Eight Days of Luke. Diana Wynne Jones

Чтение книги онлайн.

CHAPTER TWO The Second Trouble

      The next day was hot and sunny. David got out of bed deciding that he would walk the three miles to the recreation ground after breakfast. There were almost certain to be boys playing cricket there, and a little artful hanging around fielding stray balls should earn him a game quite easily. He was half dressed when Mrs Thirsk came in. She was carrying an armful of clothes.

      “Your Aunt Dot had me look these out for you,” she said. “Your Cousin Ronald is too well-built for them these days. The trousers won’t fit too bad if you turn them up round the waist. You can hold them up with a belt, can’t you?”

      David eyed the armful with horror as Mrs Thirsk dumped it on the bed. “I suppose so,” he said, and decided he would rather die than wear Cousin Ronald’s cast-offs.

      “And don’t say you will and then not wear them,” said Mrs Thirsk. “I know you. You’ll do what your Aunt wants for once, you will.”

      “All right,” said David.

      “It had better be all right, or I’ll tell your Uncle,” said Mrs Thirsk turning to go.

      By that, David knew he was condemned to wear the things and misery made him angry. “Your food isn’t,” he said to Mrs Thirsk’s back.

      “Isn’t what?” demanded Mrs Thirsk, turning round quickly.

      “Isn’t all right. It’s horrible. I never tasted such horrible stuff,” said David.

      Mrs Thirsk’s blunt face went purple. She said not a word, but she slammed the door as she went out. David laughed.

      He stopped laughing when he saw himself in Cousin Ronald’s clothes – though he was afraid that most other people would laugh their heads off. The trousers were far too loose, belt them as he would, and the large fawn sweater flared out over them like a ballet skirt. Cousin Ronald had been what Mrs Thirsk called well-built most of his life. David blushed when he looked in the mirror. The only comfort was that the wide trousers were not at all too long – it was pleasant to think that he was suddenly the same height as Cousin Ronald and going to end up taller – but the rest of him was so grotesque that he knew he would have to give up going to the recreation ground. He dared not show himself to anyone looking like this.

      He was so ashamed of his appearance that he dashed down to the dining room before anyone else was up and – in a great hurry to get away before Astrid or someone came in and started to laugh at him – shook all the toast out of the toast-rack on to the tablecloth. He put butter on all of it and marmalade on half, and quantities went on the cloth because he was in such a hurry. He arranged it in a stack that he could carry, seized the radio from the sideboard to provide entertainment, and made off with the lot through the French window to the end of the garden where he could keep out of sight. There was a tall hedge there. Behind the hedge was a steamy compost heap with baby marrows growing on it and a spade stuck in the compost, and a strip of gravelly ground where Cousin Ronald always meant to have a carpentry shed. Beyond that was the high brick wall that ended the garden.

      There David sat, with his back against the compost heap and the radio among the marrow-plants, and spent the kind of morning most people would rather not spend. It got very hot in the sun, and David was able to take off the fawn ballet-skirt sweater for an hour or so; but the gravelly space was quite without interest. David saw forty-two birds and listened to the morning service, a review of records, a concert and to someone promising to tell him about sport in the afternoon. Then the dinner-gong went, and he had to hurry to put the radio back so that Cousin Ronald could hear the news during lunch.

      Lunch produced a scene far worse than the night before. It started with Aunt Dot coming in, followed by Mrs Thirsk, followed by Astrid.

      Mrs Thirsk was saying, “And you may ask him why there was no toast, but what I want to know is why was there marmalade all over my clean tablecloth.”

      “Yes indeed,” said Aunt Dot, and she turned ominously to David. “David,” she said, and then – though this was clearly not what she had been going to say – “Good gracious! Whose clothes are you wearing?”

      “Cousin Ronald’s,” said David, very much ashamed, but also rather glad of the diversion.

      “Good gracious!” said Aunt Dot again.

      Before she could begin on the tablecloth, Astrid sniffed piercingly and asked in her most complaining way, “Whatever is this dreadful smell?”

      This made Aunt Dot pause and sniff too. “You’re right,” she said. “There is a most peculiar smell.” To David’s secret pleasure, both she and Astrid looked accusingly at Mrs Thirsk. David felt it confirmed his theory about the human sense of smell.

      Mrs Thirsk backed to the door. “I’ll go and fetch lunch, Mrs Price,” she said primly, and made off.

      “David—” began Aunt Dot, but this time it was Uncle Bernard who interrupted by tottering in and saying, in his most failing voice, “What is producing this vile smell, my dear?”

      “We don’t know,” said Astrid.

      “David—” Aunt Dot began for the third time.

      But Cousin Ronald bustled in with a sheaf of papers in his hand and hurried over to the radio. “Quiet, please. I must hear the news.” He reached out to switch on the radio, gave a throttled sort of shout, and dropped his papers. “What’s this? Where has this radio been? Look! Look at it!” He picked it up in both trembling hands. A cloud of green and blue flies rose with it, flatly buzzing. Then, to David’s acute dismay, a wad of brown smelly stuff gently detached itself from the base of the radio and sank on to the sideboard. It was followed by another. The flies sank after both wads, as if they were relieved to see them.

      There was a nasty silence. Then all four of David’s relations turned to look at him. “David!” they said, with one voice. After that, they said a great deal more. Lunch was held up while they said it, and then held up further while David took the radio and the wads of compost outside and some of the flies went with him. But most of the flies were of the opinion that the compost was still on the sideboard somewhere, and they stayed to look for it, maddening everyone, throughout lunch.

      By the time David returned to the dining room, Mrs Thirsk, as if she were trying to prove David’s point, had served up thin grey meat in thin grey gravy and everyone else had started to eat it. David started to eat it too, wishing it could be magically СКАЧАТЬ