"Geoff Ryman - Was" - читать интересную книгу автора (Ryman Geoff)

So what happened to little girls with nobody to take care of them? How did
they eat? Would it all be like that trip on the train? The train trip had
seemed to go on forever, but this was even worse.

She was afraid now, deep down scared, and she knew she would stay
horribly, crawlingly scared until dark, into the dark when it would get even
worse, until she tossed and turned herself asleep.

Toto sighed and shivered, waiting out the terror with her.

The dust moved in the sunlight, and the sunlight moved across the wall,
and no one came, and no one came. Time and loneliness and fear crept
forward at the same slow pace.

Then the front door swung open with a sound of sleighbells on a leather
strap, like Christmas. Dorothy looked up. A woman in black stood in the
doorway, carrying a basket.

"Are you the little girl who's waiting for her aunty?" the woman asked.
Dorothy nodded. The woman smiled and came toward her. There was
something terribly wrong.

The woman's arms were too long. The bottom of her rib cage seemed to
stick out in the wrong place, and she walked by throwing her hips from side
to side and letting her tiny legs follow. As she moved, everything was
wrenched and jolted. Dorothy backed away from her, along the bench.

"I brought some chicken with me," said the woman, smiling, eyes bright.
Her face was young and pretty. "My name's Etta, what's yours?" Toto sat up
from the floor, ears forward, but he did not growl.

Dorothy told her in such a low voice that Etta had to ask her again. "And
the dog's name?"

"Same," said Dorothy. Etta sat down on the bench some distance away and
began to unfold a red-checked cloth from the basket. Some of the fear
seemed to go. "He's got the same name as mine."

Etta plucked out apples and cold dumplings and some chicken and passed
them on a plate.

"The same name. How's that?"

"My mama got the two of us on the same day. So I'm called Dorothy and
he's called Toto. That's short for Dorothy." Dorothy had the drumstick.

"Would Toto like some chicken?" Etta asked.

Dorothy nodded yes, with her mouth full. She stared at the wom-an's pretty