"Pat Murphy - Iris versus the Black Knight" - читать интересную книгу автора (Murphy Pat)

the traffic light flashed steel-gray, dove gray, and black. No colors anywhere. But no one else seemed to
notice anything was wrong.

The bell rang just after they got to the school, and Iris hurried to class and sat at her desk. The class said
good morning to Mrs. Dixon, their teacher, and saluted the flag (black, white, and gray).

For the past month, the class had been studying the ancient Greeks. They had spent the previous week
building a somewhat angular model of the Parthenon from sugar cubes. That morning, each student had to
stand in front of the class and do a report about a Greek god or goddess.
Iris had worked hard on her report. She had wanted to find just the right goddess to talk about. She had spent
long hours searching the shelves of the library until, in the grownup section where third-graders were not
supposed to venture, she found a battered book that had what she was looking for.

When her turn came, she said: "My report is on Iris, the goddess of the rainbow." She held up the portrait of
the goddess that she had painstakingly executed in crayon. Yesterday, the robes that billowed around the
goddess had been brilliant blue; today, they were shades of gray. The goddess's flowing golden hair was now
grizzled; the rainbow on which she stood was striped with gray and black.

"Iris was the messenger of the gods," Iris said. "When some god wanted to send a message to Earth, they'd
send Iris and she would follow the rainbow down to the ground. She had blue robes and golden hair. One
time, Hera sent her down to the Underworld. . . . "

"Iris!" the teacher interrupted sternly, "I think you should stop there. You're talking nonsense. What's that
word you used: 'rainbow'? There's no such word. And that funny sound -- 'bloo.' What's that supposed to
mean?"

Iris looked at Mrs. Dixon, startled. In a room of gray things, her teacher was the grayest. Her hair was the
color of cement; her dress matched the playground blacktop -- it seemed to soak up all light, leaving her
standing in a gray haze.

"I think it's clear that you've just decided to make up stories," the teacher said. "I don't remember a Greek
goddess named Iris."

"I . . . I found her in a book," Iris stammered. She was ready to describe the dusty dog-eared volume that had
pictured the goddess running down the rainbow. "She was Hera's messenger and sister to the Harpies. She .
..."

"I think it's time for you to sit down, Iris," the teacher said in her stone gray voice.

Iris sat down, stunned and silent. There was no arguing with that voice, even when you knew that you were
telling the truth and you could find the book in the library. Then Cynthia, a sweet-faced girl whose hands were
always very clean, presented a report on Athena, the goddess of wisdom whose symbol was the owl.

Iris sat at her desk, staring at her picture of the goddess Iris and wishing that the Harpies would come and rip
Mrs. Dixon's entrails out. Or maybe Perseus, carrying the head of the Medusa in his bag. He'd whip out the
head and turn Mrs. Dixon to stone on the spot. That would serve her right. Iris sat quietly at her desk,
thinking bitter thoughts and waiting for recess.

At recess, Iris pushed her way out with the other kids, staying in a crowd so that Mrs. Dixon couldn't call her
over and make her stop. "Hey, Goddess Iris, watch where you're going," said Cynthia when Iris pushed past.