"Charles de Lint - Big City Littles" - читать интересную книгу автора (De Lint Charles)

Tiny eyes blinked in confusion. "No, from my people. The Kaldewen Tribe."
"Who live ... where? In my sock drawer? Behind the baseboards?"
Why couldn't this have happened after her first coffee of the morning when at least her brain would be slightly
functional.
He gave her a troubled look. "You're not like we expected."
"What were you expecting?"
"Someone ... kinder."
Sheri sighed. "I'm sorry. I'm not a morning person."
"That's apparent."
"Mind you, I do feel justified in being a little cranky. After all, you're the one who's come barging into my bedroo
"I didn't barge. I crept in under the door, ever so quietly."
"OK, snuck into my bedroom thenтАФwhich, by the way, doesn't give you points on any gentlemanly scale that I kn
of." "It seemed the best time to get your attention without being accidentally stepped on, or swatted like a bug."
Sheri stopped herself from telling him that implying that her apartment might be overrun with bugs his size also
wasn't particularly endearing.
"Would it be too much to ask what you're doing in my bedroom?" she asked. "Not to mention on my bed."
"I might as well ask what you're doing in bed."
"Now who's being cranky?"
"The sun rose hours ago."
"Yes, and I was writing until 3 o'clock this morning so I think I'm entitled to sleep in." She paused to frown at him
"Not that it's any of your business. And," she added as he began to reply, "you haven't answered my question."
"It's about your book," he said. "The Travelling Littles."
As soon as he said the title, she wondered how she could have missed the connection. Jenky Woods, at her service
looked exactly like she'd painted the Littles in her book. Except...
"Littles aren't real," she said, knowing how dumb that sounded with an all-too-obvious example standing on her n
table.
"But... you ... you told our history. ..."
"I told a story," Sheri said, feeling sorry for the little man now. "One that was told to me when I was a girl."
"So you can't help us?"
"It depends," she said, "on what you need my help for."
But she already knew. She didn't have to go into her office to take down a copy of the book from her brag shelf. S
might have written and illustrated it almost 20 years ago. She might not have recognized the little man for what he wa
until he'd told her himself. But she remembered the story.
It had been her first book and its modest, not to mention continuing, success was what had persuaded her to try to
make a living at writing and drawing children's books. She'd just never considered that the story might be true, never
mind what she'd said in the pages of the book.

~~THE TRAVELLING LITTLES~~
There are many sorts of little peopleтАФtiny folk, no bigger than a minute. And I don't just mean fairies and browni
or even pennymen and their like. There are the Lilliputians that Gulliver met on his travels. Mary Norton's Borrowers
The Smalls of William Dunthorn's Cornwall. All sorts. But today I want to tell you about the Travelling Littles who li
like gypsies, spending their lives always on the move.
This is how I heard the story when I was a small girl. My grandpa told it to me, just like this, so I know it's true.
The Littles were once birds. They had wings and flew high above the trees and hills to gather their food. When the
leaves began to turn yellow and red and frost was in the air, they flew to warmer countries, for they weren't toads to
burrow in the mud, or bears to hibernate away the cold months, or crows who don't allow the weather to tell them whe
to live, or when to move.
The Littles liked to travel. They liked the wind in their wings and to look out on a new horizon every morning. So
they were always leaving one region for another, travelling more to the south in the winter, coming back north when t
lilacs and honeysuckle bloomed. No matter how far they travelled, they always returned to these very hills where the