（外文电子版资料）Tanya Huff - When The Student Is Ready.pdf

Default 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, Valors 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 hadnt been made since the sixties—at 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 couldnt take her eyes off of him, which was just too weird. Having lived her entire life—almost seventeen years—in downtown Toronto, shed seen street people be-fore. Seen them, avoided them, given them her loose change if she was feeling flush and they werent 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 wasnt at all surprising when the breeze shifted. Did she know him? Was he like some old friend of her dads whod 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.