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Dragon 1 DragonSpell Paul, Donita K
Dr Who [Lethbridge Stewart] Andy Frankham Allen (v5.0) (epu
Content Selected Essays on Tech Cory Doctorow
Amazing Doctor Darwin Charles Sheffield
Brian Moore The Doctor's Wife (epub)
Bite My Cookies [Who Needs Chri Joyee Flynn
Doctor MC Three More Wishes Be Kind To Y
Doctor Rat William Kotzwinkle
Confidence pour confidence Paul Constant
Doctor No Ian Fleming

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.If she went far enough along, her mother wouldn’t be able to see her from the balcony.Holding the toy bear firmly against her chest with one arm, she ran quickly along the parapet.As she rounded the tower, a gust of wind caught her, pushing her towards the edge, but it didn’t scare her.She just leaned into the wind and concentrated on keeping her feet well away from the edge.She would be all right.Hadn’t the man said that the teddy bear would bring her luck?‘Gabri elle!’ Mamma sounded worried now.Well, let her worry.What had Mamma ever done for her, except shout at her and make her do things she didn’t want to do? And since Papa had been killed she’d whined on and on about it; you’d think that there weren’t any other widows in the world but her.Gabrielle was fed up with it.She wanted something different.She wanted freedom.She wanted the wind in her face.She sat down cross-legged on the parapet, careless of the fact that she would be getting dust all over her dress.A delicious, soft feeling came over her, and the toy bear snuggled against her chest seemed to glow with warmth.She hugged it tighter, looked out into the sky and saw something moving in the distance, silhouetted against the clouds.Something with wide wings, moving steadily.Something too big to be a bird.An aeroplane!She could hear the faint thrum of its engine now.It was a monoplane, like Blériot’s, the one he had flown from Dover to Calais in 1909.In fact, as it drew closer, she could see that it was almost exactly like Blériot’s plane - Gabrielle had seen the pictures in the newspaper often enough to know.Sometimes, when Mamma had locked her in her bedroom for being a bad girl, Gabrielle had dreamed that the great‘birdman’ would come and rescue her, that he would fly her away to where it was always sunny and the clouds were great golden cliffs against the blue of the sky.But Gabrielle was old enough to know the difference between the things you want to be true and the things that are true: she knew that Blériot hadn’t come to rescue her from Mamma, that this must be some local airman doing a‘stunt’.As the plane gently banked around the bell-tower of the church, Gabrielle saw the pilot waving at her.He was a huge, heavy man -No.Not a man.He looked like a bear.The plane was very close now, hovering above the square in a way that Gabrielle knew was impossible.It drifted slowly towards the place where she sat on the parapet.The bear in the cockpit stood up, and Gabrielle saw it wasn’t really like a bear, it was more like the toy bear that the man had given her, the toy bear that was sitting in her lap now.She knew she ought to be startled, even afraid, but somehow she couldn’t be.It all seemed perfectly natural, as if it were meant to happen.‘Hello, Gabrielle,’ called the bear.‘Would you like to go for a ride?’Its eyes were a startling pale green.The teddy bear’s paw - no, hand, she saw, three thick fingers and a long thumb - was stretched out towards her.The wind had gone and the air had become warm, thick, comfortable.Glancing down at the square, Gabrielle saw that it was blurred, darkened, almost as if it were under water.She could see the figure of a man in a morning suit, curiously smudged, blue on one side and red on the other.He seemed to be frozen in mid-step.But that was all right.Everything was all right now.She was going to get away from Mamma.She was going to be free.She stood up, gripping the toy bear against her, and looked at the gap between herself and the cockpit of the monoplane.It didn’t seem too wide: her body felt strangely light.She jumped, felt the teddy bear’s hand grip hers.It was warm, the fur prickly.She landed neatly in the back seat.‘Well done, Gabrielle,’ said the bearlike pilot.‘You’ll soon learn.’The grey sky had changed, turned to a strange, violet colour.The walls of the château were blurring, red on one side, blue on the other.And the plane - the plane seemed bigger, somehow, more closed-in than it should have been.Gabrielle felt a tremor of fear.‘What am I going to learn?’ she asked.The pilot looked over its shoulder, stared at her with its green eyes [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]