"Charles de Lint - Big City Littles" - читать интересную книгу автора (De Lint Charles)

sprucey-pine grow tall and the grass can seem blue in a certain light, because even travelling people need a place they
can call home.
But one year when the Littles returned, they could find nothing to eat. They flew in every direction looking for foo
They flew for days with a gnawing hunger in their bellies.
Finally they came upon a field of ripe grain—the seeds so fat and sweet, they'd never seen the like, before or since
They swooped down in a chorusing flock and gorged in that field until they were too heavy to fly away again. So they
had to stay the night on the ground, sleeping among the grain-straw and grass.
You'd think they would have learned their lesson, but in the morning, instead of flying away, they decided to eat a
little more and rest in that field of grain for one more night.
Every morning they decided the same thing, to eat a little more and sleep another night, until they got to be so hea
that they couldn't fly anymore. They could only hop, and not quickly either.
Then the trees began to turn yellow and red again. Frost was on the ground and the winter winds came blowing. T
toad burrowed in his mud. The bear returned to his den. The crows watched from the bare-limbed trees and laughed.
Because the Littles couldn't fly away. They couldn't fly at all. They were too fat.
The grain-straw was getting dry. The tall grass browned, grew thin, and died. After watching the mice and squirre
store away their own harvests, the Littles began to shake the grain from the blades of grass and gather it in heaps with
their wings, storing it in hidey-holes and hollow logs. The downy feathers of their wings became all gluey, sticking to
each other. Their wings took the shape of arms and hands and even if they could manage to lose weight, they were no
longer able to fly at all now for they'd become people—tiny people, six inches tall.
That winter they had to dig holes in the sides of the mountains and along the shores of the rivers, making places to
live.
And it's been like that ever since.
In the years to follow, they've come to live among us, sharing our bounty the way mice do, only they are so secret
never see them at all. And they still travel, from town to town, from borough to borough, from city block to the next o
over, and then the next one over from that. That's why we call them the Travelling Littles.
But the Travelling Littles are still birds, even if their arms are no longer wings. They can never see a tall building
mountain without wanting to get to the top. But they can't fly anymore. They have to walk up there, just like you or m
Still the old folks say, those who know this story and told it to me, that one day the Travelling Littles will get their
wings back. They will be birds again.
Only no one knows when.
~~
 "You want to know how to become a bird again," she said.
Jenky Wood nodded. "We thought you would know. Yula Gry came across a copy of your book in a child's library
last year and told us about it at our year's end celebration. Palko John—"
"Who are these people?"
"Yula is the sister of my brother's cousin Sammy, and Palko John is our Big Man. He's the chief of our clan, but h
also the big chief of all the tribe. He decided that we should look for you. When we found out where you lived, I was
to talk to you."
"Why were you chosen?"
He had the decency to blush.
"Because they all say I'm too good-natured to offend anyone, or take offense."
Sheri stifled a laugh. "Well," she said. "I'm usually much less cranky when I've been awake for a little longer and
have had at least one cup of coffee. Speaking of which, I need one now. I also have to have a pee."
At that he went beet-red.
"What, you people don't? Never mind," she added. "That was just more crankiness. Can I pick you up?"
When he gave her a nervous nod, she lowered her hand so that he could step onto her palm, keeping her thumb
upright so he'd have something to hang on to. She took him into the kitchen, deposited him on the table, plugged in th
kettle, then went back down the hall to the washroom.
Ten minutes later she was sitting at the table with a coffee in front of her. Jenky sat on a paperback book, holding
thimbleful of coffee she'd given him. She broke off a little piece of a bran cookie and offered it to him before dipping