"Eddings, David - Regina's Song V2.0" - читать интересную книгу автора (Eddings David)

"You plan to teach, then?"
"Probably so-unless I decide to write the Great
American Novel."
"I've read your papers, Mr. Austin," he said dryly.
"You've got a long way to go if that's your goal."
"It beats the hell out of pulling chain, Dr. Conrad."
"Pulling chain?"
I explained it, and he seemed just a bit awed. "Are you
saying that people still do that sort of thing?"
"It's called Сworking for a living.' I came here because I
don't want to do that no more."
He winced at my double negative.
"Just kidding, boss," I told him. And I don't think
anybody'd ever called him "boss" before, because he
didn't seem to know how to handle it.
By the end of winter quarter that year I'd pretty well
settled into the routine of being a working student.
There were times when I ran a little short on sleep, but I
could usually catch up on weekends.
I finished up the spring quarter of 'q4 and spent the
summer working at the door factory to build up a
backlog of cash. Things had been a little tight a few
times that year.
The Twinkie Twins were high-school juniors now, and
they'd definitely blossomed. Their hair had grown
blonder, it seemed-chemically modified, no doubt-and
their eyes were an intense blue. They'd also developed
some other attributes that attracted lots of attention from
their male classmates.
Looking back, I'm sometimes puzzled by my lack of
"those kinds of thoughts" about the twins. They were
moderately gorgeous, after all-tall, blond, well built, and
with strangely compelling eyes. It was probably their
plurality that put me off. In my mind they were never
individuals. I thought of them as "they," but never "she."
From what I heard, though, the young fellows at their
high school didn't have that problem, and the twins were
very popular. The only complaint seemed to be that
nobody could ever get one of them off by herself.
It was during my senior year at U.W that I finally came
face to face with Moby Dick. The opening line, "Call me
Ishmael" and the climactic, "I only am escaped to tell
thee" set off all sorts of bells in my head. Captain Ahab
awed me. You don't want to mess around with a guy
who could say, "I'd smite the sun if it offended me." And
his obsessive need to avenge himself on the white
whale put him in the same class with Hamlet and
Othello.
Moby Dick has been plowed and planted over and over
by generations of scholars much better than I, though,