"Shanna Swendson - Enchanted, Inc" - читать интересную книгу автора (Swendson Shanna)

might as well have been wearing a big yellow button saying "Hick from Out of
Town! Please Take Advantage of Me!"

Just then the door between cars opened and a giant chicken entered our car. To be
more precise, it was a bored-looking man in a chicken suitтАФand how sad was it that
he was more bored than embarrassed to be wearing that costume in public? I added
to my mental list of jobs that were worse than mine. He shook a little plastic box in
his left hand, and clucking sounds came out of it. I felt a pang of homesickness, for
I used to have one like it on my desk back in Texas. I wouldn't
dare put it on my desk here. It would only reinforce the hick stereotype. At the
clucking sound, everyone looked up, reacted with mild amusement, then immediately
went back to reading or avoiding eye contact. The chicken man then tried to hand
flyers to everyone in the car. I hadn't yet learned the technique for avoiding flyers
that most New Yorkers seem to have honed, so I took one from him. A new
fried-chicken restaurant was opening, which gave me another moment of
homesickness as I remembered family Sunday dinners. I tucked the flyer into my
briefcase.

This incident didn't do much toward helping me understand New Yorkers. Fairy
wings on the subway weren't worth noticing, but a guy in a chicken suit got a slight
reaction. Both outfits involved wings. Why was one humdrum while the other was at
least a little bit amusing? I noticed that Mr. Right had also taken a flyer. He was
smiling and staring at the chicken man, which made me like him even more. Or, it
would have if he didn't seem to be in cahoots with the other two, who were still
looking at me funny. I forgot about the giant chicken as I remembered why I felt ill at
ease.

The train screeched its way to a stop. "City Hall," the conductor said. I wondered if
I should get off now and get away from these people. The walk from there to my
office would make me late for work, but better late than dead or robbed.

But before I could get to my feet, I noticed that the three weirdos were congregating
around the door. I relaxed with a sigh. They were all getting off here, which meant I
was being paranoid about them being out to get me. I still had too many New York
scare stories in my head from my family, and they crept to the surface at awkward
moments, even though I'd never been mugged or even seen a mugging in my whole
time in New York.

Besides, I had plenty to worry about without concocting subway conspiracy
theories. It wasn't like this morning's events were all that extraordinary in my life.
Weird stuff like this always happened to me, or at least, it had ever since I moved to
New York. I was always seeing things that shouldn't be there, like people in fairy
wings or pointed ears, people who appeared to pop in and out of existence, and
things appearing in strange places. I knew it was likely the result of anover-active
imagination and my family's scare stories about New York, but it was almost enough
to worry me. I figured if I still noticed strange things that no one else seemed to find
odd after another six months in the city, I might have to talk to someone about it.

In the meantime, I had to get to work and survive the day. Fortunately, due to the
train's timely arrival and the unexpected express nature of the trip, I was ahead of