"Nina Kiriki Hoffman - But Now Am Found" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hoffman Nina Kiriki)

NINA KIRIKI HOFFMAN

BUT NOW AM FOUND

Overnight, the population of the city doubled. But nobody new moved in.

When Iris woke, there were two other people in her bed, and she'd gone to
sleep
alone. She felt hot, sweaty, crowded, and alarmed; waking with someone next to
her was not something she was used to, even in the still-unfamiliar svelte
shape
she'd worked so hard to achieve and maintain. She still didn't believe anyone
could look at her first thing in the morning and feel friendly toward her, so
she usually kept people from spending the night.

The blackout curtains she used because daylight disturbed her sleep were doing
their job; the only light in the room came from her digital clock's red
numbers.
The clock hadn't alarmed; it was only 6 A.M., and she wouldn't have to get
ready
for work for half an hour yet. The warmth of other bodies had wakened her. She
didn't know what to be afraid of yet: procrastinating team rapists? Tired
thieves lying down on the job? Or Timothy, her new boyfriend, who had a key to
the apartment and had never used it? Would he bring a friend? In a state of
suspended fear and acute discomfort, she sat up and reached across one body
for
the switch of the lamp on the bedside table.

Yellow light touched the pink quilt, which was humped in three places: a big
hump between her and the light, her own legs, and a smaller hump on her right.
There were two fuzzy heads on the pillows, one to either side of her, faces
down
so all she saw was messy hair the mousebrown color of her own. Her sisters?
But
she only had one sister, a redhead. She touched the head of the bigger lump,
and
it turned over and she saw her own face, sleepy and broad, fat-cheeked,
smiling
as it had never smiled in a mirror in all the years she had worn it. Its
narrow
eyes opened, glinting green at her. "Hi," said the voice of her answering
machine's message. "We came home."

"What?"

The little lump stirred now, rolled over, stuck skinny arms up to stretch. It,
too, wore her face, only smaller. Not younger. Herself in miniature, and
gaunt,
thinner than she had ever been; she had spent her childhood as a dumpling,
going