Читать книгу The Book of Rapture - Nikki Gemmell - Страница 24

Night unfurls. A pow-wow abruptly halts. Fury hangs in the air. Soli keeps saying, ‘It’s going to be all right,’ in a silky mother tone but it doesn’t come out right, it just winds her little brothers up. Who gave her permission to be so knowing in this place?

‘Mummy-stealer!’ Tidge shouts. ‘Stop using that voice.’

‘It’s going to be all right.’

‘But the doorknob?’ Mouse fires at her, rat tat tat. ‘And this room? And the kick?’ He’s the expert at questions and you’re always encouraging it except when a migraine’s coming and then he has to stop. ‘Everything is so not okay,’ he flings. ‘I saw your face when that key came. You had no idea what it means and no idea what’s next. There was this flinch, in your eye, it told me. It was like a music counter going tic tic tic.’

‘Everything will be okay,’ she soothes again.

Mouse storms off to the room’s cupboard and curls inside, his notebook a teddy to his chest. His brother props his elbows at the window and stares out. Your girl is abandoned. She’s failed and she so rarely does that, she’s your high achiever who likes everything to be just right. She curls on her side on the bed. The flinch in her eye going tic tic tic.

However irritated you may feel, never speak harshly.