The Quantum Prophecy. Michael Carroll
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Название: The Quantum Prophecy
Автор: Michael Carroll
Издательство: HarperCollins
Жанр: Детская проза
isbn: 9780007388950
isbn:
But Danny wasn’t paying attention. He was standing very still and staring into space.
“Danny?”
Suddenly, Danny screamed, “Susie! Get out of the road!”
Colin turned to see the out-of-control bus screeching around the corner. Heading straight for Brian’s sister.
Cell 18 was four metres to each side and a little over three metres high. It contained a narrow, uncomfortable bed, a single chair, a small desk, a large, full bookcase, a hand basin and a toilet.
The walls were made of reinforced concrete. There were no windows. The only light came from two small but powerful bulbs set into the ceiling, shielded by unbreakable glass.
A man stood in the centre of the room, staring at the blank wall. He had not moved for over an hour.
Later, he would sit on the bed, or perhaps lie on it; he hadn’t yet decided. Then again, he might just choose to remain standing.
The wardens referred to him as Joseph.
He was in his early forties. He was tall, thinner now than he had been ten years ago, but by no means skinny, and had long, unkempt black hair and a greying beard.
A decade ago Joseph had been carried, unconscious, into the cell. On his clear days, when he was aware of his situation and his surroundings, Joseph knew that officially he was not a prisoner; there had been no trial and no legal proceedings of any kind. He didn’t even know where this cell was located. But the clear days were few; most of the time, Joseph existed only inside his own head, living with his memories and nightmares.
Joseph continued to stare at the wall. Last night he’d had the nightmare again, the same terrifying, recurring dream: visions of blood, pain, murder and death on an overwhelming scale.
Joseph was often glad of his imprisonment. Here, he was safe. No one could harm him. And likewise, he couldn’t harm any one else.
If I’m here, he would say to himself, then everyone is safe.
This thought was always followed by a conflicting one: But I’m not just here, I’m out there too. And if I’m out there, then no one is safe.
Joseph slowly turned and looked towards the bed. I could sit. Or I could lie.
He smiled.
Why not? I’ve lied before. Sometimes it seems like my whole life has become a lie.
He wondered how long he had been here.
Then he wondered how much time he had left.
How much time the world had left.
COLIN UNZIPPED HIS anorak and hung it in the hall. As he was pulling off his rain-soaked runners, he heard his father shouting from the kitchen.
“What time do you call this?”
“It wasn’t my fault!” Colin shouted back. Colin went into the kitchen, where his parents – Warren and Caroline Wagner – were sitting at the table.
“It’s never your fault,” his father said.
“No, really it wasn’t.”
“Your dinner’s in the oven,” his mother said. “Another ten minutes and it would have been in the bin. If you’re going to be late, the least you could do is let us know.”
His father said, “How come your mother leaves the school at the same time that you do and she’s always home hours before you are? Maybe the teachers have access to a special short cut that the students don’t know about – is that it?”
“But it wasn’t my fault!” Colin said. “Let me tell you what happened.” He sat down at the table and looked at his parents.
They looked back at him and he could see from their expressions that they were both thinking, “This had better be good.”
“OK, well… Me and Brian and Danny were hanging around at the corner of the park…”
His mother interrupted him. “What were you up to?”
“Nothing. We were just talking. Anyway, Susie came up on her bike to tell Brian that he had to go home and then…” Colin paused. “I don’t really know exactly what happened – someone said that there was a fight on the bus and the driver turned around to look – but anyway, the thing is, Susie’s there in the middle of the road and all of a sudden the bus comes screeching around the corner. Heading right for her. And the next thing we know there’s this really loud crunch as the bus hits her bike.”
Caroline Wagner put her hands to her mouth. “Oh my God!”
“No, no!” Colin said. “Mum, she’s OK, she’s fine! I don’t know how he did it, but Danny saved her! He ran across, picked her up and saved her life! It was brilliant! She went all white and she was shaking and everything, but apart from that she was OK. Her bike was wrecked, though. And she wouldn’t let go of Danny for ages. Now she’ll be even more nuts about him. The police came and an ambulance and everything, but they didn’t need it. No one was really hurt.”
“You’re sure she was OK?”
Colin nodded. “She was. It only took her a few minutes to start blaming Brian for the accident, so that means she was back to normal.”
“Who were the ambulance crew?” his father asked. He was a paramedic, based at the local hospital.
“I didn’t recognise them.” Around a mouthful of mashed potato and peas, he added, “but they checked her over and said she was OK.”
Colin’s mother gave him her famous thin-lipped look, the one that told him she wanted to believe him, but wasn’t so sure. “You promise you’re not making this up?”
“No, it really happened!” Colin waved his cutlery around, demonstrating: “The bus came brrrrrmm around the corner, really fast, and Susie was here, OK? And we were on the corner and all of a sudden Danny was like … zoom! One second he was right next to me and the next he’d scooped Susie up in his arms and was lying on the far side of the road, holding on to her. Then the bus went screeee because the driver hit the brakes, but it was too late because he still hit the bike.”
Colin’s parents looked at each other. His dad said, very quietly, “I see.”
“It’s true,” Colin said. “I swear! You can ask Danny or Brian.”
“That was… very brave of Danny,” his mother said, “and very stupid of Susie to just stop in the middle of the road.”
“Yeah, I know. You should have seen Brian’s face, though. I thought he was СКАЧАТЬ