"Mickey Zucker Reichert - Who Killed Humpty Dumpty" - читать интересную книгу автора (Reichert Mickey Zucker)

father.
"They said he was too scrambled."
"Beaten."
"Fate played him a cruel yolk."
Not to be left out, Alice added a pun of her own. "At least it brought him out of his shell."
Angry stares met this proclamation. Hum's tone went as icy as the house, and he spoke directly to
his brother as if Alice no longer existed. "Spiteful, isn't she?"
"I bet she is the one who did it."
"Did what?" Alice enquired, hating to be left out of anything.
But the egg brothers did not answer, only looked sadly at one another. "Come with us," Dum finally
said. He leapt for Alice's hand mirror with a suddenness that made her drop the candle and nearly the
mirror as well. She cringed, expecting him to shatter himself on the surface, but he passed right on
through it. The candle's wick fizzled out, trailing a thin plume of smoke.
"Go on," Hum said.
Alice looked at the mirror. Her face reflected back, a perfect opposite.
"You are a slow little girl," Hum remarked. "Hurry up, now. Go on through."
Alice was not sure she could go through the mirror, even if she wanted to do so. (She had had such
fun the last time she entered the Looking-Glass, but she had met some very strange creatures, too.) She
touched the mirror with a finger, and it had the same smooth feel as always.
"Go on through. Go on through," Hum badgered her.
Alice pushed harder, but it was no use. The mirror remained too solid for her to enter it. "I can't,"
she lamented, just as Dum reappeared from the egg crate.
"I said to come along."
"I can't," Alice repeated.
"Well, certainly not with that attitude," Hum said.
"Here, eat this." Dum handed Alice a wedge of cheese.
Dutifully, Alice nibbled at it, recalling how foods had altered her size the day she fell down the
Rabbit's hole.
"Delicious, isn't it?" Dum asked.
"Yes," Alice agreed as she waited for the world to grow around her. But nothing changed.
"Go through. Go through," Hum said, shoving at Alice's shoe, a wasted motion as he was so much
smaller she scarcely noticed.
Alice tried again, still without success. "Why aren't I changing?"
"I don't know," Dum replied. "Do you usually?"
"Not from moment to moment," Alice admitted. "But I do grow over time."
"Well don't be growing here," Dum shot back. "That certainly isn't going to help."
Alice stared at the second egg brother, who seemed less intelligent but not nearly so nasty. "I
thought that cheese might help me go through."
"Does cheese usually make you go through things?" Dum stared back at Alice, and Hum shook his
head as if he found her too silly for comment.
"No," Alice said.
"But you have to admit, it was delicious," Dum finished.
"I don't have to admit anything." The cold had begun to make Alice irritable, and the odd
conversation was not helping her mood.
"Contrariwise," said Dum, "not admitting something doesn't make it any less so."
"Come on." Hum jumped onto a box and placed one tiny hand on Alice's huge fingers. Dum
followed, pinching the thumb of her other hand into his gloved palm.

The icehouse disappeared around Alice, replaced by a room filled with creatures of myriad shapes
and sizes. Some were animals, some cards, and some chess pieces. Either she had grown smaller or