On an entirely normal, beautiful fall day in Chester’s Mill, Maine, the town is inexplicably and suddenly sealed off from the rest of the world by an invisible force field.
Авторы: King Stephen Edwin
then took a pull on his cigarette. He inhaled a little and then coughed the smoke back out, his eyes watering. ‘This tastes like panther-shit!’
Smoked a lot of that, have you?’ Joe asked. He dragged on his own cigarette. He didn’t want to look like a wuss, but he didn’t want to start coughing and maybe throw up, either. The smoke burned, but in sort of a good way. Maybe there was something to this, after all. Only he already felt a little woozy.
Go easy on the inhaling part, he thought. Passing out would be almost as uncool as puking. Unless, maybe, he passed out in Norrie Calvert’s lap. That might be very cool indeed.
Norrie reached into her shorts pocket and brought out the cap of a Verifine juice bottle. ‘We can use this for an ashtray. I want to do the Indian smoke ritual, but I don’t want to catch the Peace Bridge on fire.’ She then closed her eyes. Her lips began to move. Her cigarette was between her fingers, growing an ash.
Benny looked at Joe, shrugged, then closed his own eyes. ‘Almighty GI Joe, please hear the prayer of your humble pfc Drake—’
Norrie kicked him without opening her eyes.
Joe got up (a little dizzy, but not too bad; he chanced another drag! when he was on his feet) and walked past their parked bikes to the town common end of the covered walkway.
‘Where you goin?’ Norrie asked without; opening her eyes.
‘I pray better when I look at nature,’ Joe said, but he actually just wanted a breath of fresh air. It wasn’t the burning tobacco; he sort of liked that. It was the other smells inside the bridge—decaying wood, old booze, and a sour chemical aroma that seemed to be rising up from the Prestile beneath them (that was a smell, The Chef might have told him, that you could come to love).
Even the outside air wasn’t that wonderful; it had a slightly used quality that made Joe think of the trip he’d made with his parents to New York the previous year. The subways had smelled a little like this, especially late in the day when they were crowded with people headed home.
He tapped ashes into his hand. As he scattered them, he spotted Brenda Perkins making her way up the hill.
A moment later, a hand touched his shoulder. Too light and delicate to be Benny’s. ‘Who’s that?’ Norrie asked.
‘Know the face, not the name,’ he said.
Benny joined them. ‘That’s Mrs Perkins. The Sheriff’s widow’
Norrie elbowed him. ‘Police Chief, dummy’
Benny shrugged. ‘Whatever.’
They watched her, mostly because there was no one else to watch. The rest of the town was at the supermarket, apparently having the world’s biggest food fight. The three kids had investigated, but from afar; they did not need persuasion to stay away, given the valuable piece of equipment that had been entrusted to their care.
Brenda crossed Main to Prestile, paused outside the McCain house, then went on to Mrs Grinnell’s.
‘Let’s get going,’ Benny said.
‘We can’t get going until she’s gone,’ Norrie said.
Benny shrugged. ‘What’s the big deal? If she sees us, we’re just some kids goofing around on the town common. And know what? She probably wouldn’t see us if she looked right at us. Adults never see kids.’ He considered this. ‘Unless they’re on skateboards.’
‘Or smoking,’ Norrie added. They all glanced at their cigarettes.
Joe hooked a thumb at the shopping bag sitting in the carrier attached to the handlebars of Benny’s Schwinn High Plains.’They also have a tendency to see kids who are goofing around with expensive town property.’
Norrie tucked her cigarette in the corner of her mouth. It made her look wonderfully tough, wonderfully pretty, and wonderfully adult.
The boys went back to watching. The Police Chief’s widow was now talking to Mrs Grinnell. It wasn’t a long conversation. Mrs Perkins had taken a big brown envelope from her carrier-bag as she came up the steps, and they watched her hand it to Mrs Grinnell. A few seconds later, Mrs Grinnell pretty much slammed the door in her visitor’s face.
‘Whoa, that was rude,’ Benny said. ‘Week’s detention.’
He and Norrie laughed.
Mrs Perkins stood where she was for a moment, as if perplexed, then went back down the steps. She was now facing the common, and the three children instinctively stepped further into the shadows of the walkway. This caused them to lose sight of her, but Joe found a handy gap in the wooden siding and peered through that.
‘Going back to Main,’ he reported. ‘Okay, now she’s going up the hill… now she’s crossing over again…’
Benny held an imaginary microphone. ‘Video at eleven.’
Joe ignored this. ‘Now she’s going onto my street.’ He turned to Benny and Norrie. ‘Do you think she’s going to see my mom?’
