Диана Дуэйн - Wizards At War

“Yeah, but what’s been normal lately?” Nita said.

The screen door creaked open again. A moment later, a black four-legged shape burst into the room and began jumping up on the people at the table, one after another, putting his front paws on them and licking them until they protested they’d had enough. When the large Labrador-ish creature got to Nita, he started the same procedure with her, and then paused, looking with sudden interest at her waffle.

“Oh, no, you don’t!” Nita said.

But it smells so nice, Ponch said silently.

“And it’s going to keep smelling nice until it’s all gone,” Nita said. “Oh, come on, don’t give me those big sad puppy-dog eyes. Kit gave you breakfast.”

He might not have. You haven’t asked.

There was no lessening of the puppy-dog–eyes effect. Nita went back to eating. “I don’t have to ask,” she said. “I know he did. You’re really pitiful, you know that?”

Not pitiful enough, it seems, Ponch said, in a tone of mild regret. He dropped to the floor again and went to sit by Sker’ret instead.

Sker’ret looked at Ponch with several eyes, then offered him a strip of torn-off magazine page. Ponch sniffed it, mouthed it briefly, and then let Sker’ret have it back, somewhat damp. Tastes like my dry dog food, Ponch said.

Kit came in from the kitchen in Ponch’s wake. “Did I hear you bad-mouthing breakfast?”

Not hers, Ponch said.

Kit flopped down in Roshaun’s vacant seat. Ponch got up and went to rest his head on Kit’s knee. I don’t mind the dry food so much when there’s some wet food. But when you have to eat it by itself—

“It tastes like cardboard, is that what you’re trying to tell me? Okay, we’ll try another brand.” Kit ruffled Ponch’s ears. “Boy, when you got smart, you sure got picky…”

I was always picky, Ponch said, with an air of wounded dignity. But now that I’m smart, I can tell you why.

Kit looked over at Nita, amused. As he did, it struck her that he looked a little different somehow. “Is it just me,” she said, “or are you having another growth spurt? You look taller today.”

“I am taller,” Kit said, looking toward the kitchen as the screen door creaked open again. “Probably so are you. Looks like ten days in eight-tenths Earth gravity makes your spine stretch. My mom picked up on it last night. She measured me and I’d gained half an inch.”

“Huh,” Nita said, turning her attention back to what was left of her waffle.

“I, too, am taller,” Roshaun said, coming back into the dining room. “Your gravity is somewhat lighter than ours at home.”

“You’re the last one around here who needs to be any taller,” Dairine said as Roshaun reached for the lollipop canister again. “I have to stand on a step stool to get your attention as it is.”

“You finished that last one already? ” Nita said, taking a bite of waffle as Roshaun sorted through the canister, pulling out a couple of the root-beer–flavored pops. “Roshaun, you’re not going to have any teeth left by the time you get home.”

“We shall see. And what is this delicacy?” He reached down into Nita’s plate and snitched a chunk of waffle off it just as Nita was about to spear it with her fork. As it was, she nearly speared him instead, and wasn’t terribly sorry about it. “Hey!” Nita said. “Cut it out!”

Roshaun ignored her, chewing. “A naive but pleasing contrast,” he said. “And I wouldn’t be so concerned about my sugar intake, if I were you.” He smiled at Nita.

“I don’t eat these every five minutes, Roshaun!” Nita said, but it was too late: he was already sauntering out again.

Kit smiled as the screen door slammed once more, but the smile was sardonic. “Is he for real?” Kit said under his breath.

“Real enough to fix a busted star,” Dairine said, giving Kit an annoyed look.

Kit raised his eyebrows. “Finish explaining this to me,” he said to Dairine as she got up, “because you didn’t get into detail yesterday. He’s a prince?”

“A king, ” Dairine and Sker’ret said in chorus, sounding like they’d heard the correction much too often lately.

“The upgrade from ‘prince’ happened the other day,” Dairine said.

“And he won’t let us forget it,” Sker’ret said. “I think I liked him better as a prince. He was so much less self-assured…”

Dairine rolled her eyes. She made her way around the table and out, heading through the kitchen after Roshaun. Squeak, bang! went the screen door.

“Sker’ret, my boy,” said Nita’s dad as he came in from the living room, now dressed in jeans and a polo shirt for work, “your mastery of the art of irony becomes more comprehensive every day.”

It was hard to be sure how she could tell that an alien with no face was smiling, but Nita could tell. “You going now, Daddy?” she said.

“I want to get some bookkeeping done before I open the shop. See you, sweetie.” Once again, the screen door banged shut.

“Something going on with Dairine and Roshaun?” Kit said after a moment.

Nita shook her head. “At first I thought it might just be a crush,” she said. “But now I’m starting to wonder.” Nita speared the last pieces of waffle, and a thought hit her. “Hey, did Filif hear that he needs to be here?”

The wizards around the table looked at one another. “He went out as you were coming in, didn’t he?”

Nita nodded. “He’s probably out back,” she said. “I’ll check.”

She got up and put her plate in the kitchen sink; and with Kit in tow, and Ponch following him, she went out through the side door, down the brick steps to the driveway. The morning was a little hazy, but the sun was warm on their faces. The view up and down the driveway would have seemed clear enough to any non-wizardly person who happened to pass by, but Nita’s vision, well trained in perceiving active spelling by now, could see a tremor of power all around the edges of their property, a selective-visibility field that would hide the presence or actions of anything nonhuman. Inside the screening field, the leaves on the big lilac bushes across the driveway were out at last, and the flower-spikes were growing fast. Nita was glad to see them, though they also made her sad. The winter and the earliest part of the spring seemed to have lasted forever, some ways: any sign of things being made new was welcome. But her mom had loved those lilacs, and wouldn’t be seeing them again. Nita sighed.

“Yeah, I’m tired, too,” Kit said, glancing up and down the driveway as Ponch wandered off down it. “You wouldn’t think a vacation’d leave you so wiped out.”

“And there won’t be much time to get rested up now,” Nita said. She looked down their street, where the branches of the maples beside the sidewalk, bare for so long, were now well clothed in that particular new spring yellow-green. The leaves that had been small when they first went off on their spring break were now almost full-sized. “At least there’s stuff to do…”

“And five whole days left before we have to go back to school.” Kit looked at her meaningfully.

Nita rolled her eyes. “Yeah, I know, the Mars thing. I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that. When did you get the idea it would be cute to carve my dad’s cellphone number on a rock in the middle of Syrtis Major? He hates it when people call me on his phone.”

Kit gave Nita a resigned look. “Sorry. I couldn’t resist.”

“Well, resist next time!” Nita said. “Anyway, we can’t just run off and start digging up half of Syrtis on our own. We have to talk to the rest of the intervention team and see if they’ve got any kind of idea where to start. ”