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

light from the Moon to the Earth and sit by Jamie's side. She was a pale woman, slightly
translucent, with a silver crescent on her brow. She would stroke Jamie's forehead with a cool
hand, and she would sing to him until his eyes grew heavy and slumber stole upon him.
The birds have tucked their heads
The night is dark and deep
All is quiet, all is safe,
And little Jamie goes to sleep.

Whenever Jamie woke during the night, Selena was there to comfort him. He was glad that
Selena always watched out for him, because sometimes he still had nightmares about being in the
hospital. When the nightmares came, she was always there to comfort him, stroke him, sing him back
to sleep.
Before long the nightmares began to fade.



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Princess Gigunda always took Jamie for lessons. She was a huge woman, taller than Daddy, with
frowzy hair and big bare feet and a crown that could never be made to sit straight on her head.
She was homely, with a mournful face that was ugly and endearing at the same time. As she shuffled
along with Jamie to his lessons, Princess Gigunda complained about the way her feet hurt, and
about how she was a giant and unattractive, and how she would never be married.
"I'll marry you when I get bigger," Jamie said loyally, and the Princess's homely face
screwed up into an expression of beaming pleasure.
Jamie had different lessons with different people. Mrs. Winkle, down at the little red brick
schoolhouse, taught him his ABCs. Coach Toad-- who was one-- taught him field games, where he
raced and jumped and threw against various people and animals. Mr. McGillicuddy, a pleasant
whiskered fat man who wore red sleepers with a trapdoor in back, showed him his magic globe. When
Jamie put his finger anywhere on the globe, trumpets began to sound, and he could see what was
happening where he was pointing, and Mr. McGillicuddy would take him on a tour and show him
interesting things. Buildings, statues, pictures, parks, people. "This is Nome," he would say.
"Can you say Nome?"
"Nome," Jamie would repeat, shaping his mouth around the unfamiliar word, and Mr.
McGillicuddy would smile and bob his head and look pleased.
If Jamie did well on his lessons, he got extra time with the Whirlikins, or at the Zoo, or
with Mr. Fuzzy or in Pandaland. Until the dinner bell rang, and it was time to go home.
Jamie did well with his lessons almost every day.
When Princess Gigunda took him home from his lessons, Mister Jeepers would fly from the
ridgepole to meet him, and tell him that his family was ready to see him. And then Momma and Daddy
and Becky would wave from the windows of the house, and he would run to meet them.
Once, when he was in the living room telling his family about his latest trip through Mr.
McGillicuddy's magic globe, he began skipping about with enthusiasm, and waving his arms like a
Whirlikin, and suddenly he noticed that no one else was paying attention. That Momma and Daddy and
Becky were staring at something else, their faces frozen in different attitudes of polite
attention.