Читать книгу Clash of the Worlds - Ned Vizzini - Страница 14

To any regular bystander, Cordelia and Eleanor Walker must have looked completely insane. After all, it’s hard to imagine why a fifteen- and eight-year-old would be standing near the shore of the San Francisco Bay at two thirty a.m. throwing pounds and pounds of raw meat into a huge pile. They had created a meat tower of steaks, ground hamburger, pork shoulders, chicken thighs and cheap fish fillets. The pile was almost as big as the two of them put together.

It had taken nearly all of the three Walker children’s saved-up allowances and birthday and holiday money to amass such an impressive supply of meat. But Eleanor was still worried it wouldn’t be enough. After all, even though the pile could feed a whole army of human beings, to Fat Jagger it was only the equivalent of a small chunk of beef jerky.

They’d all snuck out of the apartment and taken a late-night bus to a twenty-four-hour Safeway to get their stockpile. Brendan had helped them haul it out to Torpedo Wharf and then departed for Fernwood Cemetery, where Denver Kristoff was buried under a fake name.

It was three in the morning, cold, damp and nearly pitch-black by the time the Walker sisters arrived at Torpedo Wharf, cut open all of the packages of meat, and dumped them into a massive pile at the edge of the concrete pier. They shivered miserably while they stood and waited.

“Now what?” Cordelia asked her little sister. “We’ve been here almost twenty minutes.”

“I don’t know,” Eleanor said. “This was the end of my plan. I guess I just thought he’d be hungry enough to smell the meat.”

It definitely smelled. Cordelia held a hand over her nose to fight off the stench. But maybe the odour simply wasn’t enough? The wind was blowing in from the bay, after all, carrying the shoreline scents away from where Fat Jagger lurked. And it would certainly be even more difficult, if not impossible, for him to smell anything underwater. There had to be something they could do to intensify the smell.

Cordelia was torn from her thoughts by a shrill squawk. A white seagull plopped down on top of their four-hundred-dollar pile of meat and greedily gobbled up several chunks into its gullet.

“Shoo!” Cordelia yelled, swatting at the bird with her hand.

The seagull flapped its wings a few times and hovered above the meat for several seconds, before settling down again on the other side of the pile. Several other pilfering white birds descended out of nowhere, squawking greedily.

“Nell, I need your help here,” Cordelia said desperately as she removed her jacket.

She swung it in wide circles near the growing group of seagulls feasting on the pile of meat. As the jacket neared them, they quickly hopped away or took flight. But each time it passed them by, they dived back in for another helping.

“Go away!” Eleanor yelled, charging in at the birds. “This is Fat Jagger’s!”

The birds must have sensed her frantic energy, because they fled for cover as she neared. But then, one after another, they circled back hungrily.

Cordelia looked at Eleanor desperately.

“We need to do something fast,” Cordelia said to her little sister. “Or else pretty soon there’s not going to be anything left!”