"Esther M. Friesner - How to Make Unicorn Pie" - читать интересную книгу автора (Friesner Esther M)

stop baking pies for us altogether. She needs the money, though she'd never

admit it. What would become of her then? It'd be plain awful."



In my heart I agreed with Muriel, though more out of my love for the pies than

any concern for the pie-maker's welfare. "But if she doesn't take criticism

well, how could I say- ?" I began.



Muriel pish-tushed me like a champion. "But it's different if it comes from you,

Babs."
I didn't need to ask why. Wasn't it obvious? I was a Transient. My cautionary

words concerning unidentified opalescent objects in the pastry wouldn't shame

Greta Marie the way a Native's would. In fact, if I were to go to Greta Marie's

place and accuse her of using the fat of unborn goats for piecrust shortening

she could live it down. So I went.



Greta Marie lived out on the Old Toll Road. This was a stretch of highway so

narrow, frost-heaved and godforsaken that the fact that someone had once

collected real American money from travelers to allow them the privilege of

breaking their axles in the ruts and potholes was a testimony to Yankee

ingenuity, to say nothing of Yankee gall. There was hardly enough room for two

cars to pass, unless one climbed up onto the shoulder at a forty-five degree

angle, bumping over the gnarled roots of pine trees flanking the way. Luckily,

the Old Toll Road had gone from being a throughway leading to Montpelier to a

dead end leading to nowhere when the bridge over Bowman's Gorge collapsed in

1957. The town decided it would be a waste of money to rebuild it, since by then

everyone took the State highway anyway, and that pretty much put an end to the