicia” quickly it sounds just like a well-behaved sneeze – just like Alicia, in fact. I wanted to annoy her for calling Grundo Cesspit. She only said it because Sybil, her mother, called Grundo that. It was typical of the way they both treated him. Grundo’s father left Sybil before Grundo was born. Ever since I could remember, Sybil and Alicia had been thick as thieves together. Poor Grundo was nowhere.

      It got worse when Grundo started lessons with us and turned out to be dyslexic. СКАЧАТЬ