"Tanya Huff - When The Student Is Ready" - читать интересную книгу автора (Huff Tanya)

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WHEN THE STUDENT IS READY
by Tanya Huff

Tanya Huff lives and writes in rural Ontario with her partner, four cats, and an unintentional
chihuahua. After sixteen fantasies, she wrote her first space opera, Valor's Choice, the sequel to
which, The Better Part of Valor, is now out from DAW. Currently she is working on the third novel
in her Keeper series, which began with Summon The Keeper and The Second Summoning. In her
spare time she gardens and complains about the weather.

THE first time Isabel saw him, he was rummaging in the garbage can out in front of The Second Cup at
Bloor and Brunswick. He was wearing a filthy "I love New York" T-shirt, a pair of truly disgusting
khaki Dockers barely hanging from skinny hips, and what looked like brand-new, high-top black canvas
sneakers of a kind that hadn't been made since the sixtiesтАФat least not according to her father who
moaned about it every time he had to buy trainers. His dirty-blond hair and full beard were streaked with
gray, as well as real dirt, and both skinny arms were elbow deep in cardboard coffee cups and half-eaten
snack food.

She couldn't take her eyes off of him, which was just too weird. Having lived her entire lifeтАФalmost
seventeen yearsтАФin downtown Toronto, she'd seen street people be-fore. Seen them, avoided them,
given them her loose change if she was feeling flush and they weren't too smelly or too old. This guy
was nothing special.

Thumbs hooked under her backpack straps, she took a step closer. Considering the heavy, after-school
foot traffic, he had rather a large open area around him. Which wasn't at all surprising when the breeze
shifted.

Did she know him? Was he like some old friend of her dad's who'd fallen on hard times? Breathing
shallowly through her mouth, Isabel tried to recognize a familiar feature under all the dirt.

As if drawn by her regard, he rose up out of the garbage and turned, what she could see of his face
wearing an expression of extreme puzzlement.

"Half a Starbuck's apricot square will last forty-six hours and seven minutes without going moldy," he
said. "A muffin ..." Glancing into the garbage, he shook his head. Then he looked up again, locking
bloodshot gray eyes on hers. "There isn't much time."

Isabel could actually feel the hair rise on the back of her neck. It was a totally gross feeling. Pulling a
handful of change out of her pocket, she thrust it toward him. "Here, buy afresh muffin."



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The two-dollar coin caught his attention. He plucked it off her palm, closed his right eye, and held it up