I have not got Nita, Kit said through gritted teeth. And as for taste, you shouldn t be talking.Tom and Jerry cartoons Give me a break.
I m waiting for the Road Runner, Carmela said, managing to sound both pitying and incredibly stuck-up. A symbol of innocence endlessly pursued by the banality of evil.
Kit went back to his cornflakes. I wish the evilI keep running into was a little more banal, he muttered as he picked up his bowl and started eating. The Lone Power s favorite tool, entropy, had already struck locally: His cornflakes had gone soggy.
Resigned, he sat down and ate them anyway. ShortlyCarmela came wandering into the kitchen and stuck her head in the refrigerator. You got today off, huh
Yeah. Business stuff. He ate the last spoonful of cornflakes and went to rinse the bowl. And I didn t bust the TV, either.
Well, it has agigabillion new channels, looks like, his sister said. The one before this one looked pretty neat. They were selling some kind of eternal-youth potion. She paused to primp herself unnecessarily in the dark glass of the microwave. Might come in handy.
You have to grow up first before the fountain of youth s going to do you any good, Kit said, putting the bowl and spoon in the dishwasher, and anyway, whatyou need is the fountain of brains.
Kit spent the next few minutes running around the house while his sister, in pursuit, whacked him as often as possible with a rolled-up boy-band fan magazine. He could have teleported straight out of there, but it was more fun to let her chase him, and it would keep her in a good mood. Finally eight-thirty rolled around, the latest time when she could leave and still get to homeroom on time, andCarmela got her book bag andheaded out. Bye-bye, she said as she went out the back door. Don t get eaten by monsters or anything.
HItry to avoid it.
The door closed. Kit went off to get his manual, reflecting that things could be a lot worse for him. A resident sister who found wizardry freaky or annoying could cause endless trouble, forcing him to live like a fugitive in his own house, hiding what he was.But so many human wizards have to do that, anyway , he thought, going into his room to get the manual off his desk, and carefully walking aroundPonch , who lay on the braided oval rag rug beside his bed, still asleep.They have families they can t trust, or who can t cope The thought of telling someone you loved that you were a wizard, and then discovering that he or she couldn t handle it and would have to have the memory removed, made Kit shudder. Iwas lucky.Not that it wasn t a little traumatic at first, with Mama and Pop. But they got past it. And so didHelena , sort of .
His older sister had been the cause of some worries for Kit when he d told her he was a wizard.Helena had at first been dismissive, in an amused way: She hadn t believed him. But when Kit had started casually using wizardry around the house,Helena had actually gone through a short period when she d thought he d done some kind of deal with the devil. Finally she calmed down when she saw that Kit had no trouble participating at church along with the rest of the family, and when Kit gotHelena to understand that the Lone Power, no matter which costumeIt was wearing, was never going to be any friend of his. ButHelena s moral concerns had died down into a kind of strange embarrassment about Kit, which was as hard to bear, in its way, as the accusations of being a dupe of ultimate evil. When she went away to college and didn t have to see what Kit was doing from day to day, their relationship got back to normal, if a rather long-distance kind of normal.What would it have been like if she d stayed around, though Kit had found himself thinking, more than once.How would Ihave coped It was a question he was glad not to have had to answer.And if that makes me chicken, fine. I m chicken .
He glanced down atPonch . He was still asleep, his muzzle and feet twitching gently as he dreamed. Kit sat down to wait until the dog finished the dream. The wizard s manual lay on his desk; he flipped it open to Darryl s page again and considered that for a few moments.
He s only eleven, Kit thought, looking over the slightly more detailed personal information that had added itself to Darryl s listing since Kit had become involved. Eleven wasn t incredibly young for a wizard Dairine had been offered the Wizard s Oath at eleven but it was still a little on the early side: a suggestion that the Powers That Be needed Darryl for something slightly more urgent than usual.All we need to do is try to figure out what it is try to help him find his way around whatever s blocking him. Without getting in the way of whatever his Ordeal s supposed to do for him .
That s likely to be a tall order
Ponchhad stopped dreaming and was breathing quietly again. Kit hated to wake him, but free days likethis weren t something he got often. He nudged his dog s tummy gently with one sneaker.
Ponch, he said. C mon, big guy.
Ponchopened one eye and looked at Kit.
