"Gene Wolfe - The man in the Pepper Mill" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wolfe Gene)

feet) at least twice his size.

If Cathy saw him, she would probably pick him up, he decided, and if she did not like him she might throw
him down. But Cathy seemed to have gone someplace else.

Boldly, he walked to the edge and looked about him at the dim vastness of the kitchen, at the distant
cabinets and far away moon-like whiteness of the stove. Light raced over the kitchen toward him, bathed him
for an instant, and faded, clear butter-yellow light from a dark and almost invisible tower above the sink. As he
wondered at it, he glimpsed a tiny figure, silhouetted as the beam swept toward him again.

"Breakfast," Tippy's mother called, her voice floating through the dining room and the living room, along the
hall and up the stairs. "Breakfast, Tippy."

Tippy brought his book. "Look at this one, Mom. Isn't it cool?" His mother nodded without looking, busy with
cold cereal, milk, and bowls.

"It's got those spikes, but it eats grass and stuff. I could ride on it."

"They're gone, Tippy. They're dead, all of them. As dead as -- never mind. What are you staring at in there?"

"Nothing."

"I thought perhaps you saw a dinosaur in the back yard."
"I was just looking at the thing that grinds up pepper," Tippy said, and added to himself, not now.

"Put down your book and eat your cereal." She set it before him.

"I wanted you to tell me how to say it. Please?"

She deigned to glance at the book. "Stegosaurus. You see a lot of them. I mean there are vitamin tablets and
toys and so forth. Didn't you have a toy one?"

Tippy nodded. "Cathy took it." Obediently, he shut the book and spooned up Captain Crunch.

"You'll get it back eventually. I don't want you going into her room now. Do you understand?"

He nodded.

"Not to get back a toy, and not for any other purpose at all."

"Okay."

"Have you decided what you want for your birthday?"

"I think so. Can I go in the kitchen a minute?"

"No. Eat your breakfast."

"If I don't touch anything?"