"Mary Rosenblum - Color Vision" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rosenblum Mary)

Color Vision
MARY ROSENBLUM

When wizards are involved, sometimes a lot more than beauty can be in
the eye of the beholder . . .

One of the most popular and prolific of the new writers of the
nineties, Mary Rosen-blum made her first sale, to Asimov’s Science
Fiction, in 1990, and has since become a mainstay of that magazine and
one of its most frequent contributors, with almost thirty sales there to her
credit. She has also sold to The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fic-tion,
Sci Fiction, Science Fiction Age, Pulphouse, New Legends, and
elsewhere. Rosenblum produced some of the most colorful, exciting,
and emotionally powerful stories of the nineties with titles such as “The
Stone Garden,” “Synthesis,” “Flight,” “California Dreamer,” “Casting at
Pegasus,” “Entrada,” “Rat,” “The Centaur Garden,” “Skin Deep,” “Songs
the Sirens Sing,” and many, many others. Her novella “Gas Fish” won
the Asi-mov’s Readers Award Poll in 1996 and was a Finalist for that
year’s Hugo Award. Her first novel, The Drylands, appeared in 1993 to
wide critical acclaim, winning the presti-gious Compton Crook Award for
Best First Novel of the year; it was followed in short or-der by her second
novel, Chimera, and her third, The Stone Garden. Her first short story
collection, Synthesis and Other Virtual Realities, was widely hailed by
critics as one of the best collections of 1996. Her most recent books are
a trilogy of mystery novels written under the name Mary Freeman, and a
major new science fiction novel, Horizons. A graduate of Clarion West,
Mary Rosenblum lives in Portland, Oregon.

****



I
’M staring at Mr. Beasley while Mrs. Banks drones on about fractions.

He’s some sort of python, I can’t remember what kind. Mrs. Banks is
my teacher. Her words come out a dull, dirty sort of blue-green, like the
ocean right before a storm comes in. Fits the fractions. Mr. Beasley hisses
purple at me. I don’t think he likes me. But then, I don’t like him either. He
has fun when he squeezes the poor little mice Mrs. Banks feeds him.
Snakes aren’t supposed to have fun.

“Hey, what color am I now?” Jeremy’s leaning across the aisle. “I’m
trying to talk green.”

Jeremy’s mom is the school counselor. But I like Jeremy anyway.
“Shut up,” I tell him, because Mrs. B is just looking for a reason to stick us
both with detention. It occurs to me that she has fun, too, when Mr. Beasley
squeezes those mice. “You’re always yellow,” I whisper to Jeremy to shut
him up. Which he knows, because I told him how synesthesia works about