Читать книгу Farewell Summer - Рэй Брэдбери, Ray Bradbury, Ray Bradbury Philip K. Dick Isaac Asimov - Страница 8

CHAPTER THREE

Doug stopped crying.

He got up and went to the mirror to see what sadness looked like and there it was, colored all through his cheeks, and he reached to touch that other face, and it was cold.

Next door, baking bread filled the air with its late–afternoon aroma. He ran out across the yard and into his grandma’s kitchen to watch her pull the lovely guts out of a chicken and then paused at a window to see Tom far up in his favorite apple tree trying to climb the sky.

Someone stood on the front porch, smoking his favorite pipe.

‘Gramps, you’re here! Boy, oh boy. The house is here. The town’s here!’

‘It seems you’re here, too, boy.’

‘Yeah, oh, yeah.’

The trees leaned their shadows on the lawn. Somewhere, the last lawnmower of summer shaved the years and left them in sweet mounds.

‘Gramps, is—’

Douglas closed his eyes, and in the darkness said: ‘Is death being on a ship sailing and all your folks left back on the shore?’

Grandpa read a few clouds in the sky.

‘That’s about it, Doug. Why?’

Douglas eyed a high cloud passing that had never been that shape before and would never be that shape again.

‘Say it, Gramps.’

‘Say what? Farewell summer?’

No, thought Douglas, not if I can help it!

And, in his head, the storm began.