"Patricia A. McKillip - Naming Day" - читать интересную книгу автора (McKillip Patricia A)

тАЬNicholaus!тАЭ Averil cried, hurrying toward them. тАЬTamara!тАЭ

Neither of them turned. They greeted one another, and then Deirdre
caught up with them, red hair flying. They chattered excitedly, finally turn-ing
to survey the street where surely they would see, they must see Averil
running toward them, yelling and waving her arms.

Their faces grew puzzled. A bell tolled once, reverberations
overlapping with exaggerated slowness. It was the warning bell; those
outside the gates at First Bell would be locked out. The three moved again,
quickly. In the distance, Averil could see Griffith, just within the gates,
waiting for them, for her.

However fast she followed, they were always faster. As though, she
thought, breathlessly sprinting, they were always in the next moment, a
slightly different beat in time; she could never quite catch up. She stopped
finally with a despairing cry as her friends passed through the gates; they
seemed farther away than ever. They spoke to Griffith; he shrugged a little,
then pointed toward a high window, where their first class would begin.
Maybe AverilтАЩs there, his gesture said. First Bell tolled three times. The
gates began to close. As the last students jostled inside, Averil noticed one
face still peering through the bars, searching the streets. Fitch, she
recog-nized glumly. And then even he turned away, went up the broad
stone steps into the school.

Behind her, something crashed. She jumped, then turned in time to
see the greyling balanced on the side of the garbage can it had overturned.
Amid the litter, a cat puffed itself up twice its size and hissed furiously. The
greyling opened its mouth and hissed back. Averil finally saw it clearly: a
grotesque imp with big ears and a body so narrow it seemed all skinny
limbs and head, like a starfish. It held a stick with a dandelion of light at one
end. A cartoon wand, Averil thought disgustedly. More for the goopy
Tinkerbell fairy than for an evil-tempered, snag-toothed old hag who had
stopped AverilтАЩs world.

The greyling leaped, clearing the spilled garbage and the cat. Averil
moved then, faster than she had ever moved in her life.

The greyling rolled a huge, silvery eye at her as she gained on it,
seem-ing to realize finally that something was after it. It increased its pace,
blow-ing down the sidewalks and alleyways like a tumbleweed. Averil
followed grimly. Nobody else saw it. Other people walked in a tranquil world
where bus brakes and car horns made noises in miniature, and the shrieks
of kids in the school playground sounded like the distant chirping of
well-behaved birds.

Averil pursued the greyling across the park. It skittered up a tree and
made faces at her until she drove it out with some well-placed pinecones. It
led her up one side of the jungle gym and down the other, then
disappeared completely. She found it in the rose garden, with roses stuffed