"Tanya Huff - Keeper's Chronicles 3 - The Long Hot Summoning" - читать интересную книгу автора (Huff Tanya)

Throwing her backpack over one shoulder, Diana raced out the front door and
rocked to a halt at the sight of the orange tabby crossing the front lawn. Or more
specifically, at the sight of what dangled from the cat’s mouth. With one of its
disproportionately long arms barely attached and dragging on the grass, and
something that looked like intestine wrapped around one bare ankle, the bogey was
unquestionably dead. An eyeball bounced gently against its bloody forehead with
every step. “Nice catch,” she noted, half her attention on the approaching bus. “Where
did you find it?”
“Ood ‘ile,” Sam told her proudly, his voice distorted by the body.
“You know you can’t eat it, right?”
Amber eyes narrowed, he let the bogey drop and fixed Diana with an
incredulous glare. “Do I look like an idiot?”
“No, but you haven’t been a cat for very long . . .” Six months ago, he’d been
an angel. Angels didn’t concern themselves with the small things that slipped
through the possibilities. “. . . and you know how my mother feels about that whole
puking on the white wool rug thing.”
“Once! I did it once!”
“Yeah, so did I, and she’s never let me forget it either.” With a scream of
abused brake linings, the bus stopped more or less at the end of the driveway. “I don’t
have time to bury it now, so try to leave it where Mom’s not going to trip over it.”
Turning, she took two steps and turned again, pulled around by the weight of Sam’s
regard. “Oh, right. Sorry. You are a mighty hunter. Your skill with tooth and claw is
amazing. Fast. Deadly. I stand in awe.”
“Hey! Sarcasm.”
“Not sarcasm,” Diana protested hurriedly. There were any number of
imaginative places the dead bogey could be left. “But I’ve got to go. Mr. Watson
won’t wait forever.”
“I’m amazed Mr. Watson stops at all.”
“Yeah, well, need provides and all that. Remember, I’ll be home early,” she
added, trotting backward up the path, “just in case there’s anything you don’t want
me to catch you doing.”
A presented cat butt made his opinion of that fairly plain.
Mr. Watson looked more nervous than impatient. He nodded a silent reply to
Diana’s cheerful good morning, closed the door practically on her heels, and jerked
the bus into gear. Had Diana not already been reaching into the possibilities, she’d
have landed on her ass as he burned rubber trying to outrun half-buried memories.
Fully burying them would have messed with his ability to drive, so only the less
likely edges had been fuzzed out, leaving him in a perpetual state of nearly
remembering things he’d rather not. Which was actually a state fairly common among
school bus drivers.
Diana tried not to resent his attitude, but it wasn’t easy. This semester alone
she’d stopped a black pudding from devouring an eighth grader, saved Chrissy
Selwick from a three-headed dog attracted to the aconite in the herbal body mist she’d
been given for Christmas-might as well have had “eat me” tattooed on her forehead-
and prevented a Gameboy™ from taking over the world. Handheld computer games
were more competitive than most people thought.
She’d also stopped Nick Packwood from hanging a second grader out the
window by his heels, but since she still wasn’t entirely certain the kid hadn’t deserved
it, she usually left that particular incident off her “reasons Mr. Watson should thank
his gods I’m on the bus” list.