Читать книгу Feather Boy онлайн | страница 4

“Yes,” says Niker. “Except,” he scans his fellow pupils, “maybe Norbert there.”

Norbert is the class squit. He’s thin and gangly, his arms and legs like white string loosely knotted at the elbows and knees. His head is too big for his body and, where other people have hair, he has this yellow, fluffy ducks’ down. His eyes are blue, though it’s difficult to see that through the thick glass of his spectacles. If you take his specs off him, and people do, he looks startled. Naked. His real name isn’t Norbert, it’s Robert. Robert Nobel. But I don’t think anyone’s ever called him that. In Kindergarten, when his hair was even more yellow than it is now, they called him “Chick” or “Chickie”. Even Mrs Morgan. But, since Niker arrived in school, it’s been Norbert. Norbert No-Bel. Norbert No-Bells-at-All. Norbert No-Brain. Norbert No-Bottle. I don’t suppose Johnny Niker, who has curly dark hair, green eyes and a fluid, athletic body, has ever imagined what it would be like to look out at the world through Norbert No-Bottle’s spectacles. But I have. Because I am Norbert No-Bottle.

“Personally,” says Catherine, “I think one never grows out of fairy tales. I think fairy tales contain all of the ways we sort experience, good and bad. In fact, I think stories are the most important form of communication we as human beings have.”

“Ahem,” says Miss Raynham.

“What do you think, Jonathan?”

“Johnny,” says Niker.

“I don’t think Johnny is a human being,” says Weasel.

“Right,” says Miss Raynham. “That is quite sufficient, thank you. The purpose of the Elders’ Project is, as Catherine will explain at greater length, to share experiences between young and old. And to learn something. Manners perhaps.”

It’s Norbert No-Bottle that hurts the most. Niker started calling me that after the Grape Incident. Maybe I’ll tell that story later. Right now I can’t even say the word “grape” without feeling sick. And I still get queasy going down the aisles at Sainsbury’s, just in case I encounter any big, fat, green grapes.