"Timothy Zahn - A Coming of Age" - читать интересную книгу автора (Zahn Timothy)

trailed off.

Surprisingly, the tightness in his face eased and he even smiled. "Oh, noтАФthere's no trouble here.
My nephew and I were just going back to Rand from a day in Barona. The time sort of got away
from us and I have to work tomorrow."

"Oh," Lisa whispered; she hadn't noticed the sleeping child in the passenger seat. "I'm sorryтАФI was
worried that there might be something wrongтАФan emergency or something."

"No, we're fine; but thanks for stopping. If it had been an emergency, I sure would have been
grateful to have your help."

"Oh, that's all right," Lisa said, her face warming again. "I'd better let you get your nephew to bed.
How old is he?"

"Almost five," the man said.

"He looks younger," Lisa commented, studying the boy briefly. A pang of sympathy touched the
back of her throat; smaller than most of his peers, he was going to run into a lot of the same
problems in his hive that she had had in hers.

"His mother was short," the driver said. "Look, we really have to go."

"Oh, sureтАФsorry." Lisa stepped back from the car. With a wave, the driver rolled up his window and
the car again headed down the road.

Lisa watched its taillights disappear around a curve and then, with a sigh, teeked herself into the air
and headed back toward Barona. So much for making a hero of myself, she thought, rotating once as
she flew to get a last look at the glow of headlights. But even as she started to look away the lights
made a sharp turn and disappeared behind a particularly thick patch of the woods.

She'd never noticed a turn quite that sharp in the road, and for a moment wondered if perhaps he'd
lost control and driven into the ditch. But an instant later she saw the glow again, a little further on.
Reassured, she circled back toward the distant slice of pinprick lights that was Barona. With the
excitement over, she turned her mind back to the problem that had driven her out here in the first
place.

She struggled with it for another half hour, and through all the tangle two thoughts gradually seemed
to emerge: one, that to get the edge she desired over her peers she would need to start learning ahead
of time the stuff the school would be teaching; and two, that the first thing on that list was reading.

Reading. Even just bouncing around in her head the word was a little scary. Reading was something
only adults did, like driving cars or making moneyтАФsomething that took a lot of time and hard work
to become any good at. Could she possibly get anywhere with it in the few weeks or months she had
left? After all, she'd always heard that reading was too hard for kids and preteens to learnтАФelse why
wait until after Transition to put people in school?

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A Coming of Age