"Nina Kiriki Hoffman - Objects of Desire" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hoffman Nina Kiriki)

school, people fussed most about skewlis with bright colors: turquoise, cotton-candy pink, acid green
with baby-blue stripes. This one looked dull in comparison.
Then light glanced off it, and I saw that it was a soft lav-ender color. Its huge eyes glowed
orange-red. Its front feet looked just like little black hands. It came out onto the table among the confetti
and torn gift wrapping, then sat back and stared up at me.
I stared back, wondering what it was thinking. What did any pet think confronted with a new
owner? I have to spend the rest of my life with you whether I like it or not? Amuse me? Oh, no?
It lifted one small black hand and held it palm outward toward me. Confused, I lifted my own hand
in answer and slowly brought it forward.
The skewlis touched its palm to mine. Its hand felt hard and small and hot. My hand tingled around
its touch. It made a chirring noise, jumped over my hand, and clamped its arms around my upper arm,
bringing its head up beside mine. Its lemony smell grew stronger for a second, then faded. The tip of a
pink tongue flicked from its mouth. Its orange eyes stared at my face from unnervingly close.
It seemed to weigh almost nothing. The grip of its arms and legs around my arm felt weird for a
moment, but then I stopped noticing. I turned to Grandma. "Thank you," I whis-pered. "Thank you."
"Oh, good," she said. "I hoped you would like it." She hesitated, then said, "It's not one of the
famous brands."
Grandma was a veteran bargain hunter. She specialized in factory seconds, reconditioned
obsolescence, open box returns, and "that stain is so small no one else will ever notice it, but they
knocked five dollars off anyway." I used to think she was funny and irritating about that stuff, but lately
I'd been trying to learn how she did it.
The best skewlis on the market had small seven-pointed stars branded onto their hind legs. There
were two other acceptable brands, but after that, you got into the gray area of copycat skewlis. Rip-off
companies put together inferior ver-sions. I'd heard about near-skewlis fakes and their problems.
I didn't want to think about that on my birthday, when my grandmother had just given me the perfect
present.
My skewlis had a brand I'd never seen before, a little blue spiral almost hidden by the
silver-lavender fur on its hind leg.
"It's all right," I said.
"It doesn't have any of those fancy features," she con-tinued, looking worried.
"It's great, Grandma," I said. "It's perfect. Thank you." With the skewlis so close to me now, I could
see a very faint tiger-stripe pattern in blue over the silvery lavender of its coat. My skewlis looked like a
ghost version of others I had seen, and I thought it was really honto neat.
"What will you call him, Kirby?" Mom asked me. Her voice had a familiar edge to it. Grandma had
done something important without asking her again. Mom was mad. But it was my birthday, and she
didn't want to be the bad guy.
I stroked my finger over the top of the skewlis's head. It closed its eyes and chirred. "Her name is
Vespa," I said in a small voice.
Vespa opened her eyes to stare into mine. Her chirrs grew louder. I didn't remember any of my
friends' skewlis making noises like this, but it sure made me feel warm and strange.
"Vespa?" Mom said. "You're naming her after a scooter?"
"Huh? I don't know what you mean. It's just her name."
"Oh," she said. She smiled and shook her head.
I looked at Grandma. "Is there a manual? How do I take care of her? What do I feed her?" I
thought about the special food my friends fed their skewlis: small soft brown cubes. I wondered how
expensive it was. Probably really expensive, the way most designer stuff was. Had Grandma bought
some? Was Vespa hungry now?
Grandma licked her lips, looking away from Mom's accus-ing stare. "There's no manual," she said.
"The man I got her from told me she'll eat what humans eat, and she just needs a little box with sand in
the bottom to do her duties in. Always give her access to fresh water, and bathe her about once a week