"Lynn,.Elizabeth.-.Silver.Horse" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lynn Elizabeth A)

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The Silver Horse
by Elizabeth A. Lynn
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Copyright (c)1984 by Elizabeth A. Lynn


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Fantasy


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NOTICE: This work is copyrighted. It is licensed only for use by the original purchaser. Duplication or distribution of this work by email, floppy disk, network, paper print out, or any other method is a violation of international copyright law and subjects the violator to severe fines and/or imprisonment.
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The author appreciates the encouragement and assistance of David Primo D'Aluiso, Kevin Arjuna Knight, Misty Star Gottlieb, Debbie Notkin, Jim Frenkel, and Laurence Yep.
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_For the two Susans_
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*Chapter One*
Susannah sat looking out her bedroom window at the park.
You're too old to play with toys, she told herself silently. _Much_ too old.
Beyond the green square park she could just see the skyscrapers of San Francisco. They seemed shiny and clean against the sky of brilliant blue. Sometimes Susannah could look at them and pretend that they were not steel skyscrapers but silver and gold and crystal towers.
Not today, she thought. They look like fence posts today.
Her nose itched, the way it did when she wanted to cry and wouldn't. Rubbing it, she turned her back to the window and looked across the room. Her brother's purple toy chest sat beside his bed, lid down. The wooden silver horse -- Niall was crazy about horses -- stood on top.
The horse had been a birthday present. Susannah's best friend's mother, Celie, had found it in a thrift store, scraped it clean of its flaking black paint and repainted it with silver glitter. As its proud mane and arrogant pricked ears caught the light, they sparkled like sunshine on the sea. It had only been in the house three days, but it made Susannah's things -- her checked bedspread, her pictures on the wall, even the bright fantastic jackets on her books -- look shabby.
Niall was so pleased with it that he had stuffed all his other toys out of sight.
There was one thing in the room the horse couldn't make shabby. Crossing to her bed, Susannah reached beneath it and pulled out her new paint box. She had saved her allowance money all year and had bought it for herself. Her parents had bought her a real sable brush to go with it. It had forty colors in it. There had only been twelve colors in her old paint box.
Hugging the paint box, Susannah walked to the horse. I bet I could draw you, she told it. Horses were hard to draw. The difficult part would be the head, with all the delicate detail of lips and eyes and ears. It would be hard, too, to show the way the muscles ran on the graceful arching neck. The musculature, Susannah repeated to herself. She had just learned the word. The horse had very clear musculature.
Niall wandered into the room. "What are you doing?" he whined. Without waiting for her answer, he shouted, "Ma, Susannah's bothering my horse!"
"I'm not bothering your old horse," Susannah said. "How could I bother him, he's just wood!" Shoving the new paint box under the bed, she jammed her fists into her pockets and went into the hallway. She had made a secret vow that she wouldn't fight with Niall, no matter how snotty he was, for a week after his birthday, and she knew if she stayed in the bedroom she would break her promise.
Had she been that snotty when she was six years old?
She doubted it. But when she was six, Niall was one year old. He was kind of cute then. And they hadn't had to share a room; he had slept in her parents' room, in a crib. One thing you could say about school; in school they didn't have to be together the whole day as they were now. Almost Susannah regretted that there was no school.
But she didn't want to be in school. She just wanted _Niall_ to be in school.
The door at the end of the hallway was open a little. "Mother?" she said.
"I'm here," said her mother's voice from the other side of the door. Susannah pulled the door further open and stuck her head around it. Her mother turned around. "Hey," she said. "Come outside."
Susannah slid through the opening. Her mother was sitting on the top landing with her feet on the steps. Carefully, because the steps were splintery and because she was barefoot, Susannah climbed down two steps, sat, and leaned against her mother's legs.
Her mother's name was Bonnie. She was tall, with golden hair that she wore in braids or piled on top of her head. She liked to cook and she liked to dance. But she hadn't gone out dancing in a long time, because she was going to have a baby. She had been going to have a baby since Christmas. Susannah had heard her say once to Celie that she liked having babies, she liked the feel of being pregnant. Celie, who had been pregnant at the time, said, "I don't!" Susannah didn't think she would like it much, walking around all puffed out in front and not wearing blue jeans.
But she wondered what it felt like, being pregnant.
Her mother skipped her fingers over the top of Susannah's head. "Hey, Susie-pooh. How you doing?"
"Okay," Susannah said. She rested her chin on her arms. "Mother?"
"Hmm?"
"When will the baby come out?" She had been told. But it was hard for her sometimes to keep track of months.
"In September. This is June. June to July, July to August, August to September." She walked her fingers over the top of Susannah's head again. "A Virgo kid."
Susannah knew what that meant, sort of. It meant that the planets and stars that were in the sky the day you were born made you act in certain ways as you got older. Mother read about it in the paper every morning.
Susannah had asked Mr. Gonzalez, her teacher, about astrology. He had said that the stars and planets were so far away that they couldn't make anyone do anything.