"James Patrick Kelly - Itsy Bitsy Spider" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kelly James Patrick)

side and so I had chosen her. She never did stop trying to talk me into finding him again, even though
after a while it only made me mad at her. For the past few years, she'd been warning me that I'd
developed a warped view of men.
But she was a smart woman, my momтАФa winner. Sure, she'd had troubles, but she'd founded three
companies, was a millionaire by twenty-five. I missed her.
A lock clicked and the door opened. Standing in the dim interior was a little girl in a gold-and-white
checked dress. Her dark, curly hair was tied in a ribbon. She was wearing white ankle socks and black
Mary Jane shoes that were so shiny they had to be plastic. There was a Band-Aid on her left knee.
"Hello, Jen. I was hoping you'd really come." Her voice surprised me. It was resonant, impossibly
mature. At first glance I'd guessed she was three, maybe four; I'm not much good at guessing kids' ages.
Now I realized that this must be a botтАФa made person.
"You look just like I thought you would." She smiled, stood on tiptoe and raised a delicate little hand
over her head. I had to bend to shake it. The hand was warm, slightly moist, and very realistic. She had
to belong to Strawberry Fields; there was no way my father could afford a bot with skin this real.
"Please come in." She waved on the lights. "We're so happy you're here." The door closed behind
me.
The playroom took up almost half of the little house. Against one wall was a miniature kitchen. Toy
dishes were drying in a rack next to the sink; the pink refrigerator barely came up to my waist. The table
was full-sized; it had two normal chairs and a booster chair. Opposite this was a bed with a ruffled
Pumpkin Patty bedspread. About a dozen dolls and stuffed animals were arranged along the far edge of
the mattress. I recognized most of them: Pooh, Mr. Moon, Baby Rollypolly, the Sleepums, Big Bird. And
the wallpaper was familiar too: Oz figures like Toto and the Wizard and the Cowardly Lion on a field of
Munchkin blue.
"We had to make a few changes," said the bot. "Do you like it?"
The room seemed to tilt then. I took a small, unsteady step and everything righted itself. My dolls,
my wallpaper, the chest of drawers from Grandma Fanelli's cottage in Hyannis. I stared at the bot and
recognized her for the first time.
She was me.
"What is this," I said, "some kind of sick joke?" I felt like I'd just been slapped in the face.
"Is something wrong?" the bot said. "Tell me. Maybe we can fix it."
I swiped at her and she danced out of reach. I don't know what I would have done if I had caught
her. Maybe smashed her through the picture window onto the patch of front lawn or shaken her until
pieces started falling off. But the bot wasn't responsible, my father was. Mom would never have
defended him if she'd known about this. The old bastard. I couldn't believe it. Here I was, shuddering
with anger, after years of feeling nothing for him.
There was an interior door just beyond some shelves filled with old-fashioned paper books. I didn't
take time to look as I went past, but I knew that Dr. Seuss and A.A. Milne and L. Frank Baum would
be on those shelves. The door had no knob.
"Open up," I shouted. It ignored me, so I kicked it. "Hey!"
"Jennifer." The bot tugged at the back of my jacket. "I must ask you..."
"You can't have me!" I pressed my ear to the door. Silence. "I'm not this thing you made." I kicked it
again. "You hear?"
Suddenly an announcer was shouting in the next room. "... Into the post to Russell, who kicks it
out to Havlicek all alone at the top of the key, he shoots... and Baylor with the strong rebound."
The asshole was trying to drown me out.
"If you don't come away from that door right now," said the bot, "I'm calling security."
"What are they going to do?" I said. "I'm the long-lost daughter, here for a visit. And who the hell
are you, anyway?"
"I'm bonded to him, Jen. Your father is no longer com-petent to handle his own affairs. I'm his legal
guardian."