Читать книгу Five Quarters of the Orange / Пять четвертинок апельсина онлайн

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We were alone at the Lookout Post. It had been raining again, and Reinette was at home with a head cold. I didn’t set out to tell him everything, but once I had started the words began to spill out of me like grain from a burst sack. There was no stopping them. I had the green bag with my fishing rod in one hand, and in a rage I flung it right out of the tree and into the bushes, where it fell in a tangle of blackberries.

“We’re not babies!” I yelled furiously. “Don’t they believe the things we tell them? Why did Tomas give me this”-a wild gesture at the distant fishing bag-“if I didn’t earn it?”

Cassis looked at me, bewildered.

“Anyone would think you wanted someone to get shot,” he said uncomfortably.

“Of course not.” My voice was sullen. “I just thought-”

“You never thought at all.” The tone was that of the old, superior Cassis, impatient and rather scornful. “You really think we’d help to get people locked up or shot? That’s what you think we’d do?”

He sounded shocked, but underneath I knew he was flattered.