ShurikSl: переводы

→Somehow he’d become at the center of their conflict, and he could tell it was just a matter of time before they figured out that they didn’t have to be mad at each other—he was the one they should both be mad at. He was the one who had messed up the game, the one who had hidden the Questions, the one who Alice—

→Alice looked grim at the mention of the bus, but didn’t say anything, which was good, but also made Zach nervous. All the way from the woods, the three of them had only said things having to do with figuring out where they were going. He couldn’t decide if the girls didn’t want to fight anymore or if they were gearing up for an even bigger fight that was about to come.

→“So, not much before we start dipping into our bus fare home,” Poppy said. “But something.”

→“Eight seventy-five,” said Alice, pushing up her dress to rifle through the pockets of the jeans she had on underneath.

→“I have four dollars and twenty-five cents—aside from the bus fare home,” Zach said. “How much do you guys have?”

→They stopped to gaze at the menu on the door.

→ALTHOUGH THE MAIN STREET OF EAST LIVERPOOL was full of big store windows and shops, many were no longer open at all. There was a place called Pants Unlimited that was covered in flyers advertising FINAL SALE! on everything, since they were going out of business, but by the aged look of the flyers, they might have been going out of business for years. The store owner stood in the doorway, smoking a cigarette. Zach and Poppy and Alice walked past him, still trailing water, their shoes making squelching sounds. Poppy hugged the Queen to her chest, the doll’s face turned so that he couldn’t see if her cheeks had grown even rosier. Next they passed a gaming store with a few bikes leaned against the pavement and a couple more chained to a nearby STOP sign. And finally they came to a diner, the only restaurant they’d seen that was open.

→No one else was there, but that didn’t mean that no one else had been.

→There wasn’t much to pack up, so they didn’t. The sleeping bag had been ruined along with the rest of their supplies, the long gashes making puffs of white stuffing well up with every gust of wind. The best they could do was gather up everything, roll up the wounded sleeping bag, and dump it all in one of the trash cans along the river.

→Alice nodded. “Perfect. So long as they have a bathroom.”

→“We passed that donut shop last night,” Zach said.

→“Look, I want to figure out what happened as much as you do,” said Alice, looking between them like she wasn’t sure which side she was on just then—maybe neither of theirs. “But can we please please get out of here first? The woods are creepy and I have to pee and I’m hungry.”

→But Eleanor had plenty of reasons to be mad at Alice and was probably frustrated that she wasn’t already in her grave.

→A shiver went up Zach’s back, ending with a twitch between his shoulder blades. He could too easily imagine that weathered, smirking face watching them from the darkness. But there was no reason for Tinshoe to have gotten off the bus, followed them, waited for them to fall asleep, then tossed around their stuff. No reason at all. They didn’t have anything he wanted. He probably thought they’d all been grabbed by aliens and gotten their faces stolen.

→Poppy looked around and sucked in her breath. “I don’t know. What if it was Tinshoe Jones? What if he followed us?”

→“Okay, whatever,” he said. “You think it was raccoons too?”

→Zach thought he detected a note of uncertainty in her voice, though.

→“She’s not a poltergeist,” Poppy said, as though Zach had suggested her brand-new box set of Doctor Who DVDs were bootlegs. “And why would she toss out our food? Ruin the only thing we’ve got to sleep on? She wants us to take her to East Liverpool. She’s not going to make it harder for us.”

→“It’s classic poltergeist stuff, isn’t it?” Zach asked.

→“I don’t,” Alice said. “I think it was raccoons. But I thought that you’d say it was a ghost.”