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

stalwart and courageous person of great intellect and dating. I was to meet him
again during this shocking and unspeakable experience, although I did not know
it when I first arrived, dressed in my fighting harness of skimpy leather and
strands and strings of gold and jewels. I still wore my battle sword, Old Betsy,
in her scabbard at my side, and my tangled hair and grim, warrior-woman
expression left me pretty much out of place in the cool and quiet precincts of
the Sterling Memorial Library.

In fact, security personnel were already hurrying toward me, either to like
slaughter me where I stood or, at the very least, to eject me forcibly from the
premises. As a fighting woman proud of her accomplishments and possessing
superior combat skills, agility, and strength, I welcomed the challenge. It was
only later that I realized that I'm always causing unnecessary uproar when I
might fare better without making a scene at all.

This time, as usual, I did make a scene. Old Betsy sang as I whanged her from
her scabbard. Immediately, all the security guards stopped in their tracks and
pulled out their LFRs. LFRs are Little Radios; I don't need to tell you what the
F word is, because it's the F word, and I just don't use language like that.
People tell me that they're impressed that I can whoosh around the universe and
have strange encounters all the time and still remain the sweet and innocent
young lady I was years ago at the Greenberg School.

Discretion, as I've come to know, is somewhere between 56% and 64% of valor. I
responded in my new and highly regarded mature manner, and reassured the armed
guards that I Meant Them No Harm. "There, there," I go, smiling and patting the
air soothingly and behaving almost completely in a non-threatening way. Then I
simply turned my back on the uniformed security personnel and made my way
outdoors and into the late winter sunlight.

All right, I'd escaped from the world-renowned library, but my costume didn't
work very well on the Old Campus, either. Especially in New Haven during this
ancient era when even Carnaby Street was just too far-out for all of America
northeast of Time Square. Remember that reaction you got from Miss Schildkraut,
Silas Marner and Ninth Grade English, when you bought that too-grotty-for-words
transparent plastic handbag? She was sure you were listening to drug-crazed
moptop music and smoking banana peels yourself, too.

I had one immediate priority: a nice outfit from Ann Taylor Sportswear on Chapel
Street, hard by the notorious Hotel Taft where many of our consoeurs have been
overcome by passion and gin. I was thinking of a pale green, button-down collar
shirtdress that I could wear through the spring, a pair of matching Jacques
Cohen espadrilles, a Provencal print handbag from Pierre Deux, and like whatever
accessories happened to catch my eye.

If the saleshuman who served me thought the ready-to-rumble costume I wore into
the shop was even the least bit bizarre, she hid it well -particularly when I
took out the largish stash of cash I kept hidden in its sanctum in the left cup
of my golden bra. I'd sold some gold and jewels after the last time I saw you,
and I was going to need the folding money. My stepmother Pammy's gold card,