Archer’s Goon. Diana Wynne Jones

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СКАЧАТЬ Number 10 – without a police car standing outside it. He had been dreading that. Mr Mountjoy had only to say who Howard’s father was.

      Dad was in the kitchen with Fifi and Awful, eating peanut butter sandwiches. All their faces fixed in dismay as the Goon ducked his little head and came through the back door after Howard.

      Quentin said, “Not again!” and Fifi said, “The Goon returns. Mr Sykes, he haunts us!”

      Awful glowered. “It’s all Howard’s fault,” she said.

      “What’s that noise?” said the Goon.

      It was the drums, throbbing gently from under the mound of blankets in the hall. Quentin sighed. “They’ve been doing that all day.”

      “Fix them,” said the Goon, and progressed through the kitchen into the hall. Howard paused to take a peanut butter sandwich, so he was too late to see what the Goon did to the drums. By the time he got there the blankets had been tossed aside and the Goon was standing with his fists on his hips, staring at the slack and silent drums oozing socks and handkerchiefs. He grinned at Howard. “Torquil,” he said.

      “Torquil what?” asked Howard.

      “Did that,” said the Goon, and marched back to the kitchen. There he stood and stared at Quentin the same way he had stared at the drums.

      “Don’t tell me,” said Quentin. “Let me guess. Archer is not satisfied. He has counted the words and found there were only one thousand and ninety-nine.”

      The Goon shook his head, grinning as usual. “Two thousand and four,” he said.

      “Well, I thought I’d better end the last sentence,” Quentin said. “Mountjoy never insisted on an exact number.”

      The Goon said, “Mountjoy must have told you something else then.” He dived a hand into the front of his leather jacket and brought out the four typed pages, now grey and used-looking and bent. He thrust them at Quentin at the end of a yard or so of arm. “Take a look. What’s wrong?”

      Quentin took the pages and unfolded them. He separated them one from another, enough to glance at each. “This seems all right. My usual drivel. Old ladies riot in Corn Street. I couldn’t remember quite what I put in the lot Archer never got, but this is the gist—” He stopped as he realised. “Oh,” he said glumly. “It’s supposed not to be anything I’ve done before. But how the devil did Archer know?”

      He looked up at the Goon. The Goon’s head nodded, so fast that it almost jittered. The daft grin spread on his face. He looked so irritating that Howard was not surprised when Quentin exploded. “Damn it!” Quentin shouted. He hurled the papers into the bread and peanut butter. “I’ve already done the words for this quarter! How can I help it if some fool in the Town Hall loses it? Why should I bother my brains for more nonsense just because you and Archer say so? Why should I put up with being bullied in my own house?”

      He raged for some time. His face grew red and his hair flew. Fifi was frightened. She sat staring at Quentin with both hands to her mouth, pressed back in her chair as far away from him as possible. The Goon grinned and so did Awful, who loved Quentin raging. Howard lifted up the typewritten papers and helped himself to more bread and peanut butter while he waited for his father to finish.

      “And I don’t care if I never write Archer another word!” Quentin finished. “That’s final.”

      “Go on,” said Awful. “Your paunch bounces when you shout!”

      “My lips are now sealed,” said Quentin. “Probably forever. My paunch may never bounce again.”

      Fifi gave a feeble giggle at this, and the Goon said, “Archer wants a new two thousand.”

      “Well, he won’t get it,” Quentin said. He folded his arms over his paunch and stared at the Goon.

      The Goon returned the stare. “Stay here till you do it,” he observed.

      “Then you’d better get yourself a camp bed and a change of clothes,” said Quentin. “You’ll be here for good. I’m not doing it.”

      “Why not?” said the Goon.

      Quentin ground his teeth. Everyone heard them grate. But he said quite calmly, “Perhaps you didn’t grasp what I’ve just been saying. I object to being pushed around. And I’ve got a new book coming on.” Howard and Awful both groaned at this.

      Quentin looked at them coldly. “How else,” he said, “shall I earn your bread and peanut butter?”

      “You look through me and fuss about noise when you’re writing a book,” Howard explained.

      “And you go all grumpy and dreamy and forget to go shopping,” said Awful.

      “You must learn to live with it,” said their father. “And with the Goon, too, by the looks of things, since I am going to write that book whatever he does.” And he looked at the Goon challengingly.

      The Goon’s answer was to go over to the chair where they had first seen him and sit in it. He extended his great legs with the huge boots on the end of them, and the kitchen was immediately full of him. He fetched out his knife and began cleaning his nails. It was hard to believe he had ever moved.

      “Make yourself quite at home,” Quentin said to him. “As the years pass, we shall all get used to you.” An idea struck him and he turned to Fifi. “Do you think people can claim tax relief for a resident Goon?”

      Fifi was backing into the hall, signalling to Howard to come, too. “I don’t know,” she said helplessly. Howard and Awful followed her, wondering what was the matter. They found her backing into the front room.

      “This is terrible,” Fifi whispered. She looked really upset. “It’s all my fault. I was busy when your dad gave me those words to take to the Town Hall, so I gave them to Maisie Potter to take because she was going that way.”

      “Then you’d better get hold of Miss Potter,” said Howard, “or we’ll have the Goon for good.”

      “Perhaps Miss Potter stole them,” said Awful. It was automatic with Awful to turn the television on whenever she came into the front room. She did it now. When the picture came on, she sprang back with one of her most piercing yells. “Look, look, look!”

      Howard and Fifi looked. Instead of a picture on the screen, there were four white words on a black background. They said: ARCHER IS WATCHING YOU. It seemed as if Archer was backing the Goon up.

      Fifi uttered a wail of guilt and fled to the hall, where she stood astride the drums and phoned the Poly in a whisper, so that Quentin should not hear. But the Poly had closed for the night by then. Fifi tried telephoning Miss Potter at home then, but Miss Potter was out. Miss Potter went on being out. Fifi spent the rest of the evening sneaking into the hall to stand astride the drums and dial Miss Potter’s number, but Miss Potter kept on being out. Awful meanwhile turned the television on and off and switched from channel to channel. No matter what she did, the only thing the screen showed were those four words: ARCHER IS WATCHING YOU. In the kitchen Quentin sat with his arms folded, staring obstinately at the Goon. And the Goon sat attending to his nails and filling the floor with leg.

      Catriona came in quite soon after that. She was СКАЧАТЬ