"Jody Lynn Nye - What, And Give Up Show Business" - читать интересную книгу автора (Nye Jody Lynn)

What? And Give Up Show Business?

Jody Lynn Nye is perhaps best known for her popular collaborations with Anne McCaffrey (The Death of
Sleep, Treaty on Doona, etc.) and her guide to McCaffrey s world of Pern called, appropriately. The
Dragonlover's Guide to Pern. On her own, she's the author of one contemporary fantasy series
(Mythology 101 ami Mythology Abroad) ami one science fiction series (Taylor's Ark and Medicine
Show), as well as a number of short stories.


WHAT? AND GIVE UP SHOW
BUSINESS?
BY JODY LYNN NYE
"Hey, kids, come on in!" Ben Barber called out the oversized door of his sideshow booth. He waved a
friendly arm to the passersby. The children and adults shyly sidled in past the sign that said "World's
Fattest Man" and stood looking around at the room, their eyes wide.

All the furnishings looked gigantic, but it was really an optical illusion for the paying public. The stuff
nearest the door was oversized, but if any of them got close enough to Ben to notice, the chair where he
sat enthroned, wearing his bright red suit and yellow necktie, was built to an exaggeratedly small scale to
display him as much bigger than he really was. He stood six foot three, but barely tipped the scales at
450.

A couple of teenage girls glanced up at him, and he winked. They giggled and blushed.

"Nice to see you ladies," he said. "Are you enjoying the show?"

"Oh, yes," one of them gasped out. Still tittering, the pair made their way around his "apartment" tableau,
gawking at the oversized television, a pair of enormous boxer shorts big enough for Ben and a sumo
wrestler to share, and the giant layer cake under a dome on the table. It wasn't edible, of course, being
made of a kind of shiny plastic that looked like buttercream. They picked up the huge fork and spoon that
lay on either side of the pizza-pan-sized plate set in front of the single, heavily reinforced chair. Ben
glanced around at his other guests.

Maybe being a sideshow attraction wasn't the most glamorous job in show business, Ben admitted to
himself as he dug a hand into the garbage-can-sized container of peanuts at the side of his chair and
pulled up a fistful of nuts, but it was show business. One of the little boys stared at Ben's peanut canister.
Ben offered him a nut, but the child turned his gaze at the fat man's stomach and shook his head.

"You're so big!" the boy said.


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 What? And Give Up Show Business?

"One peanut never did all this, kid," Ben said, cracking the shell in his teeth. "Hey, thank you all for
stopping by," he called to the people who'd finished their look around. "Come again soon."

They smiled back at him. In the next booth, Fatima the snake charmer, real name Ellen Miller, played
with six soporific pythons and a boa constrictor. Act One naturally gave way to Act Two, but Ben hated
to see his audience go. He waved as they left.