Диана Дуэйн: Games Wizards Play

Nita sighed. “Okay,” she said. “But I’m going to need a while to think this over.”

“So think,” Carl said. “Take your time. The Planetaries aren’t going anywhere.” Then he grinned. “Except around in big circles.”

“You mean ellipses.”

He gave her an amused look that said both You’re correcting a Supervisory? and Good, about time.

Then something went ping! and Nita and Kit looked at each other in confusion, as it wasn’t an alert that belonged to either of their phones.

“Sorry, just me,” Carl said, and went fishing in his pockets. A moment later he came up with his phone and peered at it.

“Huh,” he said, resigned. “So much for rooting for the home team.”

“What?” Nita said.

“Tiilikainen got it.”

“What?” said Kit.

“The second fella who presented,” Carl said, turning the phone around to show Nita and Kit the list of scores and rankings from the Moon. “The one with the solution for the Gulf Stream convection problem. He took it on points.”

Nita peered at the phone’s screen. “I could never say his name . . .”

“All those vowels,” Carl said.

“But Penn came in third,” Kit said.

“And Mehrnaz came in second!” Nita said. “Dairine’ll be glad.”

Carl nodded. “So that’s that for another eleven years,” he said. He turned off the phone and stuffed it back in his pocket. “By the way,” he said to Kit as he did so, “this reminds me. I meant to have a word with you about your sister.”

“Oh God,” Kit said in dread. “What’s she done now? ”

“I wanted to let you know that while everybody was up on the Moon, Carmela was videoing the final rounds. She got some wonderful footage of the Simurgh going home, and that’s already hitting the intergalactic Nets. She’s probably going to clean up on it. I know she’s a very sensible person, as a rule, and God knows I don’t care to squash anyone’s entrepreneurial spirit. But do me a favor and make sure she doesn’t post it on the Web, all right?”

Kit covered his face and moaned.

Carl stood up, grinning. “A word to the wise, that’s all,” he said. “So you two have a good evening. Sit tight . . . I’ll let myself out.”

And he made for the front door and a moment later shut it behind him.

“Oh sweet Powers That Be in a bucket,” Kit said, staring into what was left of his tea and rubbing his hands through his hair. “When I catch up with her, we are going to have such words. ”

“Might help you with that,” Nita said, as she got up and walked over to the sink with the cups. “Let’s go take care of it. Your mama cooking tonight?”

“I think we can talk her into it.” He held a hand out to her.

She took it.

Shortly thereafter a casual observer of suburban life would have seen a couple of teenagers walking down the street together, hand in hand in the deepening dusk, with the full Moon rising behind them. As they reached the nearby corner, one of them stood still, glancing back at that Moon, and then looked up at the other. Their faces were coming closer together in the dimness when the quiet around them was broken by one of their phones beeping for attention.

“Oh, come on now . . .”

“Go on, you might as well get it.”

A pause.

“What is it?”

“Oh no.”

“ What? Let me see.”

A moment’s silence. And then the words:

“She didn’t.”

“She did. ”

“And it’s going to be all over school in about a minute!”

There was a pause. “If I were her,” the deeper of the two voices said, “I would head for the most distant possible planet right now! ”

And hand in hand they jogged around the corner and out of sight.

Visit www.hmhco.com to find all of the books in the Young Wizards series.

About the Author

DIANE DUANE is the award-winning author of more than fifty science fiction and fantasy novels, as well as numerous short stories, teleplays, comic books, and computer games. Among her novels are four New York Times bestsellers, and the ten books in the Young Wizards series. She lives in rural Ireland with her husband, the writer Peter Morwood, and an assortment of overworked computers, none of which has shown wizardly tendencies . . . yet.

To find out more about Diane Duane and the Young Wizards series, visit www.youngwizards.com.