All Flesh is Grass

Some more kids went past, whooping as they ran.

“Say,” asked Donovan, “do you think something might have happened?”

The first two kids had reached the crowd and were tugging at people's arms and shouting something at them.

“Looks like it,” I said.

С громкими восторженными воплями промчалась новая стайка мальчишек.

— Может, там еще что новое случилось?  — сказал Доневен.

Первые двое ребят уже добежали до толпы у барьера и, дергая взрослых за руки, что-то им громко, взахлеб толковали.

— Похоже на то,  — сказал я.

A few of the crowd started back down the road, walking to start with, then breaking into a trot, heading back for town.

As they came close, Donovan darted out to intercept them.

“What's the matter?” he yelled. “What's going on?”

“Money,” one of them shouted back at him. “Someone's found some money.”

Кое-кто из толпы повернулся и заспешил обратно к Милвиллу, сперва скорым шагом, а там и бегом.

Когда они были уже совсем близко, Билл Доневен рванулся им наперерез.

— В чем дело?  — крикнул он.

  — Что стряслось?

— Деньги!  — закричали в ответ.  — Кто-то нашел деньги!

By now the whole crowd had left the barrier and was running down the road.

As they swept past, Mae Hutton shouted at me,

“Come on, Brad! Money in your garden!”

Money in my garden! For the love of God, what next?

Теперь уже вся толпа неслась во весь дух во шоссе к городу. Мэй Хаттон на бегу крикнула мне:

— Скорей, Брэд! У тебя в саду деньги!

— Деньги у меня в саду? Еще чего?!

I took one look at the four men from Washington, standing beyond the barrier.

Perhaps they were thinking that the town was crazy. They had every right to think so.

I stepped out into the road and jogged along behind the crowd, heading back for town.

Я мельком глянул на тех четверых из Вашингтона, они стояли за барьером и смотрели вслед толпе. Решили, наверно, что весь Милвилл просто спятил. Да и как не решить.

Я ступил с обочины на шоссе и рысцой пустился вдогонку за остальными к городу.

19

When I came back that morning I had found that the purple flowers growing in the swale behind my house, through the wizardry of that other world, had been metamorphosed into tiny bushes.

In the dark I had run my fingers along the bristling branches and felt the many swelling buds. And now the buds had broken and where each bud had been was, not a leaf, but a miniature fifty-dollar bill!

Len Streeter, the high school science teacher, handed one of the tiny bills to me.

“It's impossible,” he said.