fucshia: переводы

→And maybe, in the back of her mind, she was hoping that this would be the thing that would make Artie want to go to the homecoming dance. Would he be so curious about her decorations that he’d be willing to attend a potentially lame school function? A girl could hope.

→Maybe it was that Glee Club was finally starting to show a glimmer of promise, or maybe it was something in those new multivitamins her mom had started her on, but Tina was feeling . . . unstoppable. Without any second thoughts, she grabbed the Sharpie from her backpack, popped off the cap, and signed her name on the list. She was artistic, and she knew she could help.

→Recently, though, she felt like a hermit crab that was slowly realizing it was time to come out of its shell and stretch its arms out to see what it could do. (Did hermit crabs have arms? Or were they just claws?)

→But the results were phenomenal. Tina had just wanted to get out of one stupid presentation; instead, she was given a virtual free pass for all future presentations. When she had to work on group projects, she’d always be the one to do the research while the others presented the results. She started to rely on the stutter as a shield – no one expected her to be socially active with a speech impediment, so she was allowed to become the loner she’d always been, preferring to doodle and sketch instead of talk to other kids. And she’d been fine with that, most of the time. It was easier and safer that way.

→Usually, she shied away from doing anything that required interaction with other students. That was why, way back in sixth grade, she’d first faked a stutter. It was her turn to give a presentation on something – the Missouri Compromise – and she hadn’t been able to sleep the night before. It was the first time someone had asked her to stand in front of the class and talk – for five minutes, which seemed like an eternity – and it terrified her. When she got to the front of the classroom, she pulled aside Mrs Marcy and told her, tearfully, that she couldn’t do the presentation because . . . she was t-t-too ashamed of her s-s-stutter. If Mrs Marcy hadn’t noticed the stutter until that point, it wasn’t really her fault – Tina was already inclined toward silence, and the class had more than thirty-five kids in it.

→‘Move it, Goth girl.’ A couple of guys on the swim team brushed past her, their gym bags bumping into her. They reeked of chlorine, and the smell stung Tina’s eyes.

→Besides, even though Rachel was annoying, what she had said the other day was stuck in Tina’s head. Why shouldn’t people like her be allowed to get involved in extracurricular activities? The popular kids shouldn’t have a monopoly on everything. She had just as much right as anyone else to work on the decorations.

→Tina stared at the poster, which was surprisingly lame. The only decoration on it was a clip-art paintbrush glued onto the poster board. If the decorations committee was really that unskilled, it definitely could use as many artists as it could get. Maybe because Artie had just called her an amazing artist during Glee Club, she was starting to think she had something artistic to offer.

→CALLING ALL ARTISTS! HOMECOMING DECORATIONS COMMITTEE NEEDS YOUR HELP. MEETING IN THE GYM TO DISCUSS CREATIVE IDEAS: FRIDAY, DURING LUNCH.

→she was facing a bright yellow sign hanging on the wall:

→‘Rest your vocal cords tonight. We’ve got a show tomorrow.’ Tina watched Artie wheel away. When she turned around,

→‘No worries.’ Artie waved his hand to show it was no big deal. He was so accustomed to going out the back entrance of the school that the smell of fish sticks didn’t even bother him. He’d actually never used the front entrance, as it was accessible only by a set of five wide concrete steps that someone would have had to carry him up. But he was used to seeing things from different angles than everyone else.

→Tina flushed bright red. ‘I’m s-s-sorry,’ she stuttered. She wondered if Artie thought she was a total idiot. She was always saying stupid things around him because she was so used to his being in a wheelchair that she didn’t even think about it anymore. ‘I didn’t realize.’

→Artie laughed ruefully. ‘It’s also the only exit with a handi- cap ramp.’ He shrugged. ‘It’s how I always come and go.’

→‘Why does he pick you up out there?’ Tina asked, wrinkling her nose. ‘Isn’t that where all the grease Dumpsters are?’ It always smelled like burned fish sticks in the hallway behind the cafeteria, even when they weren’t on that day’s menu. Her mother was picking her up at the circular driveway near the front entrance of the school. Tina usually took the bus home after school, but when she stayed later for Glee, she managed to escape that humiliation.

→‘I’ve got to go this way.’ He tilted his head toward the back entrance of the school, the one that let out behind the cafeteria. ‘My dad’s picking me up.’

→‘It still wouldn’t surprise me.’ Artie smiled and stopped.

→Tina giggled. She untied her black hoodie from around her waist and slid her arms into the sleeves. ‘It’s a really long musical.’

→‘It wouldn’t surprise me,’ Artie said. ‘She strikes me as the obsessive type.’

→'Do you think Rachel really knows every single word in West Side Story?’ Tina asked Artie as the two of them, both exhausted, left Glee Club practice. While Rachel was whipping them into fighting shape, as she called it, she claimed that in the second grade she’d memorized the complete lyrics to her favorite musical.