"Mary A. Turzillo - Mirandas Monster" - читать интересную книгу автора (Turzillo Mary A)

their teacher."

"Oh." Fable took another look, as if she had missed the brand that said ROOKIE
TEACHING ASSISTANT on Miranda's forehead. "Well, get out of the way while I
open
this damn fool door." Fable kicked the lower hinge and, with a powerful twist,
wrenched the door open. "You can't turn your back on it; things get out." She
curtsied ironically, and bounded back downstairs, leaving Miranda to wonder
what
things got out of what.

"My roommate said Fairchild Hall has ghosts," said a dainty girl with a big
nose
and fluffy blonde hair.

Room 203 smelled like paper and erasers. Ancient wooden desks sat in rows,
covered with the patina of half a century of human hands, frat house symbols
gouged in their surfaces. The room was neat, empty, waiting.

The mural was waiting too.

The colors were deep, the lines sweeping the effect garish. Some art student
had
done it, years ago. September morning light from the bank of windows made it
glow like stained glass.

Ebenezer Scrooge and Titania, Queen of Fairies, melodramatically shared .a
spotlight, inches from where the Wife of Bath flirted with a degenerate from
Confessions of an English Opium Eater. Julius Caesar, Brutus's dagger
protruding
jauntily from his toga, slumped at the feet of King Arthur. Milton's Satan
glared at Othello. Gulliver lay tethered by his own hair while Caliban and
David
Copperfield gaped at him.

But Miranda had eyes only for the monster. Grendel. The slathering Beowulf
beast, lurid green with black saliva dripping from his teeth. Hunchbacked.
Eyes
red with fury. Claw-like arms (the artist perhaps influenced by the
tyrannosaurus rex in Fantasia), menacing an Anglo-Saxon warrior. Miranda could
tell the warrior was Anglo-Saxon because of the dragon on his shield.

Miranda quavered, "Students! This is section 101b, and I am Miss Perletier.
Here
is a syllabus --" Herhands trembled as she handed out dittoed sheets. Students
sniffed the still-wet duplicating fluid. "--and a writing assignment for our
first day."

Miranda dropped the assignment sheets. A boy with a peace-sign necklace and
tie-dyed gauze shirt helped her pick them up.