"Connie Willis - Daisy, in the Sun" - читать интересную книгу автора (Willis Connie)

тАЬYouтАЩre fifteen, Daisy. YouтАЩre a young lady whether you like it or not.тАЭ

Why could she remember things like that and not how they had gotten here and where her mother was
and why it snowed all the time yet was never cold? She hugged the pillow tightly against her and tried,
tried to remember.

It was like pushing against something, something both yielding and unyielding. It was herself, trying to
push her breasts flat against her chest after her mother had told her she was growing up, that she would
need to wear a bra. She had tried to push through to the little girl she had been before, but even though
she pressed them into herself with the flats of her hands, they were still there. A barrier, impossible to get
through.

Daisy clutched at the yielding pillow, her eyes squeezed shut. тАЬGrandma came in,тАЭ she said out loud,
reaching for the one memory she could get to, тАЬGrandma came in and saidтАжтАЭ

She was looking at one of her brotherтАЩs books. She had been holding it, looking at it, one of her
brotherтАЩs books about the sun, and as the door opened he reached out and took it away from her. He
was angryтАФabout the book? Her grandmother came in, looking hot and excited, and he took the book
away from her. Her grandmother said, тАЬThey got the material in. I bought enough for all the windows.тАЭ
She had a sack full of folded cloth, red-and-white gingham. тАЬI bought almost the whole bolt,тАЭ her
grandmother said. She was flushed. тАЬIsnтАЩt it pretty?тАЭ Daisy reached out to touch the thin pretty cloth.
AndтАж Daisy clutched at the pillow, wrinkling the ruffled edge. She had reached out to touch the thin
pretty cloth and thenтАж

It was no use. She could not get any further. She had never been able to get any further. Sometimes she
sat on her bed for days. Sometimes she started at the end and worked back through the memory and it
was still the same. She could not remember any more on either side. Only the book and her grandmother
coming in and reaching out her hand.

Daisy opened her eyes. She put the pillow back on the bed and uncrossed her legs and took a deep
breath. She was going to have to ask the others. There was nothing else to do.

She stood a minute by the door before she opened it, wondering which of the places it would be. It was
her motherтАЩs living room, the walls a cool blue and the windows covered with Venetian blinds. Her
brother sat on the gray-blue carpet reading. Her grandmother had taken down one of the blinds. She was
measuring the tall window. Outside the snow fell.

The strangers moved up and down on the blue carpet. Sometimes Daisy thought she recognized them,
that they were friends of her parents or people she had seen at school, but she could not be sure. They
did not speak to each other in their endless, patient wanderings. They did not even seem to see each
other. Sometimes, passing down the long aisle of the train or circling her grandmotherтАЩs kitchen or pacing
the blue living room, they bumped into each other. They did not stop and say excuse me. They bumped
into each other as if they did not know they did it, and moved on. They collided without sound or feeling,
and each time they did, they seemed less and less like people Daisy knew and more and more like
strangers. She looked at them anxiously, trying to recognize them so she could ask them.

The young man had come in from outside. Daisy was sure of it, though there was no draft of cold air to
convince her, no snow for the young man to shrug from his hair and shoulders. He moved with easy
direction through the others, and they looked up at him as he passed. He sat down on the blue couch and
smiled at DaisyтАЩs brother. Her brother looked up from his book and smiled back. He has come in from