She ended with giving a date and time, and offering her private contact number.
Dr. Whittaker looked nearly as pleased as he had when he’d learned he’d won the competition to head the project to Sphinx.
“Good, boy,” he said, pounding Anders between the shoulder blades. “If Dr. Harrington doesn’t think her daughter is at least a little sweet on you, I’m no anthropologist. I’ll certainly make sure we’re available to get you to that party. Maybe I’ll drop you off myself, just to show friendly…of course, I’ll turn down any offer to stay. Don’t want to cramp your style.”
Whistling, Dr. Whittaker went off towards the shower. Anders, slowly stripping off his own field clothes, wondered why his own reaction to accepting the invitation was so mixed. After all, his father wasn’t asking him to do anything worse than his mother did on a daily basis, right?
Gritting her teeth, Stephanie let herself out of the air car, then tugged her black-and-orange hang glider out of the cargo compartment. Lionheart leapt lightly out after the glider. He, at least, was clearly looking forward to today’s practice.
Stephanie wished that she was.
“Thanks for the ride, Dad,” she said.
“Unless something goes wrong,” Richard Harrington replied, “I’ll be back to get you no later than an hour after practice ends. I’ll com if I’ll be late.”
Stephanie nodded. “I brought my uni-link. If you’re late, I’ll go over to the cafe and do some homework.”
She saw Dad swallow a comment. She knew he and Mom wished that she’d use time in town to visit with people her own age.
Well, she thought glumly as she waved good-bye to her father, shouldered the hang glider, and trotted off toward the practice field. Today they’ll get their wish. Damn birthday party…
The late summer/early autumn weather was just about perfect for hang gliding, the winds light, with just enough variation to provide some challenge. Unlike those who had originally practiced this sport, Stephanie and her teammates had counter-grav units to make launching easier. So, instead of having to drop off a cliff or hope for a promising breeze, they could begin in an open field that air traffic control had isolated from any other vehicles.
But today, Stephanie thought, aware the image was just a bit melodramatic, I feel as if I’m walking off a cliff just the same.
“Bleek!” Lionheart commented, a note of reproof in his voice. At least, Stephanie thought she heard reproof. Lionheart might not be able to “talk,” but he had a wide variety of verbalizations. These might not be “words” as such, but she’d learned to hear the differences between a “bleek” of excitement, of alarm, and, as this time, of disapproval.
She knew Lionheart knew she was nervous. All the way into town, the treecat had sat so he could wrap his tail around her neck-a gesture she knew was one of comfort. However, she’d felt no hint of him attempting to intrude into her emotions, to provide soothing and calming as he had from time to time.
I wonder if that means he thinks I’m up to dealing with this? The thought made her surprisingly cheerful.
They were close enough now for Stephanie to see that most of the club members had already arrived. When her dad and Mayor Sapristos had started the club, there had only been a few people interested, but it had grown quite a bit and even spawned an adult chapter. Initially, Stephanie had been one of the younger flyers, but now there were a fair number younger even than she’d been when she started. She liked that. She’d found that kids even a little younger than her didn’t seem, well, as resentful of her as did kids her own age.
Topping the list of those kids Stephanie didn’t get along with was Trudy Franchitti. Stephanie had already promised herself that she was going to avoid Trudy today. They hadn’t met up since what the SFS informally called “the Franchitti fire” and Stephanie didn’t trust herself to keep her temper if the subject came up.
Now that the club was larger, avoiding Trudy wouldn’t be as tough. Moreover, after a few attempts to put them on the same team-in addition to solo flying practice, club meetings also featured team events like relay races-Mayor Sapristos had resigned himself to separating them.
Stephanie hadn’t precisely been eavesdropping-was she to blame that so many grown-ups forgot that a kid apparently engrossed in reading might be listening as well? — when Mayor Sapristos had spoken with her dad.
“I know I agreed with you that even if Trudy and Stephanie were among our strongest flyers they might benefit from being on the same team. Problem is, what we’ve ended up with are four teams: the Red Team, the Blue Team, Team Stephanie, and Team Trudy. They won’t pass to each other if they can help it. Trudy fouls Stephanie if she thinks she can get away with it. Stephanie doesn’t quite go as far as fouling Trudy, but I’ve caught her stealing wind in a way that’s more appropriate when done against a rival team.”
Dad had sighed. “Better to put them on opposite teams then, where they won’t ruin the fun for the rest of the kids. Pity, though. I’d hoped Stephanie was above that sort of thing.”
Hearing that, Stephanie had flushed. She hoped no one had realized she heard. She hated disappointing her folks, but some of the other kids-especially Trudy and her gang-were such blackholes. Did Mayor Sapristos know that Stan Chang, Trudy’s boyfriend, often came to practice high? Did he know that the reason Toby Mednick had screwed up so bad that time was because Stan and his good buddy Frank “Outta Focus” Camara had pressured him into trying a hit of something?
She’d considered telling the mayor, so Stan could be kept away from Toby, but because she liked Toby, she hadn’t done so. There would have been a blood test and Toby would have gotten seriously in trouble. His parents were super strict. The whole thing had been confusing, because Stephanie knew her parents would have said she should have told, that Toby could have been hurt.
She’d settled for keeping an eye on Toby. So far, his near accident seemed to have scared him from trying anything else dumb. As for Stan and Focus…Well, Stephanie just couldn’t make herself care. They were belly lice and bullies. If they wanted to take theselves out of the gene pool by flying stoned, let them.
Toby was on Stephanie’s guest list for the birthday party. He was only a few months younger than her, so she figured he fit that mysterious “peer” qualification. It seemed weird to Stephanie that age should matter so much. Trudy was almost a year older than her, but several sections behind in all their classes.
Don’t be dense, Steph, she said to herself as she assembled her glider. You know the reason Mom and Dad want you to invite kids your own age is precisely because you find that hardest. Think of this as a test, just like in math or literature.
That thought buoyed her up. All she had to do was think about social skills as if they were another subject-like social studies. Hadn’t people once studied such things very seriously? Things like etiquette or the complex hierarchical systems of the ancient Japanese-traces of which still existed in their forms of personal address.
Stephanie grinned, wishing Karl was around so she could share her insight. He’d laugh, patting her on the head like he did his little sisters, Nadia and Anastasia. She wondered what Anders would think of her insight. As the son of an anthropologist, he probably had already thought of such things. Still, maybe she could ask him sometime.
The thought of Anders was the final thing Stephanie needed to give her spirit wings. She strapped herself and Lionheart (who had his own harness) into the hang glider and made her way over to where the rest of the club was assembling. She even managed to make “small talk” with a couple of the other kids.