"Kate Wilhelm - Funeral" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wilhelm Kate)

Carla wrote: "Why did he scare me so much? Why have I never seen a Male before? Why does
everyone else wear colors while the girls and the Teachers wear black and grey?"

She drew a wavering line figure of a man, and stared at it, and then Xed it out. Then she looked at the
sheet of paper with dismay. Now she had four ruined sheets of paper to dispose of.

Had she angered him by staring? Nervously she tapped on the paper and tried to remember what his
face had been like. Had he been frowning? She couldn't remember. Why couldn't she think of anything
to write for Madam Trudeau? She bit the end of the pen and then wrote slowly, very carefully: "Society
may dispose of its property as it chooses, following discussion with at least three members, and
following permission which is not to be arbitrarily denied."

Had Madam Westfall ever said that? She didn't know, but she had to write something, and that was the
sort of thing that Madam Westfall had quoted at great length. She threw herself down on the cot and
stared at the ceiling. For three days she had kept hearing the Madam's dead voice, but now when she
needed to hear her again, nothing.

Sitting in the straight chair, alert for any change in the position of the ancient one, watchful, afraid of the
old Teacher. Cramped, tired and sleepy. Half listening to mutterings, murmurings of exhaled and inhaled
breaths that sounded like words that made no sense.. Mama said hide child, hide don't move and Stevie
wanted a razor for his birthday and Mama said you're too young, you're only nine and he said no Mama
I'm thirteen don't you remember and Mama said hide child hide don't move at all and they came in hating
pretty faces..

Carla sat up and picked up the pen again, then stopped. When she heard the words, they were so clear
in her head, but as soon as they ended, they faded away. She wrote: "hating pretty faces. hide child. only
nine." She stared at the words and drew a line through them.

Pretty faces. Madam Westfall had called her pretty, pretty.

├║├║├║├║├║

The chimes for social hour were repeated three times and finally Carla opened the door of her cubicle
and took a step into the anteroom, where the other protтАЪgтАЪes already had gathered. There were five.
Carla didn't know any of them, but she had seen all of them from time to time in and around the school
grounds. Madam Trudeau was sitting on a high-backed chair that was covered with black. She blended
into it, so that only her hands and her face seemed apart from the chair, dead-white hands and face.
Carla bowed to her and stood uncertainly at her own door.

"Come in, Carla. It is social hour. Relax. This is Wanda, Louise, Stephanie, Mary, Dorothy." Each girl
inclined her head slightly as her name was mentioned. Carla couldn't tell afterward which name went with
which girl. Two of them wore the black-striped overskirt that meant they were in the Teachers'
Academy. The other three still wore the grey of the lower school, as did Carla, with black bordering the
hems.

"Carla doesn't want to be a Teacher," Madam Trudeau said dryly. "She prefers the paint box of a
Lady." She smiled with her mouth only. One of the academy girls laughed. "Carla, you are not the first to
envy the paint box and the bright colors of the Ladies. I have something to show you. Wanda, the film."
The girl who had laughed touched a button on a small table, and on one of the walls a picture was
projected. Carla caught her breath. It was a Lady, all gold and white, gold hair, gold eyelids, filmy white