"William Tenn - Wednesday's Child" - читать интересную книгу автора (Tenn William)

appendix. And once it's removed, it doesn't grow back."
"Mine does. On the tenth of April, every single year, I get appendicitis and have to have an
operation. That's why I take my vacation then. And my teeth. Every five years, I lose all my teeth. I start
losing them about this time, and I have some dental plates that were made when I was youngerтАФI use
them until my teeth grow back. Then, about the middle of October, the last of them goes and new ones
start coming up. I can't use my dental plates while they're growing, so I look kind of funny for a while.
That's why I ask for a leave of absence. In the middle of November, the new teeth are almost full-grown,
and I come back to work."
She took a deep breath and timidly lifted her eyes to his face. That was all she evi-dently had to say.
Or wished to.
All through dessert, he thought about it. He was positive she was telling the truth. A girl like
Wednesday Gresham didn't lie. Not to such a fantastic extent. Not to her boss.
"Well," he said at last. "It's certainly very unusual."
"Yes," she agreed. "Very unusual."
"Do you have anything else the matter withтАФI mean, are there any other pecu-liaritiesтАФOh, darn!
Is there anything else?"
Wednesday considered. "There are. But, if you don't mind, Mr. Balik, I'd rather notтАФ"
Fabian decided not to take that. "Now see here, Miss Gresham," he said firmly. "Let us not play
games. You didn't have to tell me anything, but you decided, for yourself, for your own good reasons, to
do so. Now I must insist on the whole story, and noth-ing but the whole story. What other physical
difficulties do you have?"
It worked. She cringed a bit in her chair, straightened up again, but a little weakly, and began: "I'm
sorry, Mr. Balik, I wouldn't dream ofтАФof playing games with you. There are lots of other things, but
none of them interfere with my work, really. Like I have some tiny hairs growing on my fingernails. See?"
Fabian glanced at the hand held across the table. A few almost microscopic ten-drils on each
glittering hard surface of fingernail.
"What else?"
"Well, my tongue. I have a few hairs on the underside of my tongue. They don't bother me, though,
they don't bother me in anyway. And there's myтАФmyтАФ"
"Yes?" he prompted. Who could believe that colorless little Wednesday Gresham...
"My navel. I don't have any navel."
 "You don't have anyтАФBut that's impossible!" he exploded. He felt his glasses sliding down his nose.
"Everyone has a navel! Everyone aliveтАФeveryone who's ever been born."
Wednesday nodded, her eyes unnaturally bright and large. "MaybeтАФ" she began, and suddenly,
unexpectedly, broke into tears. She brought her hands up to her face and sobbed through them, great,
pounding, wracking sobs that pulled her shoulders up and down, up and down.
Fabian's consternation made him completely helpless. He'd never, never in his life, been in a
crowded restaurant with a crying girl before.
"Now, Miss GreshamтАФWednesday," he managed to get out, and he was annoyed to hear a high,
skittery note in his own voice. "There's no call for this. Surely, there's no call for this? UhтАФWednesday?"
"Maybe," she gasped again, between sobs, "m-maybe that's the answer."
"What's the answer?" Fabian asked loudly, desperately hoping to distract her into some kind of
conversation.
"AboutтАФabout being born. MaybeтАФmaybe I wasn't born. M-maybe I was m-m-made!"
And then, as if she'd merely been warming up before this, she really went into hysterics. Fabian
Balik at last realized what he had to do. He paid the check, put his arm around the girl's waist and
half-carried her out of the restaurant.
It worked. She got quieter the moment they hit the open air. She leaned against a building, not crying
now, and shook her shoulders in a steadily diminishing cre-scendo. Finally, she ulped once, twice, and
turned groggily to him, her face looking as if it had been rubbed determinedly in an artist's turpentine rag.