Читать книгу Fifth Son - Barbara Fradkin - Страница 4

Kyle McMartin loved shiny things. The sunlight danced on them and prickled his eyes, making him look away and then pulling him back again. At home he had a whole bookshelf of them; bits of broken glass, bottle caps, fishing lures...stuff everyone else just threw out. His mother had given up taking them away, because then he’d have to start all over again, and she was probably afraid he’d cut himself going through everybody’s garbage.

But this afternoon he wasn’t even thinking about shiny things as he hid in his magic spot with the tall red trees all around and his Sens cap pulled down low against the sun. He was thinking about his new teacher. Hannah. Not really a teacher, Mrs. MacPhee said, just a helper, but even so she’d already taught him a lot. Like how to find his classrooms in the big new high school, how to copy from the board, even how to print her name. And each time he got it right, she’d give him that big, beautiful smile that crinkled her eyes.

Hannah had blue hair, sparkly gold eyelids and so many shiny things in her ears that he couldn’t count that high. Mrs. MacPhee had made her take out the one in her nose, but Hannah had a secret one in her belly button that she’d shown him once. “Sh-h,” she’d said, winking her sparkly eye and putting her finger to her lips. He had never told on her.

He thought about her all the time. She loved shiny things just like him, and she was more beautiful than anyone he’d seen on TV. Every night, he looked forward to going to school the next morning, just so he could see her. He hated the weekends, because there was nothing to do in Ashford Landing, and all his old friends were going to a different high school now, and they wouldn’t let him play with them any more. Like right now, he could see them through the trees, playing roller hockey on the village square, yelling and using bad words. He didn’t know how to roller blade, and he could never keep up with them anyway. By the time he saw the ball, it was already in the net, and they all got mad at him.

It was more fun to sit in his magic place and watch. He could see the whole world from here; the squirrels stuffing their cheeks with nuts, the geese honking by in the sky, the gravestones in the churchyard by the square. He wasn’t supposed to come here, but if he ran right home when the bell on the white church rang, then Mom and Dad would never know.

The graveyard always gave him a scary feeling, like the dead bones were going to poke up through the ground, and he’d slide his eyes away as fast as he could. Usually, there was nobody there, and the grass grew so high you could hardly see the stones. But this time that bad man was there, peeking out through the stones, watching the kids in the square. Hiding, Kyle thought, just like me.

A little shiver ran through him, and he looked away. Right beside him was the biggest, reddest tree of all. Perfect red leaves floated all around, so bright they almost glowed. He slid down from the rock and swished his new sneakers through the deep leaves. They tumbled and crackled, almost like they were laughing. Then he saw the sun winking at him from a little nest of leaves near his foot. Curious, he bent down. Something lay on the ground, shining gold. He reached into the leaves and picked it up, held it by its chain up to the sunlight. Watched it spin and dance. His heart beat faster. This was more beautiful than the pennies or the shiniest fishing lure, more beautiful even than Mom’s special ring. He put it in his pocket, excited and swelling with pride as he climbed back to his magic place for one last look at the man in the graveyard.

Hannah will love this.