"James Patrick Kelly - The Best Christmas Ever" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kelly James Patrick)

"And what is that, dear?"
"It's a nine millimeter handgun."

"A handgun, oh my." Aunty Em was so flustered that she ate one of her own cookies, even though she
had extinguished her digestive track for the day. "For shooting? What would you shoot?"

"I don't know." He broke the head off a gingerbread man. "A reindeer. The TV. Maybe one of you."

"Us? Oh, BertieтАФone of us?"

He made a gun out of his thumb and forefinger and aimed. "Maybe just the cat." His thumb came down.

The cat twitched. "Mario," it said and nudged the man's bare foot with its head. "No, Mario."

On the screen the Jolly Green Giant rained peas down on capering elves.




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The man stepped onto the front porch of his house and squinted at the sky, blinking. It was late spring
and the daffodils were nodding in a warm breeze. Aunty Em pulled the sleigh to the bottom of the steps
and honked the horn. It played the first three notes of "Jingle Bells." The man turned to go back into the
house but the girlfriend biop took him by the arm. "Come on now, sweetie," she said and steered him
toward the steps.
The girlfriend had assumed the Donna Reed body the day before, but unlike previous Christmases, the
man had taken no sexual interest in her. She was wearing the severe black dress with the white lace
collar from the last scene of It's A Wonderful Life. The girlfriend looked as worried about the man as
Mary had been about despairing George Bailey. All the biops were worried, thought Aunty Em. They