"Andre Norton - Star Ka'at 01 - Star Ka'at" - читать интересную книгу автора (Norton Andre)

"You'd better not!" She waved the piece of frame. "And you better go
right back where you came from, too."

"Look here," Jim shoved his hands into his pockets. Maybe now she
would understand he did not mean her any trouble. "I'm not hunting
anything here. I just found this cat and—" But how could he explain what
his meeting with Tiro meant to him? That was private, very private.

The girl looked toward Tiro. "He's a mighty big old cat. If he is lost
someone might pay to get him back." She stared at the cat, as if she was
thinking of popping Tiro into her bag along with whatever loot she might
find. Though, Jim decided, she would find that rather difficult if Tiro
decided not to allow it.

"He's my cat now," he said, and then knew that his words were the
truth.

"You sure? Well, he'd make a big armful. Where you come from
anyway?"

Jim pointed to the fence. "From over there. One of the boards is loose, I
got under it."

"Courtland Place, huh. Then you don't need to sneak around taking
things off my hunting ground." She blazed back into her one-sided quarrel
again.

"I'm not," Jim began to be cross. "I don't want anything. What do you
hunt?"

"Things," she returned. "Things 'at I can get money for. Granny—" For a
moment her scowl slipped and Jim sensed, rather than knew, that under
her will-to-battle there was fear. "Granny is took bad. She and me, we're
all the family there is. I got to get around and look for stuff so I can buy
things for Granny."

"Suppose I help," Jim said impulsively. "If you tell me what you need,
can't I look, too?"

Even as he asked, he felt that queer little twitch in his mind. Tiro
wanted him to do this. But how could he know what a cat was thinking? It
did not add up to any real sense.

For a long moment the girl hesitated before she gave a quick nod.

"All right," but she sounded grudging. "I get bottles, I get anything that
can be sold. Down there—," she pointed to the hole of the old cellar,
"maybe some things got left there. Nobody wants 'em now but if we
look—"