"John Varley - Pusher" - читать интересную книгу автора (Varley John)

He inserted um's and uh-huh's in the right places.
She was cute, there was no denying it. She seemed as sweet as a child that age ever gets,
which can be very sweet and as poisonous as a rattlesnake, almost at the same moment. She had the
capacity to be warm, but it was on the surface. Underneath, she cared mostly about herself. Her
loyalty would be a transitory thing, bestowed easily, just as easily forgotten.
And why not? She was young. It was perfectly healthy for her to be that way.
But did he dare try to touch her?
It was crazy. It was as insane as they all told him it was. It worked so seldom. Why would
it work with her? He felt a weight of defeat.
"Are you okay?"
"Huh? Me? Oh, sure, I'm all right. Isn't your mother going to be worried about you?"
"I don't have to be in for hours, and hours yet." For a moment she looked so grown-up he
almost believed the lie.
"Well, I'm getting tired of sitting here. And the candy's all gone." He looked at her
face. Most of the chocolate had
ended up in a big circle around her mouth, except where she had wiped it daintily on her shoulder
or forearm. "What's back there?"
She turned.
"That? That's the swimming hole."
"Why don't we go over there? I'll tell you a story."

The promise of a story was not enough to keep her out of the water. He didn't know if that was
good or bad. He knew she was smart, a reader, and she had an imagination. But she was also active.
That pull was too strong for him. He sat far from the water, under some bushes, and watched her
swim with the three other children still in the park this late in the evening.
Maybe she would come back to him, and maybe she wouldn't. It wouldn't change his life
either way, but it might change hers.
She emerged dripping and infinitely cleaner from the murky water. She dressed again in her
random scraps, for whatever good it did her, and came to him, shivering.
"I'm cold," she said.
"Here." He took off his jacket. She looked at his hands as he wrapped it around her, and
she reached out and touched the hardness of his shoulder.
"You sure must be strong," she commented.
"Pretty strong. I work hard, being a pusher."
"Just what is a pusher?" she said, and stifled a yawn.
"Come sit on my lap, and I'll tell you."

He did tell her, and it was a very good story that no adventurous child could resist. He had
practiced that story, refined it, told it many times into a recorder until he had the rhythms and
cadences just right, until he found just the right words not too difficult words, but words with
some fire and juice in them.
And once more he grew encouraged. She had been tired when he started, but he gradually
caught her attention. It was

possible no one had ever told her a story in quite that way. She was used to sitting before the
screen and having a story shoved into her eyes and ears. It was something new to be able to


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