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

"Fear?" I go, laughing. "It's not even in my primary word-list. I'll meet you
here at nine-thirty tomorrow morning. I want to get myself a pair of jeans, a
sweatshirt, and some good sneakers. I don't want to go up against the Vast
Unclean from Dimension X in an Ann Taylor shirtdress."

"Whatever you say, Maureen," he goes. "The forces of the profane will be
patient."

That made me shudder despite myself.

Time passes. That's a quote, by the way, Bitsy, and a Snickers bar if you can
tell me where it comes from. Give up? Dylan Thomas, you remember. Time passes.
It's morning, I hopped by the Co-op again and got myself some horrible new stiff
blue jeans, a blue sweatshirt with "Yale University" printed in teeny tiny
letters-- reverse ostentation, I called it-- and some canvas gym shoes. This was
in the Nouveau Stone Age before Reeboks, you know. I'm wearing the ski jacket
and carrying the shirtdress in a bag with Old Betsy. I was ready to get down. As
it were.

Well, I trudged back to High Street and Branford College. I have to admit that I
suppressed another shudder as I passed beneath Harkness Tower, but it was
daytime now and bright and warm under the sun, and the Dark Young of
Shub-Niggurath might have been just some black-and-white monster from a movie
somewhere between Godzilla and Mothra.

Hey, did you ever wonder how, when a new monster appears in Japan, the people
immediately know its name? I figured it out. They have a list, like with
hurricanes. A new monster gets the next name on the list. The giant turtle
appears and everybody goes, "Ohhh, Gammera the Invincible!" It's simple if you
understand the Asian point of view. Well, of course I do, what do you know about
it?

Rod was waiting for me in the courtyard, fidgeting a little. "Good morning,
Maureen," he goes. He like gave me a chaste, heroic kiss on the cheek. Jeez, he
was almost perfect!

"Let's do it," I go. My voice was deep and rumbly. I was fully in my
fighting-woman persona again.

We walked to the Sterling Memorial Library. This time when I went in, no one
made a fuss. I looked like Suzy Co-Ed, even though, as I've mentioned, Yale
hadn't yet got its act together about that. Maybe the librarians and security
guards all believed I was some Smith or Bennington talent down for a few days.

Rod murmured to me, "The texts we need to consult are in a special section, the
Omega Collection. They're generally not available to the public, but I'm a good
friend of the curator. I've used that material before, and I'll explain to Dr.
Christenson that this is an emergency. He'll understand."