"Replica03 - Another Amy - Kaye, Marilyn" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kaye Marilyn)

"Oh, sure," Amy said. "Between the hair and the sneakers, he's pretty colorful."
Eric laughed. "Well, we're both playing Island Treasure. You know, the computer game? He told me he's reached level eight." Eric sounded annoyed. "I'm only at level five, and I've had the game for a month. He only got it last week."
"He must be really smart," Amy commented.
"Not that smart," Eric said. "Personally, I think he's lying."
"Oh." She didn't know what he wanted her to say.
"The thing is . . . ," he began slowly, and then the words came out in a rush. "It would be easy for you to see into the Hurleys' den from the street. That's where Ronald keeps his computer. He uses it every day."
"Possibly," Amy acknowledged.
"I was thinking . . . you could casually stroll by and look when he's playing Island Treasure. See if he really is on level eight. Because if he's not, I could challenge him to a game and everyone would know he's been lying."
Amy was startled. "You want me to spy on Ronald Hurley?"
Eric nodded.
Well, it wasn't exactly illegal. "I guess I could do that," she said, a bit reluctantly.
Eric grinned and squeezed her hand warmly. "That's great!"
"No problem."
But she couldn't help wondering if Eric would have been this happy with her if she hadn't had special powersЧif she'd been just a regular, normal, ordinary twelve-year-old girl.
If she hadn't been a human being whose DNA structure had been artificially engineered. A biological entity created by a group of scientists from the most superior genetic material in the universe.


2

"Tell Tasha to call me when she gets home," Amy told Eric when they reached the condo community where they both lived.
"Okay," he replied. He gave her an abashed grin, and she smiled back, because they both knew it was very likely he'd forget to give Tasha the message. Unlike Amy, Eric didn't have a particularly great memory.
It didn't matter anyway. Amy and Tasha talked on the phone every night, and neither of them needed a reminder to call. Despite seeing each other every day, they always had something new to talk about.
At this very moment, though, Amy wanted to talk to her mother about something she couldn't discuss with Tasha. Nancy Candler was a professor at the university, where she taught biology, but she didn't have any Monday classes this term, so she usually worked at home, grading papers. Today she wasn't alone. Their neighbor, Monica Jackson, was in the kitchen with Nancy, and the two women were drinking coffee when Amy walked in.
"Hi, honey," Nancy greeted her, and Monica added a cheery salute. Amy flopped down at the kitchen table and grabbed a chocolate-chip cookie. After one bite, her eyes widened.
"Wow, Mom, these are outstanding!"
"Don't thank me," Nancy said. "Monica brought them."
Monica amended that. "I didn't just bring them, I made them."
Amy tried not to look too surprised. Monica was hardly the domestic type. She was an artist and often seemed to consider herself a canvas. Her hair was her hobby; it went through periodic color and style changes. It was currently green, and so was her fingernail polish. To accentuate all this green, she was wearing huge chunks of jade jewelry and a long, flowing dress that resembled an Indian sari. Sometimes she could look pretty bizarre, but Amy admired her gutsЧit was clear that she didn't care what anyone else thought of her.
"I used three kinds of chocolate in these cookies," Monica pointed out. "I'm trying to come up with new and exciting chocolate treats."
"Why?" Amy asked.
Monica laughed. "Why else? I'm going out with a chocoholic!"
This was the perfect lead-in to the discussion Amy wanted to have. "So you think this guy will fall madly in love with you if you give him chocolate? I guess that could happen. Don't they say the way to a man's heart is through his stomach?"
"I don't know," Monica said. "Sometimes I think the only way to a man's heart is with a scalpel."
"Now, Monica," Nancy reproved her. "Don't be so cynical. Not all men are scum." She sighed. "Just some of them."
"Like that Brad Carrington you were going out with," Monica said. "You never told me why you two stopped seeing each other. It was just before you got so sick with that mysterious illness, right? The doctors never found out what made you fall into that coma, did they?"
"No."
"Maybe it was Brad that made you so sick," Monica remarked. Amy knew she was kidding, of course, but Monica had no idea how close to the truth she was getting.
"I don't understand guys at all," Amy announced.
"Guys in general?" her mother asked. "Or one guy in particular?" She knew how Amy felt about Eric.
Amy tried to explain. "With my friends, girlfriends I mean, I can usually tell how they're feeling. You know, if they're happy, or angry, or depressed, or whatever. With guys, it's different. I can't figure out how they feel."
She watched as Nancy and Monica gave each other knowing looks. Clearly, she wasn't alone in this.
"I wish I could give you some profound advice," Nancy said. "But I'm not exactly the most experienced woman when it comes to men."
"At least you've been married," Monica pointed out. "That automatically makes you more experienced than I am."
Amy and her mother glanced at each other quickly, and then just as quickly averted their eyes. Amy knew that Nancy had to be thinking what she was thinkingЧthat there was a lot Monica didn't know about them.
Like all their friends and acquaintances, Monica thought that Nancy was a widow who had married a man named Steve Anderson thirteen years earlier, and that he had been killed in an accident just months before their daughter, Amy, was born. That was the standard story Nancy gave out when she had to explain her situation. She even had a photo of this Steve Anderson, a guy she had known vaguely during her college days and who had died at the right time. It was unlikely Monica would ever know that Nancy had never had a husbandЧand that Amy had never had a father.
"Speaking of men," Monica said, rising, "I've got one coming over for dinner, and I'd better get started."
"Cooking?" Nancy asked.
"No," Monica replied. "Deciding what restaurant I'll order a delivery from. Which I will then arrange on my own platters and let him think I've been slaving in the kitchen all day." She noticed the pendant hanging on Amy's neck and touched it. "That's pretty. It's a crescent moon, isn't it?" Monica made very artistic jewelry, and she was always interested in unusual pieces. "It's a nice design. Where did you get it?"
The question startled Amy, and for a moment her mind went blank. Finally she said, "It was a gift."
"From a cousin," her mother added.