Breakfast!
His dog might be getting a little strange, as wizards pets sometimes do, but in other regardsPonch was absolutely normal.Ponch got up, stretched fore and aft, shook himself all over, and then headed for the hallway. Kit grinned, picked up the manual, stuck it into the pocket ofotherspace that he kept things in for his wizardly work, and went after him.
In the kitchen, Kit opened a can of dog food and emptied it into the bowl.Ponch went through it in about five minutes of single-mindedchowing down,then looked up.More
You re only supposed to get one in the morning. You know that.
But today s a workday. Today we go bunting.
So
I haveto keep up my strength.
Kit rolled his eyes. I m being had here, he said.
Boss!Ponch looked pained.
Oh, all right, Kit said after a moment. But if all this food makes you want to lie down and have a big long sleep all of a sudden
It won t.
Kit sighed and opened the cupboard to get out another can of dog food.Not that one. The chicken this time ,Ponch said.
Kit looked at his dog, then at the label on the can. When did you learn to read
Idon t have to read. I can hear you doing it ,Ponch said.Anyway, the color s different on the food with chicken in it .
Kit grabbed a different can and popped the top, shaking his head, and emptied it intoPonch s bowl. Thecolor he said after a moment. I thought dogs saw only in gray.
Ponchpaused in his eating.Maybe we do , he said.But important things look different .
Kit shook his head. Whatever color his dog saw his food in, it didn t matter much, as it all swiftly went inside him, where theoretically everything was the same color, especially after it was digested.
When he was finished eating,Ponch circled around a couple of times and lay down to start washing his paws.
You re not going to go to sleep, are you Kit said.
Ponchlooked at him with some mild annoyance.Ifyou re going to hunt , he said,your feet have to be clean . He went back to nibbling his paws again.
Kit sighed and sat down to wait. WhenPonch was finished, he got up, shook himself again, and said,Ihave to go out .
You ll be ready then
Yes.
Kit opened the door and let the dog out. He put on his jacket, picked up his house keys from the hook inside the back door, and got one more thing from theplace where the coats hung the wizardly leash that he d made forPonch when they were working together in other worlds. For those who could see it, it looked like a slender, smooth cord of blue light, a tight braid of words in the Speech that had to do with finding things, remembering where you found them, and not losing what had helped you find them in the first place namelyPonch . Kit coiled up the leash and stuffed it in his parka pocket, then locked up the house and went up the driveway to the gate in the chain-link fence. TherePonch was dancing with impatience. Kit opened the gate, andPonch shot through and into the yard, straight to the back where the trees and bushes grew thickest.
Kit paused for a moment in the frosty morning air. It was one of those cold gray days, but the wrong kind of gray for snow the kind of day that made you wish that spring would hurry up, but also a day when going to another universe, any other universe, would be a relief from the gloominess of your own. He reached into his pocket for the transit spell he d used the other day to get to Darryl's school, and ran the long glowing chain of it through his fingers whilePonch did his business back in the bushes. A moment laterPonch bounced out of the underbrush again, and ran back to Kit, bounding up and down around him.
You ready
Yeah.Here s your leash.
Kit managed with some difficulty to getPonch to hold still long enough to slip the leash-spell around his neck. ShouldPonch s search for Darryl take them into some space where there wasn t air, or something else humans and dogs needed to survive, the leash would make sure Kit s fail-safe spells temporarily coveredPonch , until Kit could improvise something else. It would also keep them from getting separated in any hostile environment.
Where to first
Darryl s school, Kit said. Let me get us invisible first. I want a closer look at him when we get there.
Kit reached out to one side and traced his finger down the air, unzipping hisclaudication pocket,then reached in for the wizard s manual. When he bounced it in his hand, it fell open at the spot Kit had previously marked, the invisibility spell. The wizardry was as he d left it, in a partly activated state, waiting for the last few syllables to be pronounced.
Kit said them, and felt the wizardry take, expanding to fold around him andPonch and then snug in close. This was one of the simpler ways to be invisible; the wizardry looked at what was behind you and made anyone in front of you see that instead of you. This light-diversion type of invisibility wasn t good for use in large groups, because it tended to break down under the strain of servicing too many viewpoints, but Kit thought this would be good enough for this morning; he didn t think he andPonch were likely to wind up in a crowd.