"Cory Doctorow - A Place So Foreign" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dodd Christina)

dangerous, coal-fired machines -- an automatic clothes-washing-machine, a
cherry-pitter, and other devices whose nature I couldn't even guess at. None of
them had ever worked, but I liked to run my hands over them, feel the smooth
steel of their parts, disassemble and reassemble them. Back in 75, I'd once
tried to take the robutler apart, just to get a look at how it was all put
together, but it was a lost cause -- I couldn't even figure out how to get the
cover off.

I walked through the cool dark, the only light coming from the grimy attic
window, and fondled each piece. I picked up an oilcan and started oiling the
joints and bearings and axles of each machine in turn. Pa would have wanted to
know that everything was in good working order.

#

"I think you should be going to school, James," Mama said, at breakfast. I'd
already done my morning chores, bringing in the coal, chopping kindling, taking
care of the milch-cows and making my bed.

I took another forkful of sausage, and a spoonful of mush, chewed, and looked at
my plate.

"It's time, it's time. You can't spend the rest of your life sulking around
here. Your father would have wanted us to get on with our lives."

Even though I wasn't looking at her when she said this, I knew that her eyes
were bright with tears, the way they always got when she mentioned Pa. His chair
sat, empty, at the head of the table. I had another bite of sausage.

"James Arthur Nicholson! Look at me when I speak to you!"

I looked up, reflexively, as I always did when she used my full name. My eyes
slid over her face, then focused on a point over her left shoulder.

"Yes'm."

"You're going to school. Today. And I expect to get a good report from Mr
Adelson."

"Yes'm."

#

We have two schools in New Jerusalem: the elementary school that was built
twenty years before, when they put in the wooden sidewalks and the town hall;
and the non-denominational Academy that was built just before I left for 1975.