"Kristine Kathryn Rusch - Nutball Season" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rusch Kristine Kathryn)

He looked at me like it was sixth grade again and he was Sister Mary Catherine trying to explain
Algebra.

"You simply do not understand," he said. "I cannot stay out of town. I must come, and I must arrive on
that night. I cannot change that. Too many children will be disappointed."

"Listen, bub," I said. "I know it's Christmas and all, but you know, kids really can't tell time. They won't
notice if Santa arrives on Christmas Eve or the day after."

"They'll notice," he said in that precise way of his. It was his manner of speaking that really got me to look
at him. He didn't sound like he was from around here.

I know, I know, I don't exactly sound Upstate either, but you can tell I do belong in New York. This guy
sounded kinda English, but kinda like Katharine Hepburn, too. You know. Cultured.

And the voice didn't quite suit him, neither. I mean how do you expect a guy dressed like Santa to
sound? Me, I'd think all deep-voiced and jolly. But no one'd think jolly about this guy. They wouldn't
even think fat. This guy was big, but he was all muscle. His eyes weren't twinkling. They were that hard
steel gray that some beat cops get after too many long days. And his beard wasn't snowy white. It was a
yellowish silver, the yellow probably being tobacco stains from the pipe clenched tightly in his thin mouth.

"Take it from me," I said to him, "when I was a kid, there was this guy next door who worked for
PhilcoFord. This was in the days when companies really cared about their workers, you know? And this
guy's kid, he was my age. The company Santa drops by every year, not just to this guy's house, but to
ours, too, and he always come on a Sunday, but I don't really notice, you knowтАФ"

"Not until thirteen-year-old Michael Trent pointed it out to you. I know," the geezer said. "He got coal in
his stocking that year."

The hair on the back of my neck stood out. The moment was a bit too Miracle on 34 th Street for me.
Now, there coulda been a thousand explanations for him knowing thatтАФI mean, I told that story a
hundred timesтАФbut how he knew he'd get me that night, I couldn't figure.

I decided to ignore the geezer's last comment.

"Anyway," I said. "The point isтАФ"

"That the children don't notice, but they do. They have an internal sense of what's right and what's not,
particularly when it comes to Christmas. And that's at the heart of my dilemma."

"How's that?" I ask.

"She has a child. A boy of three. He's a good boy, too, and doesn't ask for much. Her neighbors'
children have all grown, and they visit their grandchildren on the holidays, so her son is the only child on
the block. Logic dictates that I skip the house, but I simply cannot. In the centuries that I have been doing
this workтАФ"

Those hairs rose again. I was gonna have to get them trimmed.

"тАФI haven't skipped a single child. At least, not a single child who met the criteria."