Still, if I told the snowstorm to dump, say, twelve feet of snow just on the school, and then only enough everywhere else so that everybody could have fun for a day; say six inches or so…
Kit sighed again. Though such a course of action would be less trouble to the snowplow crews, the emergency services, and everybody else who wanted to go on about their lives, something like that would cause a whole lot of talk, and still get him in trouble. But the image of his school completely buried under a giant snowdrift made him smile. “By the way, Pop,” Kit said, “is the TV still okay?”
“Seems fine,” his pop said. “Every now and then the thing insists on showing me a news program from some other planet, but…” He shrugged. “As long as nothing happens to interfere with the basketball games over the weekend, I don’t mind seeing who’s grown a new head or whatever.
Darlin‘, you know what I need?”
“Less time on the couch watching basketball?” Kit’s mama suggested.
“Dream on. Celery seed.”
“We’re out of it.”
“You’re just saying that because you hate celery.”
“I know celery seed is different from celery, or celery salt. But we’re still out of it. Look for yourself.”
Kit’s pop went to the cupboard to look. Kit, looking at his mama, thought that her expression was far too innocent. She caught him looking at her, and said, “Isn’t Ponch a long time out, Kit? He hates being out this long when it’s cold. But he hasn’t scratched.”
She had a point there, though Kit thought she was more intent on him not saying anything incriminating about celery seed. Kit grinned. “I’ll go see what he’s doing,” he said, and got his winter jacket off the hook.
He went out, shutting the door hurriedly behind him, and looked up and down the driveway for Ponch. To his surprise, Ponch was sitting at the street end of the driveway, looking up at the sky.
Kit walked down to him, looking up, too. The clouds were, indeed, coming in low and fast from the south on that wind. Past and above the houses across the street, only a few streaks and scraps of the low sunset remained in the west, a bleak, bleached peach color against the encroaching stripes of dark gray. Westward, the reddish spark of Mars could just be seen through the filmy front edges of one of the incoming banks of cloud.
Ponch looked over his shoulder at Kit as Kit came to stand next to him. “You okay?” Kit said to him in the Speech.
Pretty much.
Kit wondered about that. “I mean, about what happened the other day.” He reached down to scratch the dog’s head.
I think so.
The clouds drew together in the west, blanking Mars out, slowly shutting down the last embers of the sunset. “What did happen?”
I saw something.
“Yeah? What was it?”
Not that way
, Ponch said. I mean, I noticed something. I never really noticed it before.
Kit waited.
You get hurt sometimes
, Ponch said. That makes me sad.
“Yeah, well, I get sad when you’re hurt, too.”
That’s right. And your dam and your sire and your littermates, they hurt sometimes, too. So does Nita. I noticed that. But it didn’t seem to matter as much as you hurting.
Ponch paused for a long time. But then I saw him: Darryl. And what That One was doing to him, and how it hurt him. And he didn’t do anything to deserve that. It was awful, the way he was hurting.
And that started to hurt me. And then I thought, Why doesn’t the others’ hurt make me feel like this?
And then I felt bad about myself.
Kit hardly knew what to say. It wasn’t that it was a bad thing for his dog to learn about compassion, but that the lesson would come all at once, like this, came as a surprise.
And the others didn’t deserve to be hurt, either
, Ponch said, looking up at Kit. Nita didn’t do anything bad, for her mother to die. Why should she be hurt like that? Why should Dairine? Or your sire or dam?
They’re good. Why do they have to suffer when they haven’t been bad? It’s not fair!
Kit bowed his head. This line of reasoning all too closely reflected some of his own late-night thoughts over the past couple of months. And all the easy answers — about the Powers That Be and the Lone Power, and all the other additional theories or answers that might be suggested by either religion or science— suddenly sounded hollow and pathetic.
“I don’t know,” Kit said. “I really don’t know.”
I felt sad for them all, Ponch said. Sad for everything, because it shouldn’t have to be that way.
All of a sudden I had to howl, that’s all
He looked embarrassed.
Kit couldn’t think of anything to do but get down on one knee and hug Ponch, and ruffle his fur.
After a moment Ponch said, I’m not going to howl now. It’s all right.
“I know,” Kit said. But he wasn’t sure that it was “all right.”
Ponch looked at him again. 5b what do we do? he said. To make it right?
That answer, at least, Kit was sure of. “Just get on with work,” he said. “That’s what wizards do.”
And their dogs.
“And their dogs,” Kit said. “After dinner tonight, huh? We’ll go looking for Darryl again. We’ll see if we can’t get a word with him… find out what’s going on. Then he can get himself out of there, and we can get back to doing what we usually do.”
Right.
They walked back up the driveway together, and Kit let Ponch into the house, hurriedly shutting the door. The wind outside was beginning to rise. He ditched his coat in a hurry, because his pop had already carried the soup pot to the table, setting it on a trivet, and his mama was putting out bowls and spoons. “No Carmela tonight?” Kit said, because there were only three bowls.
“No, she’s over at Miguel’s with some of the other kids. A homework thing.” His mama sat down, took her spoon, and tasted the soup as Kit’s pop sat down.
“Oh, honey, that’s so good!” his mama said. “Even without the celery seed. Who’d believe most of it came out of a can? What else did you put in there?”
“Genius,” Kit’s father said, and grinned.
Kit was inclined to agree. He finished his first bowl in record time, and reached for the ladle to serve himself some more.
“Another satisfied customer,” his pop said.
Kit nodded, already working on the second bowl.
“You’ve got that fueling-up look,” his pop said, as he chased the last few spoonfuls of soup around his own bowl. “You going out on business tonight, son?”
“Yup.”
“How long?”
“Not late,” Kit said. “I don’t think, anyway. Back by bedtime.”
“Yours, or mine?”
“Mine, Pop.”
“Good,” his dad said. “What you’re doing is important… and so is getting your rest.” His father gave him what Kit usually thought of as “the eye,” a faintly warning look. “You’re looking a little pooped, this past day or so. Try to relax a little over the weekend, okay?”
“If I can,” Kit said.
His pop looked like he was going to say something, then changed his mind, and reached for the ladle himself. “Hey, who took all the beans?”