"Effinger, George Alec - Maureen Birnbaum 03 - Maureen Birnbaum at the Looming Awfulness" - читать интересную книгу автора (Effinger George Alec)

Hot
Cold
Whiskey Sauce
Rum Sauce
Firm
Fluffy
With Raisins
Without Raisins

In 1966, the sixteen possible combinations like totally described bread pudding
as science understood it at that point in time. Today, of course, with
high-speed computers and the other miracles given to us by the space program,
there are bread pudding types that were unimaginable during the Lyndon Johnson
administration. For example, the best bread pudding I've ever had is served in
the Palace Cafe on Canal Street in New Orleans, and it comes with a fantastic
white chocolate sauce. In the 60s, such a thing would've been as illegal as
beans in chili.

We found ourselves holding hands as we went back through the Branford cafeteria
line. We each got a serving of bread pudding (hot, rum, fluffy, with raisins,
and extremely good). When we returned to our table, Rod goes, "Hello! What's
this?"

It was a page of photocopy paper, the strange, stark copies they turned out in
the early days of the industry.

I tried to read the writing on the page, but it was in some strange occult
language. There were nightmarish drawings of nameless, hideous, tentacled
creatures. I shuddered and gave the paper back to Rod.

He stared at the writing for a few moments, and then began to murmur, "Dead is
not that which can through ages lie, to see in fell times how even death may
die."

Gave me the shivering creeps, know what I mean, Bitsy? Not so my Hot Rod. He
just shook his head. "Somebody's been playing some twisted joke on me lately,
Maureen," he goes. "This isn't the first time I've gotten a copy of what the
prankster wants me to think is some demented, malevolent manuscript."

"You can read it, though?" I go. I pretended to show interest in Rod's hobbies,
because Miss Kanon, the gym teacher, always told us that would make us popular
with the boys. It always worked for me.

"Yes," Rod goes, "it's an old dialect of Arabic. I studied it one summer when my
uncle, Dr. Zach Marquand, took me to Egypt to help me solve the Mystery of the
Dismembered Murderers."

"And you think someone is sending you joke messages in an obscure, ancient
dialect? Why?"