Читать книгу The Crash of Hennington - Patrick Ness - Страница 34

The young man in the apron swept the sidewalk in front of the store with a petulant snap of his wrists. He was the son of the owner and would naturally have rather been doing anything else in the world than sweeping the sidewalk in front of the store. It was hours before noon, but the sun was already promising another hot day, perfect for the illegal No Margin Surfing off of Darius Point that the young man, whose name was Jay, loved to sneak away to with his friends. NMS was a sport for those who thought themselves invincible, hence only those under twenty were ever interested. You paddled your board out over currents that could grab you and pull you down three hundred feet, collapsing your lungs before you even had a chance to scream, but that was only if the sharks, which were everywhere, didn’t get you first, which they would eventually. Jay had already lost three fingers on his left hand down the gullet of a hammerhead. No big deal. Forty-one stitches didn’t take all that long to heal. But the currents and the sharks were only the beginning. If you managed to make it around the Point alive, what awaited were waves sixty feet high traveling at forty nautical miles an hour. If you then actually managed to catch one of these monstrosities, you still had to navigate it perfectly to expel yourself out the end of the tube and into open water before the wave slammed you into the solid rock cliffs that comprised the western side of Darius Point. None of this was at all possible without being thoroughly twinged on itch which, if it didn’t help your navigation much, at least got you out on the water in the first place. No Margin. Meaning no mistakes.

Jay ran his hand absentmindedly over the flat packet of itch in his back pocket. He looked up at the sun again and frowned. Fuck, man, it wasn’t fair. He went back to pushing the broom angrily across the concrete. He was just about finished and ready to go back inside (and maybe, just maybe, say sayonara to the old man and take off for some NMS anyway, maybe if the old man was sleeping, maybe), when Maggerty stumbled down the street, heading right for the store. Jay looked around for The Crash and saw them passing along a cross-street one block up. Maggerty’s reason for straying was obvious. Jay’s father sold produce in slanted racks out in front of the store, packed full with the morning’s delivery of apples, oranges, cantaloupes, strawberries, blackberries, haggleberries, and huge, pink bonnet melons with the vines still attached, as well as a generous helping of yesterday’s white corn and a solitary jumbo kiwi sweating juice through its hide of erect hairs.

Maggerty reached the middle of the street and stopped about ten yards away. Somehow, without even looking up, he seemed to notice the young man with the broom standing in front of the piles of fruit. Traffic had been cut off by The Crash up at the main intersection, so there were no cars to honk Maggerty off. He shifted from foot to foot, looking at different patches of ground that hopped into and out of his line of vision.

Here was a moment of expectation. If there had been no one there, Maggerty would simply have taken something and the morning would have continued onward. But there was someone there and so this moment was necessary. He had made his peace with it. He knew that he had only to stay where he was before he would either be given food or he would not. Sometimes this latter version of events involved being chased away, but not often. Only wait, and something would eventually happen to kick the day forward again. His breathing slowed. He touched his wound and brought his fingertips briefly to his nose to smell the nature of the suppuration. He tapped his bare, filthy toes on the warm blacktop and scratched between his buttocks. He waited for an outcome.

Jay rubbed his hand across the packet of itch again and stared at the Rhinoherd. He had never seen him this close before. He had only heard the regular town folklore of Maggerty – something about a goat and fairly obvious madness – along with all the usual talk at the high school, where ‘Maggerty’ was pejorative for any poor kid with a hygiene problem. But at this hour of the morning, when the sun was already squint-worthy and shadows turned you into a mountaintop, there was only himself looking into the street at the Rhinoherd, who seemed to be dancing in a shuffling, fidgety sort of way. A faint, foul smell reached Jay’s nostrils, but it was more animal than filth, more sad than disgusting.

He walked slowly over to the fruit without taking his eyes off of Maggerty. He took hold of an orange and palmed it up into the air and down again. He leaned backwards against the wood of the fruit rack and felt the itch pressing from his back pocket. Silently but with the efficient motion of a muscled No Margin Surfer, he tossed the orange underhand towards the Rhinoherd. It hit Maggerty in the shoulder and rolled clumsily to the pavement.

Maggerty roused from his stopped-time stupor. There was fruit at his feet. He reached down to pick it up. A bonnet melon rolled across the concrete into his reach. An apple appeared there, too, and then a soft, wet jumbo kiwi. It was as much as Maggerty could carry, and he scooped them up into his arms. He stumbled away down the street back towards the already disappearing Crash, pressing the fruit into his mouth.

Jay watched the Rhinoherd turning the corner a block away. He touched the itch in his pocket again without realizing it and reluctantly returned to sweeping.