D A Novel (George Right) - By George Right Page 0,39
at wanting a gift. Not at all in a form of the request–she simply had begun to talk about what gifts her schoolmates received. But mother, of course, understood the hint very well. "Shut your mouth, girl," she bellowed, "don't you know your father was shitcanned from his job and we're on welfare? We don't got enough money for food (mother weighed well over two hundred pounds even then, and now she was approaching three hundred), and you're dreaming about fancy toys! Do you think you're a fucking princess?"
The princess. Angie had seen her in that big store downtown. Certainly, she couldn't buy anything there, even a cola drink from the vending machine. But she could wander there slowly for hours, examining the displays and shelves. What toys weren't there! There were electric cars possible to ride in and small motorcycles for children–not to mention walking robots and dinosaurs, and radio-controlled planes. But looking at boys' toys was no more than just curiosity. Angie indifferently passed by the section of video games and the boxes with plastic models for assembling, spent some time near teddy bears, thinking up names for them (after all it would be silly to call them all "Teddy"!). And then her heart sweetly faded. She entered the section called "Barbie's World".
Here, there were Barbies for every fancy and taste, of all skin colors and occupations, in strict business suits and in flippant beach apparel, in evening dresses and in jeans, brides and young mums, teachers, stewardesses, even a mermaid with a fish tail and a Barbie in a wheelchair... But most of all Angie liked Barbie the Princess. Dressed in an airy, as if flying, white dress, with a small gold crown on her blond hair, the princess seemed an embodiment of all those light and joyful things about which, for Angie, it was silly even to dream. But she still couldn't stop dreaming. If... if only she could once leave the store, folding the cherished box to her breast...
But even simply to stand here looking at the princess for too long was dangerous. The store security guard could approach and inquire, whether everything was alright with the girl and where her parents were. Angie was frightened to death that she would be taken to the police; she was sure that in this case her father would either beat her to death or maim her. Once she managed to convince the security guard that everything was great with her, and since then she avoided standing too long near the shelf. She tried to memorize how the princess looked, and then to go keeping this image before her eyes...
"Little girl, hey there!"
Angie shuddered in fright: it seemed to her that it was the security guard again. But in the next second she recovered from her dreams and understood that she was standing in the middle of a snowbound lane. And the person who addressed her was Santa Claus, arisen as if from nowhere. Dressed in a snow-powdery red jacket with white welt, a red cap with a white pompom, red trousers, boots and mittens. His face was also red (though, certainly, not as much as his clothing), with a broad white beard, and on his shoulder he held a bag–red of course, and obviously not empty.
"Ho-ho-ho," said Santa Claus, smiling broadly in his white moustaches, "hi, little girl! Merry Christmas! Why are you backing away? Don't you know me?"
"Sorry," Angie said quietly, "I've never seen you before."
"What," white eyebrows frowned with astonishment, "you don't believe in Santa Claus?"
"Mum says that Santa is... ""...is a fucking bullshit," the exact words almost escaped Angie's lips. "That he doesn't exist," she finished aloud.
"Ho-ho-ho!" his eyebrows spread above. "Then who do you think am I, eh?"
"I don't know," Angie muttered even more quietly. "Santa Claus came to our class. And Ricky, he's a big bully, pulled his beard. And Santa's beard was held on with a string."
"Well, but I am real," Santa resolutely objected. "And my beard is real, too. If you don't believe me, you can touch it," he even bent down to make it easier for the little girl.
Angie timidly stepped forward, then once again, and carefully touched the beard. Santa only smiled encouragingly, and she gently pulled. Having grown bolder, she tugged more strongly, and at last, spurred on by her own impudence, she jerked the beard sharply.
"Ho-ho-ho!" Santa exclaimed louder and more abruptly than before. "What a strong girl you are! So, do you believe me now?