Читать книгу Streets of Night онлайн

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"What can they be doing ... They don't seem to be coming back."

"Ask me something hard," said the blue girl jeeringly.

Fanshaw felt himself blushing. He clasped his hands tighter round his knees. He felt the sweat making little beads on his forehead. Ought he to kiss her? He didn't want to kiss her with her rouged lips and her blonde hair all fuzzy like that, peroxide probably. A fool to come along, anyway. What on earth shall I say to her?

She got to her feet.

"I'm goin' to walk around a bit ... Ou, my foot's gone to sleep."

Fanshaw jumped up as if a spring had been released inside him.

"Which way shall we go?"

"I guess we'd better go the other way," said Elise tittering and smoothing out the back of her fluffy dress.

They walked beside the water; along the path were mashed cracker boxes, orange peel, banana skins. The river was full of canoes now. Above the sound of paddles occasionally splashing and the grinding undertone of phonographs came now and then a giggle or a man's voice shouting. Elise was humming School Days, walking ahead of him with mincing steps. He saw a woodpecker run down the trunk of an oak.