Orson Card - Enchantment

Katerina has never seen a kite, Ivan realized. They were a Chinese invention and they didn't come to Europe until... well, until later. Before Benjamin Franklin, but after Baba Yaga. So much for my future as a historian.

The boy across the street—what was his name? Terrel Sprewel. Never Terry, just Terrel, even though the name Terrel was clearly invented as a back-formation to allow the nickname Terry without saddling the kid with a really geeky name like Terence. Though you might as well tape a kick-me sign on your baby as to give him a name that was not only weird but rhymed.

Terrel used to try to follow Ivan, back when Ivan was in middle school and he ran through the neighborhood instead of around the lake. Back when it was still faintly ridiculous in the neighbors' eyes that a Jewish kid should be jogging. Terrel was a toddler then, and Ivan had to stop and make him go back. What's he doing in the front yard without a parent watching him, anyway? Once he had to take Terrel to the front door, the kid was so persistent, and his mom acted as if Ivan had somehow committed a crime by suggesting that she ought to prevent the child from following Ivan on his five-mile run. Maybe she thought I should take him along. Maybe she wished. That would be sad, to grow up with a mother who kind of hoped you'd run away.

Maybe you'd end up all by yourself, trying to get a string tied onto a kite so it has some hope of flying.

Ivan's impulse was to cross the street and lend a hand, show the kid how it was done.

Then he remembered—it wasn't safe for him to cross the street by himself. Who's the toddler now?

The string was tied. It wasn't in exactly the right place, but it would probably do. Terrel carried the kite to the end of the block before he started his run. Ivan wondered why he would do that. Why not start running from his own front yard? The answer was obvious, though. Terrel wanted to get the kite flying just as he reached his yard, so he could stand there in front of the windows with the kite in the air where his parents could look out and see him. Maybe they were better parents than Ivan thought. Maybe they would be looking. But he thought not. They never watched. Terrel was always alone. No applause. And yet it still mattered to the kid. He was still hungry to have his mom or dad tell him he did OK, or even watch him without a word, just to have their eyes see that he could get a kite up into the air.

Ivan practically willed it up. Run faster, he thought. Let out more string as you go. Let it catch. Rise up! Faster now! Good, it's working. It's caught! Let the string bleed out now, a little more.

He wasn't doing it. He was keeping the kite on too short a tether. It was going to fall.

"Let out more string!" Ivan called.

Terrel didn't even look over. He just obeyed. The string spun out; the kite staggered a moment, but the breeze caught it, carried it up. Terrel stood there, letting out a little more. A little more. Only when the kite was definitely up there, quite high, did Terrel look over at Ivan and grin.

It wasn't his parents he wanted to have watch him. It was me.

"Good job!" cried Ivan. "First try."

Terrel held up the string in his hand, offering Ivan the control of the kite. Ivan waved it back. "You're the kite-flyer, Terrel. It's all yours!" Then Ivan pointedly turned to look up into the sky, watching the kite, so Terrel wouldn't try to insist.

I can't go to your side of the street, Terrel, or the witch will get me.

The gusty wind was making the kite dance. Ivan wondered what it would be like, to be up there himself, in a hang glider, for instance, and catch one of those downdrafts. Drop like a stone for fifty feet, then recover and soar again.

Hang glider. That's something they could build in Taina, definitely. It wouldn't be paper, but Matfei had some silk, it had been part of his wife's dowry. Light dry wood for the frame—if Ivan learned enough about the aerodynamics of it, surely he could build at least one. That might be useful, to get someone inside Baba Yaga's fortress.

Someone alone and unarmed—how useful would that be? Because there was no way that someone carrying a heavy sword and buckler would be able to fly in a hang glider.

Oh, well. Never mind.

The front door opened. Terrel's mother came out onto the porch with a woman from up the street. For a moment Ivan thought, with some relief, that his assessment was wrong, that Terrel had indeed earned some applause for getting the kite into the air. But the women ignored the boy, continuing an animated conversation.

A small hairy dog charged out of the front door, dodged between the women on the porch, and ran straight for Terrel. With his eyes on the kite, stepping forward and backward as he kept the kite line taut, Terrel was completely unaware of the dog until it was bashing into his legs, tripping him up. Terrel lost his balance for a moment, and in the effort to keep from falling, he stepped on the dog. Not too hard, but enough to send the dog yipping and yelping toward Terrel's mom.

Now she noticed him. "What are you doing! Are you trying to kill him? You think a kite is more important than a living creature? You make me sick sometimes, Terrel, the way you step on everybody and everything around you!"

It was an astonishing display of temper. The neighbor lady was as appalled by it as Ivan was. But Terrel took it all in stride; he assumed a submissive pose, looking at the ground, no longer watching the kite. Apparently he knew—probably had learned it very young—that this was the only pose that turned away wrath. Ivan noticed, however, that behind his back he kept a firm grip on the kite string and was surreptitiously trying to keep it taut.

Terrel's mother was holding the dog now, speaking comfortingly to it, but with snide barbs at Terrel. "Did the mean boy kick you and step on you?" And then she turned her full attention back to her son. "Let go of that kite right now. You heard me! Let it go this instant! You will learn that living creatures are more important than toys." She poured so much scorn into the last word that Ivan wanted to smack her.

He knew he should keep his mouth shut, but it really was unbearable. He spoke in a loud voice, so he could be heard across the street. "Mrs. Sprewel, I was watching the whole thing, and Terrel could not have avoided what happened. The dog tripped him up before he even knew it was there."

Mrs. Sprewel glared at him like a bug in the frosting. "Thank you for your observation," she said. "I'm sure that makes poor Edwin feel much better." It took a moment for him to realize that Edwin was the dog.

Ivan tried to soften the whole thing by turning it away from the issue of dog-stomping. "Terrel did a great job of getting the kite up there on his first try—a gusty day like this, it wasn't easy."

"Excuse me, but I don't recall inviting you into this conversation," said Mrs. Sprewel. Behind her, the neighbor woman rolled her eyes.

Ruthie's car pulled up in front of the house.

Momentarily ignoring Ruthie's arrival, Ivan smiled and waved cheerily at Mrs. Sprewel. "You're quite right, Mrs. Sprewel. But I did wonder why your dog wasn't penned up or on a leash, as the law in Tantalus requires."

"He's on our property!" Mrs. Sprewel said, outraged but now on the defensive, which was all Ivan had hoped for.

"The dog wasn't on your property when it tripped your son and nearly killed him," said Ivan. "You really should watch that dog. It's a menace!" Then, with a wave but without another glance, he turned to Ruthie and greeted her with a smile as she got out of the car. Ruthie, unaware of the contretemps with the neighbors, gave him a friendly hug and a sisterly peck on the cheek.

Only after she pulled away from him and headed for the back of the car did he realize how deftly she had manipulated the greeting. Old habit had made him hold her just a little too tightly and a little too long. And perhaps she broke away a little more quickly than would have been normal, even for a perfunctory social greeting. He could almost hear the thought in her head: Take that, lover boy.