"Walter Jon Williams - Daddy's World" - читать интересную книгу автора (Williams Walter John)

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Daddy's World
by Walter Jon Williams


One day Jamie went with his family to a new place, a place that had not existed before. The
people who lived there were called Whirlikins, who were tall thin people with pointed heads. They
had long arms and made frantic gestures when they talked, and when they grew excited threw their
arms out wide to either side and spun like tops until they got all blurry. They would whirr madly
over the green grass beneath the pumpkin-orange sky of the Whirlikin country, and sometimes they
would bump into each other with an alarming clashing noise, but they were never hurt, only bounced
off and spun away in another direction.
Sometimes one of them would spin so hard that he would dig himself right into the ground, and
come to a sudden stop, buried to the shoulders, with an expression of alarmed dismay.
Jamie had never seen anything so funny. He laughed and laughed.
His little sister Becky laughed, too. Once she laughed so hard that she fell over onto her
stomach, and Daddy picked her up and whirled her through the air, as if he were a Whirlikin
himself, and they were both laughing all the while.
Afterwards, they heard the dinner bell, and Daddy said it was time to go home. After they
waved goodbye to the Whirlikins, Becky and Jamie walked hand-in-hand with Momma as they walked
over the grassy hills toward home, and the pumpkin-orange sky slowly turned to blue.
The way home ran past El Castillo. El Castillo looked like a fabulous place, a castle with
towers and domes and minarets, all gleaming in the sun. Music floated down from El Castillo, the
swift, intricate music of many guitars, and Jamie could hear the fast click of heels and the
shouts and laughter of happy people.
But Jamie did not try to enter El Castillo. He had tried before, and discovered that El
Castillo was guarded by La Duchesa, an angular forbidding woman all in black, with a tall comb in
her hair. When Jamie asked to come inside, La Duchesa had looked down at him and said, "I do not
admit anyone who does not know Spanish irregular verbs!" It was all she ever said.
Jamie had asked Daddy what a Spanish irregular verb was-- he had difficulty pronouncing the
words-- and Daddy had said, "Some day you'll learn, and La Duchesa will let you into her castle.
But right now you're too young to learn Spanish."
That was all right with Jamie. There were plenty of things to do without going into El
Castillo. And new places, like the country where the Whirlikins lived, appeared sometimes out of
nowhere, and were quite enough to explore.
The color of the sky faded from orange to blue. Fluffy white clouds coasted in the air above
the two-storey frame house. Mister Jeepers, who was sitting on the ridgepole, gave a cry of
delight and soared toward them through the air.
"Jamie's home!" he sang happily. "Jamie's home, and he's brought his beautiful sister!"
Mister Jeepers was diamond-shaped, like a kite, with his head at the topmost corner, hands on
either sides, and little bowlegged comical legs attached on the bottom. He was bright red. Like a
kite, he could fly, and he swooped through in a series of aerial cartwheels as he sailed toward
Jamie and his party.
Becky looked up at Mister Jeepers and laughed from pure joy. "Jamie," she said, "you live in
the best place in the world!"

****

At night, when Jamie lay in bed with his stuffed giraffe, Selena would ride a beam of pale