guilherme em fascículos

(segundo fascículo)

"To William dismay his father entered the room with the thermometer.
'Well, William,' he said cheerfully, ' I hear you're too ill to go to school. That's a great pity, isn't it. I'm sure it's a great grief to you?'
William turned up his eyes. 'Yes, father,' he said dutifully and suspiciously.
'Now where exactly is the pain and what sort of pain is it?'
William knew from experience that descriptions of non-existent pains are full of pitfalls. By a master-stroke he avoided them.
'It hurts me to talk,' he said.
'What sort of pain does it hurt you with? said his father brutally.
William made some inarticulate noises, then closed his eyes with a moan of agony.
'I'll just step round and fetch the doctor,' said Mr Brown, still quite cheerfully.
The doctor lived next door. William considered this a great mistake. He disliked the close proximity of doctors. They were equally annoying in real and imaginary diseases.
William made brave reassuring noises to inform his father that he'd rather the doctor wasn't troubled and it was all right, and please no one was to bother about him, and he'd just stay in bed and probably be all right by the afternoon. But his father had already gone.
William lay in bed and considered his position.
Well, he was going to stick to it, anyway. He'd just make noises to the doctor, and they couldn't say he hadn't got a pain where he said he had if they didn't know where he said he had one. His mother came in and took his temperature. Fate was against him. There was no hot-water bottle handy. But he squeezed it as hard as he could in a vague hope that that would have some effect on it.
'It's normal, dear,' said his mother, relieved. 'I'm so glad.'
He made a sinister noise to imply that the malady was too deep-seated to be shown by an ordinary thermometer.
He could hear the doctor and his father coming up the stairs. They were laughing and talking. William, forgetting the imaginary nature of his complaint, felt a wave of indignation and self-pity.
The doctor came in breezily. 'Well, young man,' he said, 'what's the trouble?'
William made his noise. By much practice he was becoming an expert at the noise. It implied an intense desire to explain his symptoms, thwarted by physical incapability. and it thrilled with suffering bravely endured.
"
(part 3 coming soon)