"Anthony, Piers - Xanth 04 - Centaur Aisle" - читать интересную книгу автора (Anthony Piers)

"What are you doing.?"

Dor, distracted momentarily by the bounce, lost track of the sharp
response he had planned. "Oh, come on," he grumped. "You know your
mother got tired of snooping on me, so she assigned you to do it
instead."

Irene did not deny it. "Well, somebody has to snoop on you, dummy. I'd
rather be out playing with Zilch."

Zilch was a young sea cow that had been conjured for her fifteenth
bkffiday. Irene had set her up in the moat and used her magic to
promote the growth of sturdy wallflowers to wall off a section of water,
protecting Zilch from the moat-monsters while she grazed. Dor regarded
Zilch as a great blubbery slob of an animal, but anything that
distracted Irene was to some extent worthwhile. She took after her
mother in certain annoying ways.

"Go ahead and play with the cow," Dor suggested disparagingly.

"I won't ten."

"No, a Princess has to do her duty." Irene never spoke of duty unless it
was something she wanted to do anyway. She picked up his essay-paper.

"Hey, give that backl" Dor protested, reaching for it.

"You heard him, snit!" the paper agreed. "Give me backl"

That only made Irene omery. She backed away, hanging on to the paper,
her eyes scanning the writing. Her bosom heaved with barely suppressed
laughter. "Oh, say, this is something! I didn't think anybody could
misspell 'Mundania' that badly!"

Dor leaped for her, his face hot, but she danced back again, putting the
paper behind her. This was her notion of entertainmentteasing him,
making him react one way or another. He tried to reach around her-and
found himself embracing her, unintentionally.

Irene had always been a cute girl and socially precocious. In recent
years nature had rushed to endow her generously, and this was quite
evident at close range. Now she was a green-eyed,
green-tinthaired-occurring naturally; she did not color her hair-buxom
beauty. What was worse, she knew it, and constantly sought new ways to
use it to her advantage. Today she was dressed in a green blouse and
skirt that accentuated her figure and wore green slippers that enhanced
her fine legs and feet. In short, she had prepared well for this
encounter and had no intention of letting him write his essay in peace.