Iseeu: переводы

→and intermittent volleys of hailstones pelt down like machine-gun fire on the copper roof tiles. We rarely have electrical storms, but tonight the sky lights up like popping flashbulbs.

→At midnight, the storm that has been building finally hits. There's a hard rain,

→Nic's performance is irresistible, and the children, as always, are riveted by him.

→"Children are foul and filthy!... Children are dirty and stinky!... Children are smelling of dogs' drrrroppings!... They are vurse than dogs' drrroppings! Dogs' drrroppings is smelling like violets and prrrimroses compared with children!"

→He sits on a miniature couch between their twin beds, his long legs stretched out on the floor. He reads from The Witches, by Roald Dahl. We hear his voice—voices—from the next room: the boy narrator, all wonder and earnestness; wry and creaky Grandma; and the shrieking, haggy Grand High Witch.

→Jasper and Daisy take baths and put on their pajamas and then ask Nic to read to them.

→I stop the boys just as they're about to catch her. "You don't deserve to be rescued," I tell her, "but it's bedtime."

→We eat and then the boys fill up the squirt guns and hasten outside into the windy evening, running in opposite directions. Karen and I watch from the living room. Stalking each other, the boys lurk among the Italian cypress and oaks, duck under garden furniture, and creep behind hedges. When they get a clean shot, they squirt each other with thin streams of water. Hidden behind some potted hydrangeas, Daisy watches from near the house. When the boys race past her, she twirls a spigot she's grasping with one hand and takes aim with a garden hose she's holding in the other. She drenches them.

→Nic laughs. "That's fine with me," he says. "It'll save me a lot of time."

→"You'll be so wet that you won't need a shower for a year."

→"You'll be so wet you'll need a boat." "You'll be wetter than a wet noodle."

→"After dinner," Nic warns Jasper, "you will be so wet that you'll have to swim back into the house."

→When Nic emerges, his arms are loaded with gifts. For Daisy, there are Josefina and Kirsten, American Girl dolls, hand-me-downs from his girlfriend. They are prettily dressed in, respectively, an embroidered peasant blouse and serape and a green velvet jumper. Jasper gets a pair of cannon- sized Super Soakers.

→"We have a surprise, too, Nicky," says Daisy. Jasper looks sternly at her. "Don't you tell him!" "It's signs. We made them."

→We head north on the freeway, exiting and turning west, meandering through a series of small towns, a wooded state park, and then hilly pastureland. We stop in Point Reyes Station to retrieve the mail. It's impossible to be in town without running into a dozen friends, all of whom are pleased to see Nic, bombarding him with questions about school and his summer plans. Finally we drive off and follow the road along Papermill Creek to our left turn, where I head up the hill and pull into our driveway.

→"Later, mister, I promise."

→"Nic, will you tell us a PJ story?" Jasper begs. For years Nic has entertained the kids with the Adventures of PJ Fumblebumble, a British detective of his invention.

→Their eyes are brown and clear, whereas his are dark globes. Their hair is dark brown, but Nic's, long and blond when he was a child, is faded like a field in late summer, with smashed-down sienna patches and sticking-up yellowed clumps—a result of his unfortunate attempt to bleach it with Clorox.

→I can see the three of them in the rearview mirror. Jasper and Daisy have smooth olive complexions. Nic's was, too, but now it's gaunt and rice-papery.

→They beg him to tell them what, but he shakes his head. "No way, José. It's a surprise."