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

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This was high praise and a few months earlier it might have made me weak with pride, but now I just stared at him.

“Besides,” said Cassis in the same light tone, “if she’s in on it, she won’t be able to run blabbing to Mother.”

I had just turned nine old for my age but still childish enough to be stung by the casual contempt of the words.

“I don’t blab!”

He shrugged.

“Fine with me if you come, as long as you pay your own way,” he continued levelly. “Don’t see why either of us should pay for you. I’ll take you on my bike. That’s all. You work the rest out for yourself. All right?”

It was a test. I could see the challenge in his eyes. His smile was mocking, the not-quite-kind smile of the older brother who sometimes shared his last square of chocolate with me, and sometimes Indian-burned my arm so hard that the blood gathered in dark flecks under the skin.

“But she doesn’t get any pocket money,” said Reinette plaintively. “What’s the point of taking-”

Cassis shrugged. It was a typically final gesture, a man’s gesture. I have spoken. He waited for my reaction, arms crossed, that little smile on his lips.