"Date of publication 2083 AD" - читать интересную книгу автора (Morrison William)

Next came a comedy act. This was even worse. A famed star of slick sophisticated
comedy told jokes and made puns of which James would have been ashamed. Carrie
hid her head in her hands.
She said suddenly, "This is just too awful. Clara, please turn it off."
Clara Munro was looking clued herself. She turned off the set and said, "What on
earth happened to them? In that first scene the hero and heroine looked like
you, Carrie, and Mr. Garnber."
"Like me?"
"Like you, Clara," said Mr. Munro.
Carrie said, "I think we must all be seeing things. Anyway, they're usually so
good. And tonight they were terrible."
"There seems to be some sort of insanity abroad," said Bill. "And it almost
looks as if it's catching."
That was it, she thought. It was catching. She wondered where it would strike
next.
When they got home that night they found James peacefully asleep. The glass from
which he had drunk his milk was in the kitchen sink, along with the knife he had
used to spread his jam. He had been a very obedient boy, thought Carrie, and
once more her heart warmed to him.
But he had his weaknesses. She realized that the next day when she was once more
reminded of the book. It happened in the afternoon, after she had read another
of Barbara's letters. Barbara was writing with a frequency little short of
amazing. The basketball incident in the college was still the subject of
discussion and she just had to tell her mother how exciting things were. But
behind that, felt Carrie, there was something else. Barbara was developing a
sense of responsibility. She was growing up at last.
Why, it was just a little while ago, the thought, that Barbara was a tiny
infant. And now she'll be graduating from college and getting married—and . . .
It was thus the most natural thing in the world for her to begin planning the
details of Barbara's wedding. Maybe it would be a morning wedding, she thought.
How many people should they invite? What sort of food should they serve and what
arrangements should they make about a reception?
It was these questions that reminded her of the book. The Perfect Hostess would
have all the answers if anything would. But where was The Perfect Hostess
hiding?
She began to make another search for it. But The Perfect Hostess seemed to be a
canny book. It was nowhere she looked, not in the parlor nor in the hallway nor
in the bookcases, which she explored in the vain hope that some spasm of
neatness had struck her son.
"The little silly must have put it in his own room," she muttered finally. She
climbed the stairs to look there.
It was not on any of the shelves with his games or his other books. But when she
lifted his pillow, she saw it at last. She opened the cover, and her library
card stared her in the face. Then the book opened to the middle, apparently of
its own accord, and a dirty thumbprint looked up at her. Obviously, James had
been reading The Perfect Hostess. What on earth had got into him to do it?
At that moment she heard the front door slam, and the next moment he was
bouncing up the stairs. She turned around and faced him sternly. "James, what do
you mean by hiding this book? You told me you put it in the parlor."
He said hoarsely, "Look, Mother," and made a sudden motion with his right hand.