"Zenna Henderson - No different flesh" - читать интересную книгу автора (Henderson Zenna)

She turned wearily back toward the bunk. And gasping, stumbled forward.
Lala was hovering in the air over the strange man like a flannelled angel over
a tombstoned crusader. She was peering down, her bare feet flipping up as she
lowered her head toward him. Meris clenched her hands and made herself keep
back out of the way.
"Muhlala!" whispered Lala, softly. Then louder, "Muhlala!" Then she wailed,
"Muhlala!'" and thumped herself down on the quiet, sleeping chest.
"Well," said Meris aloud to herself as she collapsed on the edge of the bunk.
"There seems to be no doubt about it!" She watched-a little enviously-the
rapturous reunion, and listened-more than a little curiously-to the flood of
strange-sounding double conversation going on without perceptible pauses.
Smiling, she brought tissues for the man to mop his face after Lala's
multitude of very moist kisses. The man was sitting up now, holding Lala
closely to him. He smiled at Meris and then down at Lala. Lala looked at
Meris and then patted the man's chest.
"Muhlala," she said happily, "muhlala!" and burrowed her head against him.
Meris laughed. "No wonder you thought it funny when I called you muhlala,"
she said. "l wonder what Lala means."
"It means 'daddy,'" said the man. "She is quite excited about being called
daddy."
Meris swallowed her surprise. "Then you do have English," she said.
"A little," said the man. "As you give it to me. Oh, I am Johannan." He
sagged then, and said something un-English to Lala. She protested, but even
protesting, lifted herself out of his arms and back to the bunk, after
planting a last smacking kiss on his right ear. The man wiped the kiss away
and held his drooping head between his hands.
"I don't wonder," said Meris, going to the medicine shelf.
"Aspirin for your headache." She shook two tablets into his hand and gave him
a glass of water. He looked bewilderedly from one hand to the other.
"Oh dear," said Meris. "Oh well, I can use one myself," and she took an
aspirin and a glass of water and showed him how to dispose of them. The man
smiled and gulped the tablets down. He let Meris take the glass, slid flat on
the cot, and was breathing asleep before Meris could put the glass in the
sink.
"Well!" she said to Lala and stood her, curly-toed, on the cold floor and
straightened the bedclothes. "Imagine a grown-up not knowing what to do
with an aspirin! And now," she plumped Lala into the freshly made bed, "now,
my Daddy-girl, shall we try that instant sleep bit?"

The next afternoon, Meris and Lala lounged in the thin warm sunshine near the
creek with Johannan. In the piny, water-loud clearing, empty of
unnecessary conversation, Johannan drowsed and Lala alternately bandaged her
doll and unbandaged it until all the stickum was off the tape. Merle watched
her with that sharp awareness that comes so often before an unwished-for
parting from one you love. Then, with an almost audible click, afternoon
became evening and the shadows were suddenly long. Mark came out of the cabin,
stretching his desk-kinked self widely, then walking his own long shadow down
to the creek bank.
"Almost through," he said to Meris as he folded himself to the ground beside
her. "By the end of the week, barring fire, flood, and the cussedness of man,