«Дом с характером» kitabından alıntılar, sayfa 6

"He'll be safe now that I'm here," the Witch said. "I can feel he's somewhere quite near." She sighed. "I suppose I'll have to go and look for him. He doesn't know his right hand from his left, you see.""I know," Charmain said. "He uses colored string. He's quite efficient, really." But she thought as she spoke that to someone as super-efficient as the Witch of Montalbino, Peter was bound to seem as hopeless as Peter thought Charmain herself was. Parents! she thought.

The place was fenced off by white stone trellises with roses growing up them, and there were white reclining chairs beside the roses, piled with large fluffy towels. Ready for when you'd finished swimming, Charmain supposed. But poor Waif was terrified of this place. She crouched against the gateway, whining and trembling.Charmain picked her up. "Did someone try to drown you, Waif? Were you a puppy someone didn't want? It's all right. I'm not going near this water either. I've no idea how to swim." As she turned left through the gateway, it occurred to her that swimming was only one of a very large number of things she had no idea how to do. Peter had been right to object to her ignorance. "It's not that I'm lazy," she explained to Waif as they arrived in what seemed to be the stables, "or stupid. I've just not bothered to look round the edges of Mother's way of doing things, you see."

Charmain was forced to pick Waif up and back away, out of Morgan's reach, so that all she heard next of the strange conversation behind the sofa was Mrs. Pendragon saying something about sending Twinkle (or was his name Howl?) to bed without supper and Twinkle daring her to "jutht try it."

Примерно через час ей приснилось, что на нее уселся мохнатый мамонт. – Уйди, Потеряшка, – пробормотала она.  – Ты слишком большая.

Если я когда-нибудь выйду замуж, <...> ни за что не стану заводить детей. Они за неделю сделают меня жестокой и бессердечной.

Когда же, наконец, они перемыли всю посуду, Чармейн с ужасом обнаружила, что руки её покраснели, а на пальцах появились уродливые морщинки.

- Я заразилась! - закричала она. - У меня жуткая кожная болезнь!

— Высшие силы! — выдохнула миссис Бейкер, хватаясь за сердце. — Такой маленький! Такой синий! Как он проник сюда? Не позволяй ему пробегать под юбкой, Чармейн!