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 Tiger's ApprenticeBy Laurence Yep Rebound by SagebrushCopyright © 2005 Laurence YepAll right reserved. ISBN: 9781417700622 Chapter OneIt isn't every day you meet a tiger. And certainly not a tiger in a suit and tie. And definitely not one who knows your first name.The tiger was the last thing Tom Lee expected as he stumbled up the steps to his grandmother's home. It was a grand old house in the Inner Richmond of San Francisco. Gingerbread shingles covered its sides like scales, and pigeons cooed under its ornate window eaves. It seemed to have cast some magical spell that protected it and its neighbors from being replaced by the cheap, ugly apartment houses that had swallowed up the rest of the city. However, today, Tom didn't want to admire it. As he hurried up the steps, he just wanted to hide inside - away from all the people staring at the big bruise surrounding one eye and the torn sleeve of his blue shirt. At the park Jack, an eighth-grader, had called Tom's grandmother a weirdo - which everyone in the neighborhood did because of the way she decorated her house. It was full of magical charms - strange designs on paper, wood, and stone, and words written in a ghostly script. Hanging everywhere were mirrors with trigrams - sets of three lines, either solid or with a gap in the middle - from an ancient book called the Book of Changes. They made up patterns that could tell the future and had magical powers. And incense was always burning before bizarre statues. When she walked down the street to do her shopping, their non-Chinese neighbors turned and whispered to one another. The Chinese in the area treated her as if she were invisible, and the Chinese shopkeepers were afraid to say a word to her and always waited on her first, as if they were in a hurry to get her out of their shops - not that she cared. She was proud of working magic and was even teaching Tom the rudiments of what she called the Lore. Unfortunately for Tom, the neighborhood's attitude had filtered down to the children, who stuck Tom with the same label - weirdo. Bullies - Chinese or not - loved to pick on anyone different, and they had made Tom their favorite target. He couldn't ignore an insult slung at his grandmother, who had taken care of him ever since he was a baby. His archaeologist parents had disappeared somewhere in Malaysia when he was only a year old. Everyone, including Tom and his grandmother, assumed they were dead. Even though he was small for his age and his opponents were usually much larger, he defended his grandmother almost every day, and the frequent fights had earned him his own reputation as a troublemaker. His folder in the school counselor's office was stamped at risk. So why should today be any different than any other day? Though Jack was an eighth-grader, Tom had demanded he take back his rude words. Of course, Jack wouldn't, and so there had been a fight. The real problem was that Jack had brought pals just as big as he was. It would have been so much easier if Tom could have turned them into lizards, but his grandmother refused to teach him those spells until she was sure he would not misuse them. So Tom had had to use his fists. Against Jack alone, he might have stood a chance - which Jack knew and was why he had dared insult Tom's grandmother only when he had a gang around him. "Turning them into lizards is too good for them. Fungus, maybe," Tom said to himself as the steps creaked under his feet. He couldn't wait to get inside the house. It was his fort, strange as it was. Within its walls, he felt safe from the rest of the world. And maybe he'd work on her again to teach him some spells he could use for defending himself. At the door he fumbled for his key and found he had forgotten it. So he jabbed the doorbell hard. "Please, Grand-mom. Hurry up," he muttered. When the door opened, though, it was a stranger who greeted him. "Good afternoon, Master Thomas. Your grandmother has been telling me wonderful things about you." The visitor took in the black eye and the torn sleeve and scratched his head. "But I see she might have been exaggerating a tad." The stranger looked like an elderly man with a trim, gray mustache and goatee - except for his furry ears. The stranger brushed his goatee. "Do I have something on my face? Is that why you're staring?" Tom's grandmother had taught him some basic spells, and one of them was for showing the true shape of things - which she said was essential for anyone working in magic. Curious about his grandmother's visitor, Tom chanted the words under his breath. He jumped when the next instant he saw a tiger standing there on his hind legs. In the Chinese folktales his grandmother told him, animals could talk, but he had always thought those were just stories. He'd never expected to meet a talking animal. "Is that you, Tom?" his grandmother called from the kitchen. "Where have you been?" Suddenly Tom stood tongue-tied out of shame. He'd been so small when his parents had disappeared that he didn't remember them. Whenever Tom wanted a hug or a kind word, he could always count on his grandmother, but it was her voice he loved best. There was always a smile hidden behind her words. Her voice reminded Tom of a stream chuckling as it ran over rocks. He felt guilty for ducking out of his grandmother's lessons today, especially since he had run into Jack and his gang. Impatiently the tiger slipped a watch from a pocket in his suit vest and consulted it. "I'd step inside unless you intend to eat on the porch. Mistress Lee, I think you'd better fetch Master Thomas if you don't want him turning into a porch fixture."
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