"Philip Pullman - Dark Materials 02 - The Subtle Knife" - читать интересную книгу автора (Pullman Philip)

food. The hotels were too grand. He looked inside the first hotel, but it was so large that he felt
uncomfortable, and he kept moving down the waterfront until he found a little caf6 that looked like the
right place. He couldn't have said why; it was very similar to a dozen others, with its first-floor balcony
laden with flowerpots and its tables and chairs on the pavement outside, but it welcomed him.

There was a bar with photographs of boxers on the wall, and a signed poster of a broadly smiling
accordion player. There was a kitchen, and a door beside it that opened on to a narrow flight of stairs,
carpeted in a bright floral pattern.

He climbed quietly up to the narrow landing and opened the first door he came to. It was the room at
the front. The air was hot and stuffy, and Will opened the glass door onto the balcony to let in the night
air. The room itself was small and furnished with things that were too big for it, and shabby, but it was
clean and comfortable. Hospitable people lived here. There was a little shelf of books, a magazine on the
table, a couple of photographs in frames.

Will left and looked in the other rooms: a little bathroom, a bedroom with a double bed.

Something made his skin prickle before he opened the last door. His heart raced. He wasn't sure if he'd
heard a sound from inside, but something told him that the room wasn't empty. He thought how odd it
was that this day had begun with someone outside a darkened room, and himself waiting inside; and now
the positions were reversedтАФ

And as he stood wondering, the door burst open and something came hurtling at him like a wild beast.

But his memory had warned him, and he wasn't standing quite close enough to be knocked over. He
fought hard: knee, head, fist, and the strength of his arms against it, him, herтАФ

A girl about his own age, ferocious, snarling, with ragged dirty clothes and thin bare limbs.

She realized what he was at the same moment, and snatched herself away from his bare chest to crouch
in the corner of the dark landing like a cat at bay. And there was a cat beside her, to his astonishment: a
large wildcat, as tall as his knee, fur on end, teeth bared, tail erect.

She put her hand on the cat's back and licked her dry lips, watching his every movement.

Will stood up slowly.

"Who are you?"

"Lyra Silvertongue," she said.

"Do you live here?"

"No," she said vehemently.

"Then what is this place? This city?"

"I don't know."
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