JК
Bag of Bones :: Кинг Стивен
Страница: 78 из 425Mattie would, more likely than not, clean out the rear end of my Chevrolet. And if I just stood here, Baby Snooks and I were apt to end up as toothpaste between the two vehicles.
I backed the length of my car, keeping my eyes fixed on the Jeep and yelling, “Slow down, Mattie! Slow down!” Curie-pie liked that. “S’yo down!” she yelled, starting to laugh. “S’yo down, you old Mattie, s’yo down!”
The brakes screamed in fresh agony. The Jeep took one last walloping, unhappy jerk backward as Mattie stopped without benefit of the clutch.
That final lunge took the Scout’s rear bumper so close to the rear bumper of my Chevy that you could have bridged the gap with a cigarette.
The smell of oil in the air was huge and furry. The kid was waving a hand in front of her face and coughing theatrically. The driver’s door flew open; Mattie Devore flew out like a circus acrobat shot from a cannon, if you can imagine a circus acrobat dressed in old paisley shorts and a cotton smock top. My first thought was that the little girl’s big sister had been babysitting her, that Mattie and Mummy were two different people. I knew that little kids often spend a period of their development calling their parents by their first names, but this pale-cheeked blonde girl looked all of twelve, fourteen at the outside.
I decided her mad handling of the Scout hadn’t been terror for her child (or not just terror) but total automotive inexperience. There was something else, too, okay? Another assumption that I made. The muddy four-wheel-drive, the baggy paisley shorts, the smock that all but screamed Kmart, the long yellow hair held back with those little red elastics, and most of all the inattention that allows the three-year-old in your care to go wandering off in the first place… all those things said trailer-trash to me. I know how that sounds, but I had some basis for it. Also, I’m Irish, goddammit. My ancestors were trailer-trash when the trailers were still horse-drawn caravans. “Stinky-phew!” the little girl said, still waving a pudgy hand at the air in front of her face.
“Scoutie stink I” Where Scoutie’s bathing suitie? I thought, and then my new girlfriend was snatched out of my arms. Now that she was closer, my idea that Mattie was the bathing beauty’s sister took a hit. Mattie wouldn’t be middle-aged until well into the next century, but she wasn’t twelve or fourteen, either. I now guessed twenty, maybe a year younger.
When she snatched the baby away, I saw the wedding ring on her left hand. I also saw the dark circles under her eyes, gray skin dusting to purple.
I backed the length of my car, keeping my eyes fixed on the Jeep and yelling, “Slow down, Mattie! Slow down!” Curie-pie liked that. “S’yo down!” she yelled, starting to laugh. “S’yo down, you old Mattie, s’yo down!”
The brakes screamed in fresh agony. The Jeep took one last walloping, unhappy jerk backward as Mattie stopped without benefit of the clutch.
That final lunge took the Scout’s rear bumper so close to the rear bumper of my Chevy that you could have bridged the gap with a cigarette.
The smell of oil in the air was huge and furry. The kid was waving a hand in front of her face and coughing theatrically. The driver’s door flew open; Mattie Devore flew out like a circus acrobat shot from a cannon, if you can imagine a circus acrobat dressed in old paisley shorts and a cotton smock top. My first thought was that the little girl’s big sister had been babysitting her, that Mattie and Mummy were two different people. I knew that little kids often spend a period of their development calling their parents by their first names, but this pale-cheeked blonde girl looked all of twelve, fourteen at the outside.
I decided her mad handling of the Scout hadn’t been terror for her child (or not just terror) but total automotive inexperience. There was something else, too, okay? Another assumption that I made. The muddy four-wheel-drive, the baggy paisley shorts, the smock that all but screamed Kmart, the long yellow hair held back with those little red elastics, and most of all the inattention that allows the three-year-old in your care to go wandering off in the first place… all those things said trailer-trash to me. I know how that sounds, but I had some basis for it. Also, I’m Irish, goddammit. My ancestors were trailer-trash when the trailers were still horse-drawn caravans. “Stinky-phew!” the little girl said, still waving a pudgy hand at the air in front of her face.
“Scoutie stink I” Where Scoutie’s bathing suitie? I thought, and then my new girlfriend was snatched out of my arms. Now that she was closer, my idea that Mattie was the bathing beauty’s sister took a hit. Mattie wouldn’t be middle-aged until well into the next century, but she wasn’t twelve or fourteen, either. I now guessed twenty, maybe a year younger.
When she snatched the baby away, I saw the wedding ring on her left hand. I also saw the dark circles under her eyes, gray skin dusting to purple.