"Nina Kiriki Hoffman - Objects of Desire" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hoffman Nina Kiriki)

Objects of Desire
Nina Kiriki Hoffman
Everyone was getting skewlis. I wanted one so much it hurt.
I didn't know about trends. I hated that when three of my friends got black high-top shoes with
light-up lightning bolts on them, I wanted my own pair sooo much. I mean, why should I care? It was like
some chip in my head switched on and said WANT. It kept digging at me until I whined at Mom.
She used to just give me whatever I wanted, but since her job diminishment, she couldn't afford to
do that anymore.
Sometimes she talked to me about worldview, global per-spective, how we were small in something
giant and we had to work with all the other things to get along okay, and when I listened hard enough, I
could shut the WANT chip off.
Sometimes she just said, "Kirby, shut up about it now," but the chip kept sending the WANT
message. It was hard to ignore.
So anyway, people at school started showing up with skewlis. Sort of a cross between a weasel and
a cat: skewlis had round heads with cute pointy ears and big eyes, slinky arms and legs that wrapped
around your arm, and long bodies that bent when your elbow bent. They came in designer colors and
patterns like Blue Razzberry and Circuit-board and Seawave. Smart enough to fetch, open cup-boards
and drawers, learn cute tricks, and accomplish small tasks. Motivated by specially engineered snacks
that kept them willing and docile. Guaranteed by the F.P.A. to not be usable as weapons.
Pretty soon most of my friends and a lot of other kids were walking around with skewlis heads on
one shoulder or the other, skewlis bodies doubling the width of one arm. People looked like mutants.
Honto cool mutants.
The best skewlis brands had tons of max-excellent options. You could computer-blend a color
scheme and the company would build you a skewlis to match. You could pick traits like "makes musical
noises" or "will act as alarm clock." My friend Pati got one that would hold her bookscreen for her while
she read, and press the text-scroll icon when she nodded.
I didn't want a skewlis at first. They were just too weird and creepy.
But after almost everybody I knew got one, I started feeling odd without that extra head on one
shoulder, that widening of one arm, that pair of jewel eyes watching every-thing. I felt deformed.
So when Grandma got me a skewlis for my birthday, I was glad.
My fourteenth birthday party was nothing like my thir-teenth birthday party had been. Between this
year and last year, Mom lost her big job and had to take little ones, so I couldn't have a huge party and
invite tons of friends over.
Mom, Grandma, and I sat around the kitchen table. Mom had managed to get enough meat for us to
have my favorite, beef stew, and Grandma had baked me a small square cake and covered it with
strawberry frosting. Which was a great switch from basic rations. No matter what color or shape they
make base, it all tastes pretty much like cardboard.
After we ate dinner and the cake and said how great it tasted, I opened my two presents: a new pen
with temperature-sensitive skin that changed colors, and a silver shirt with a hologram of my favorite
band on the front. Both of these presents were things I really liked. I throttled the little voice inside that
whined because I didn't get more. I said a lot of thank-yous and hugged my presents and figured that was
it.
Then Grandma brought the carry-cage out from under the table. A faint smell of lemons and incense
came from the cage.
 She set the carry-cage in front of me.
For a second I couldn't breathe. I knew we couldn't afford what I really wanted. Maybe she had
gotten me a kitten. That would be okay. If Mom said it was, anyway. I would need to get extra
after-school jobs so I could buy cat food.
I leaned forward and opened the door of the ribbon-wound carry-cage.
The skewlis emerged slowly. At first I thought it was gray, and I felt a flicker of disappointment. At