Читаем Cat Who Went Up the Creek полностью

Mother! You’re supposed to cut the cake.”

The cake was lemon coconut, and Andy announced that Mattie could bake a better one.

Fran asked, “What are you doing here?”

“Snooping. Do you know what happened to the cuckoo clock that was here before old Gus died?”

“There was no cuckoo clock when I started the inventory.”

Andy asked, “How do you like staying here?”

“We’re on the third floor, and the cats don’t like being cooped up, but we can’t get into our cabin because the detectives have it sealed.”

“Looking for clues,” Andy muttered.

Qwilleran huffed into his moustache. “They’ve had forty-eight hours! Koko came up with one in five minutes!”

“I always said that smart cat should be on the force!”

“Are you going to the opera Friday night? It’s the one with the famous cop song: A policeman’s lot is not a happy one!

“You ain’t kiddin’.”

Upstairs, in 3FF, Qwilleran broke the good news to the Siamese. “Soon we’ll be moving to a cabin with a screened porch—and ducks paddling, trout leaping, squirrels squirreling!”

He was feeling in good spirits himself, and he composed a limerick to amuse readers of Friday’s column.

An amazing young fellow name Cyril


Was ingenious, agile and virile.


He ran up and down trees


On his hands and his knees


And eventually married a squirrel.







chapter six











As Qwilleran was going into the dining room for breakfast, Nick Bamba hailed him from the office. “Couple of things for you here, Qwill. One looks like the postcard from Polly you’ve been waiting for.”

To exhibit his nonchalance, he put the postcard in his pocket and borrowed a paper knife to open the envelope. It contained a pair of complimentary tickets, fifth row on the aisle, for the opening of Pirates of Penzance.

At the entrance to the dining room the hostess on duty was Cathy, the MCCC student.

“Would you save me a table for four Sunday evening?”

“In the window as usual?”

“Please. And how are reservations coming in for Friday?”

“Very well! Is there something special?”

“It’s opening night of the Gilbert and Sullivan opera at the auditorium. I’m reviewing it for the paper and have two complimentary tickets. Do you know anyone who could use the other one?”

“I’m quite sure. Is it a good opera?”

“Very clever. Very tuneful.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

He gave Cathy the second ticket, wondering what young innocent would be his seatmate and wishing Polly were in town.

And after taking a table, and after some badinage with the waitress, and after deciding on French toast and sausage patties . . . Qwilleran looked at Polly’s first postcard.

He expected to see a replica of an eighteenth-century village with an oxcart on a dirt road, surrounded by hens pecking in the ruts. Instead he saw an airport motel with a hundred-foot electric sign and a parking lot filled with cars. The message on the reverse side was in minuscule handwriting:

Dear Qwill—Arrived safely. Luggage lost. Delivered in middle of night. Locks broken. Mona went to hospital with rhinitis caused by strong perfume on plane.

Love, Polly

Qwilleran huffed into his moustache. He had asked for more personal news, and Polly always aimed to please.

alt="[image]"/>Around noon Qwilleran set out for his luncheon-interview with Bruce Abernethy. The doctor lived in the village of Black Creek. There were two Black Creeks, one wet and one dry, as the locals liked to say. The former flowed north to the lake and had been a major waterway in pioneer days, when the forests were being lumbered. It was wider and deeper in the nineteenth century and had the advantage of being straight—an important consideration when logs were being driven downstream in the spring. The “dry” half of the metaphor was the village on the east bank of the creek—although not completely dry; the Nutcracker Inn had a bar license, and there was a neighborhood pub behind the gas station. It had a roller-coaster history: a thriving community in the boom years; a bed of ashes after the Big Burning of 1869; a veritable phoenix in the Nineties; a ghost town after the economic collapse. During Prohibition there was a period of prosperity as rum runners brought their contraband from Canada and went up the creek to the railroad.

When Qwilleran first arrived in Moose County from Down Below, the Limburger mansion stood like a grotesque monument to the past, but there was little else. Now Black Creek’s downtown had a post office, fire station and branch bank—plus a drugstore selling hardware, a grocery selling books and flowers, a gas station selling hamburgers, and a barbershop selling gifts.

Qwilleran, on his way to the Abernethy house, stopped to buy flowers, which he handed to the doctor’s wife when she greeted him at the door. “Come in! Bruce is on the phone. . . . Oh, thank you! How did you know that daisies are my favorite? . . . The date of the MCCC luncheon has been set for July 27. That’s a Thursday. Is that agreeable with your busy schedule? Everyone is so pleased you’ve consented to join us!”

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Ох как непросто быть попаданцем – чужой мир, вокруг всё незнакомо и непонятно, пугающе. Помощи ждать неоткуда. Всё приходится делать самому. И нет конца этому марафону. Как та белка в колесе, пищи, но беги. На голову землянина свалилось столько приключений, что врагу не пожелаешь. Успел найти любовь – и потерять, заимел серьёзных врагов, его убивали – и он убивал, чтобы выжить. Выбирать не приходится. На фоне происходящих событий ещё острее ощущается тоска по дому. Где он? Где та тропинка к родному порогу? Придётся очень постараться, чтобы найти этот путь. Тяжёлая задача? Может быть. Но куда деваться? Одному бодаться против целого мира – не вариант. Нужно приспосабливаться и продолжать двигаться к поставленной цели. По-кошачьи – на мягких лапах. Но горе тому, кто примет эту мягкость за чистую монету.

Алексей Изверин , Виктор Гутеев , Вячеслав Кумин , Константин Мзареулов , Николай Трой , Олег Викторович Данильченко

Детективы / Боевая фантастика / Космическая фантастика / Попаданцы / Боевики