"Brown,.Mary.-.Unicorn's.Ring.2.-.1994.-.Pigs.Don't.Fly" - читать интересную книгу автора (Brown Mary)

spot out the way ahead, general guide, guard dog ..."
"Guard dog?" I said, suddenly suspicious. "You did say 'dog'?"
" 'Course. Don' look like a cat, do I?"
I. scrambled to my feet and stared at the apparition. "I've seen you before
somewhere...."
"Course you have, in the village; seen you a coupla times, too."
I stared across the diplomatic space that still separated us. Of course he was a
dog, how had I ever thought otherwise? But dogs don't talk. Especially this one.
He resembled nothing so much as a scrap of rug you might leave outside the door
to wipe your feet upon. He was like a furry sausage, a black and grey and brown
sausage. One ear was up, one down; there was a tail of sorts and presumably
mouth and eyes hidden under the tangle of hair at the front. The nose was there
and underneath four paws, big ones like paddles, but set under the shortest set
of legs imaginable. I remembered now where I had seen him before; chased down
the village street by
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Mary Brown
PIGS DON'T FLY
47
the butcher, those stumpy legs going like a demented centipede.
All right, he wasn't a figment of my imagination and he wasn't one of the Little
People, but there was still something wrong. Dogs don't talk....
"Where you goin' then?"
"ToЧto seek a new home. My mother died yesterday."
"Makes two of usЧlookin' for somewhere, that is. Never had a place to set down
me bum permanent-like. Folks is wary of strays."
Dogs don't talk....
All right, if he wasn't the Devil himselfЧwhich was just possibleЧand he wasn't
of Faery stock, then this must be magic. A very powerful magic, too.
Surreptitiously I first crossed myself again, then made the secular anti-witch
sign, the first two fingers of my hand forked. Nothing happened; he still sat
there, but now he indulged in a fury of scratching and nipping, then hoofed out
both ears with a dreadful, dry, rattling sound.
"Little buggers lively *s mornin'.. . . Tell you what: I'll just come with you
as far as the roadЧthat's where you're headed, ain't it? Keep each other
company, like."
"No .. . Yes, I don't know. ..." I said helplessly.
DOGS DON'T TALK!
"Aw, c'mon! What harm can it do? You and I will get along real well, I know we
will. Tween us we'll make a good teamЧ"
The scream would out. It had been sitting there at the bottom of my throat like
a gigantic belch and I could hold jt back no longer. It escaped like the tuning
wail from a set of bagpipes, only ten times as loud.
"Go away, go away, go away! I can't stand it anymore! Dogs don't talk, dogs
don't talk, DOGS DONT TALK!"
And I ran away across the glade, screaming like a banshee, until there was a
thud! in the middle of my back and I fell face down in a heap of leaves, al! the
wind knocked out of me.
"Shurrup a minute, will you? Want the whole world to hear? Got hold of the wrong
end of the stick, you has. Just sit up nice and quiet-like, and I'll explain.