"Charles Coleman Finlay - A Democracy of Trolls" - читать интересную книгу автора (Finley Charles Coleman)

"So?"
Her mother's face tightened into a sharp knot. "So? You bring one to live
among us. It's wrong. It should be destroyed."
"No!" Windy rose abruptly with her fists clenched. The trollbird whistled and
flew off into the night.
Her mother stared at her, as cold as ice. She was the First of the band after
many votes, its leader. "You listen to me. You need to get rid of that animal.
Then you need to have another child, and by darkness and dew, let us hope it's
a boy who can breed with those young girls down there as soon as they're big
enough."
"Mother--"
"I'm not done yet!" Windy tensed, but her mother kept on speaking. "Our people
have few children and we grow fewer each year. There were fifty-three in our
band when you were a baby, and before that there were seventy-one at one time.
Seventy-one! How many do you see now?"
Windy couldn't help herself. She lifted her head and counted. Ragweed and
seven others, mostly men, down where the blueberries were thickest, another
group of ten over on the next hill, and little clusters of two and three
scattered in between. Maggot and the two girls. Her and her mother.
"Thirty-two, thirty-three, thirty-four. Thirty-four."
"Thirty-three," corrected her mother.
"That's not a fair question. Frosty took her band and moved away, and--"
"Because the people moved in! They eat all our food and kill us and hunt us
away!" The anger faded out of her mother's voice, replaced by weariness. "I
see the nights of all trolls drying up, like dew beneath a Sun that never
sets." As Windy watched her mother's face intently, understanding for a moment
her sense of loss, the old troll chuckled. "Look! The children are playing
catch the snake. You loved that game when you were a little girl."
The two girls were running, tossing a snake back and forth between them.
Maggot chased after, grabbing at it, as the girls threw it to each other over
his head.
Windy laughed too. It was a good-sized serpent--two, maybe three feet long--
with its mouth wide open and fangs snapping at the children's arms. Rocky and
Blossom were good girls. Windy was so glad Maggot finally had someone his own
age to play with.
The snake twined in the air, looping itself in an echo of the crisscross
pattern marking its back--the kind that caused sickness if it bit, which made
the game more fun. The risk was small because a fast bite couldn't break a
troll's skin and if the snake fastened on an arm and bit slowly, there was
always plenty of time to grab the head and pull it off it. Windy remembered
one time....
Maggot! "No!"
She drummed a short warning on her chest and ran down the slope. All three
children froze in fear, and the snake twisted in Blossom's hand, biting down
sharply on her arm. "Ow!"
"I've got it," cried Maggot. He grabbed it behind the head and pulled it off.
Windy faltered, then lunged forward. Maggot held the snake up toward her, its
long length squirming and twisting around. He kept his grip on it for a
second, then let go, and hopped out of the way. Its head turned to strike at
him just as Windy's foot came down, smashing it into the ground.