"Lawrence Watt - Evans - Something To Grin About" - читать интересную книгу автора (Watt-Evans Lawrence)

The cat's head reappeared.
"I don't think your landlord would notice me, should I prefer that he not do so," the cat said.
"I guess not," she said weakly.
"I don't suppose you'd have such a thing as a piece of liver about?" the cat asked. "I spent a very
long time in that box. I'm hungry." As he spoke, the rest of him abruptly reappeared.
Melody stared at the cat for a moment, then resigned herself to itтАФthe Cheshire Cat was real, it
was here, it was hungry, and it was her responsibility, at least for the moment. "I'll see," she said.
She stumbled to the kitchen and opened the refrigerator, and then, for no reason she was aware of,
glanced up.
The Cheshire Cat was sitting on top of the refrigerator, curled up with its head on its forepaws,
watching her.
Melody screamed.
The cat blinked lazily and continued to stare at her as she caught her breath and, hand on her heart,
tried to calm down; then it grinned.
"Did I startle you?" it asked.
"You scared me half to death!" she said. "I left you back in the living room!"
The cat didn't reply to that, but instead looked down and asked, "Is there any liver?"
"No," Melody said as she rummaged through the refrigerator's drawers and compartments. "There's
some hamburgerтАФwould that do?"
"That would certainly be better than nothing," the cat said. It vanished.
Melody stared at the spot where it had sat for a moment, then turned and cautiously looked around.
The cat was standing on the counter, just under the phone, the tip of its tail brushing the receiver.
That seemed as good a place to feed it as any, Melody decided; she pulled out the tray with its
leftover lump of ground beef, peeled off the plastic wrap, and put it on the counter.
"Thank you," the cat said. Then it began eating.
By the time Melody had closed the refrigerator and turned back, the hamburger was gone.
"Is there any more?" the cat asked wistfully.
"No," Melody said, very definitely. "No, there isn't. And you can't stay here. Even if you can hide
from the landlord. My mother would nag me about wasting money, and Todd would be sneezing all the
timeтАФif he came in at all! If I kept a cat he might not come back!"
"Who's Todd?"
"My boyfriend. Sort of. I mean, he is, but we fight a lot, or sometimes, when he gets mad about
something or I get mad, so he keeps leaving me, but he doesn't really, I mean we don't really break up,
because then he always comes back, sooner or later, after he's over being mad or if he gets mad at his
new girlfriend, if he has one, which he did twice, the rat, and I apologize and promise not to do whatever
it was again, if I can figure out what it was I did. And I make him dinner and we'll be back together until
he gets mad again."
The cat stared at her for a moment, then said, "Would you care to reconstruct that statement so that
it makes sense, or shall I simply accept the intelligible portions as they stand and ignore the rest?"
"Oh, shut up. I don't know why I'm talking to a cat, anyway."
"Perhaps because I'm speaking to you" the cat suggested.
 "Which you have no business doing! Cats can't talk!"
"I can. And I'm quite certain I'm a cat."
"Well, you're not my cat. You can't stay here!"
"And where am I to go, then? Your grandmother sent me here because she believed you had
promised to take care of me when she could no longer do so; it wasn't my idea."
Melody frowned, and looked about helplessly. She could hardly take her grandmother's cat to the
pound; she would have to find it a new home.
"Maybe one of my friends could take you," she said.
The cat considered that.