"Robert A. Metzger - Picoverse" - читать интересную книгу автора (Metzger Robert)

Katie squinted, driving tears from her eyes. Anthony looked up at her, peering into the camera. He held
up a paper cube that fit snugly in the palm of his right hand. It was tied up like a Christmas present with a
green and blue string, bound together at the top of the cube with what looked to Katie like a carrick
knot. She knew that only moments before the cube must have been the huge mound that had covered his
play table. She found herself smiling, thinking that someday Anthony would make a wonderful Boy
Scout, with absolutely no problem passing the knot test.

“What have you got there, Anthony?” she asked, her voice picked up by the receiver in the data pack
slung across her back and transmitted to the speaker in Anthony’s playroom.

“A surprise, Mama,” he said, smiling.

“No!” Katie stood up, turning her head, the camera in Anthony’s playroom rastering in synch to her
movement. Miss Alice walked into the room, like a lamb to the slaughter, with nothing to defend herself
with except a warm smile.

“Put it down, Anthony!”

Anthony obeyed, placing the cube on the floor. Katie knew at that instant she’d made a mistake, played
right into Anthony’s hands. Before she could say anything, he tugged on the carrick knot, the blue and
green strings parted, and the cube unfolded in an explosion of color and twirling rubber bands, rising up
off the floor, flapping sheets of construction paper giving it lift, rubber band power driving it. The
contraption hit Miss Alice in the face. A swatch of tape unrolled itself, tugged by multicolored beating
wings, and then wrapped several times around her head.

“Not today, Anthony, please not today,” Katie said, knowing that it was already too late. Miss Alice
danced around the room, frantically tugging at the tape that stuck to her face and the paper and rubber
bands that were wrapped around her head.

Anthony smiled for the camera. “An automatic tape dispenser, Mama. Do you like it?”

Katie lowered her head and closed her eyes. It would be a miracle if Miss Alice made it until the
weekend. She started doing quick calculations. Tech to Sandy Springs: twenty minutes. Calming down
Miss Alice: fifteen minutes. Confiscation of Anthony’s tape, construction paper, scissors, glue, rubber
bands, and markers: ten minutes. A stern yet compassionate lecture to Anthony: two minutes. More
pleading and apologies to Miss Alice: ten minutes. Sandy Springs to Tech: twenty minutes.

Grand total: one hour and seventeen minutes.

Katie groaned. Of all the mornings for this to happen. For a moment, she wondered if she could ignore
the situation, letting Miss Alice handle this one on her own. She opened her eyes and refocused. Miss
Alice sat on the floor, cross-legged, whimpering, trying to pull a big knot of masking tape out of her hair.

“Mama?” said Anthony, now standing next to Miss Alice, reaching out toward her with a shaking right
hand, but pulling it back each time Miss Alice lurched and twisted as she tried to dislodge the sticky mess
from her head. “Is Miss Alice sad?” he asked.
 Again Katie closed her eyes, and her right hand went toward the phone on her belt. She should call
Horst, her ex-husband, and make him go home, acquainting him with the mundane aspects of the real
world and fatherhood, insisting that he deal with a six-year-old who had chewed through three special-ed