"Okay."
"Good boy. Ponch, just where exactly were we?" "I don't know."
"But that wasn't the first time you did that, was it?"
"Uh..." Ponch looked as if he thought he was about to confess to something that would get him in trouble.
"It's okay," Kit said, "I'm not mad. How long have you been doing that?" "You went away," Ponch said. "I went looking for you."
Kit sighed. When Nita had been in Ireland over the summer, he'd "beamed over" there several times to help her out. Once or twice he'd been there long enough to get a mild case of gatelag, and he remembered Ponch's ecstatic and relieved greetings when he came back. "So... when? End of July, beginning of August?"
"I guess. Right after you went the first time." "Okay. But where did you go? Since you didn't find me."
"I tried, I really tried!" Ponch whimpered. "I missed you. You were gone too much." "It's okay; I'm not mad that you didn't find me! It was just an observation." "Oh." Ponch licked his nose in relief.
"So where did you go?"
"It was dark."
"You're right there," Kit said. "The same place we were together?"
"We weren't there together all the time," Ponch said. "You're not there until you do something."
Kit wasn't terribly clear about what Ponch meant. He was tempted to push for more information, but Ponch yawned at him again. "Can we go there another time?"
"Sure." Ponch put his head down on his paws. "Whenever you want. Can I go to sleep now?" "Yeah, go ahead," Kit said. "I wish 7 could."
Shortly, Ponch had rolled over on his side and was
emitting the tiny little snore that always sounded so funny coming from such a big dog. Kit stood up, yawning again. He couldn't put off the reaction to the evening's wizardry much longer, but first he wanted to look into a couple of things. Fortunately, tomorrow was Saturday, and he could sleep late. Kit sat down again, opened the manual once more, and soon found the section he wanted. Tracking and location protocols.. . isodimensional... exodimensional...
Kit found a pen and a pad and started making notes.
The mall was crowded that evening, but not so much so that Nita and her mother had any trouble getting their shopping done. The clothes came first, for Nita's mother was concerned that Nita didn't have anything decent to wear to school; and privately Nita agreed with her. At the first shop they went into, though, some differences emerged between their definitions of decent.
Nita's mom walked among the racks, shaking her head and trying to avoid looking at the two tops and three skirts Nita was carrying. "They're all so expensive," her mother said under her breath. "And they're not terribly well made, either. Such a rip-off..."
Nita knew this wasn't the problem. She trailed along behind, not saying anything. As she finished looking at the racks, her mother stopped and looked at Nita. "Honey, tell me the truth. Are the other girls really wearing stuff like this?" From the nearest rack, she picked up a black skirt identical to one of the ones Nita was carrying, holding it up with a critical expression.
"Stuff exactly like this, Mom. Some of them are shorter. This one's a little conservative." Because I chickened out on the really short one.
"And the principal hasn't been sending people home for wearing skirts this short? Really?" "Really."
"You wouldn't be bending the truth in the service of fashion, here?"
Nita had to laugh at that. "If I was gonna lie to you about anything, Mom, don't you think I would have done it when it was about much bigger stuff? Great white sharks? Saving the world?" And she grinned.
"I begin to wonder," her mom said, putting the skirt back on the rack, "exactly how much you aren't telling me that I ought to know about."
"Tons of things," Nita said. "Where should I start? Did I tell you about the dinosaurs in Central Park?"
Her mother looked over her shoulder with one of those expressions that suggested she wasn't sure whether Nita was joking. But the expression shaded into one that meant her mom had realized this wasn't a joke and she didn't like the idea. "Is this something recent?"
"Uh, kind of. Except we made it so it never happened, and maybe recent isn't the right word."
Nita's mother frowned, perplexed. Nita ignored this; the translation of what she'd said was bothering her. "Potentially recent?" Nita said, to see how the substitution sounded. Unfortunately English lacked the right kind of verb tenses to describe a problem that could be easily expressed in the Speech. "No, it can't happen anymore, I don't think. At least, not that time, it can't. Formerly recent?"
"Stop now," Nita's mother said, "before this takes you, me, and the dinosaurs many places that none of us wants to go, and let's get back to the skirt." She picked it up again. "Honey, your poor old mom tries hard not to live entirely in the last century, but this thing's hardly more than a wide belt."
"Mom, remember when you trusted me about the shark?"
"Yeeees...," her mother said, sounding dubious. "So trust me about the skirt!"
Her mother gave her a cockeyed look. "It's not the sharks I'm worried about," she said. "It's the wolves."
"Mom, I promise you, none of the 'wolves' are going to touch me. I just want to look normal. If I can't be normal, let me at least simulate the effect!"
Her mother looked at her with mild surprise. "You're not having problems at school, are you?" "No, I'm fine."
"The homework—"
"It's no big deal. There's more than there used to be, but so far I'm not overloaded." "You are having problems, though."
"Mom—" Nita sighed. "Nobody beats me up anymore, if that's what you're worried about. They can't. But a lot of the kids still think I'm some kind of nerd princess." She grimaced. Once Nita had thought that when she got into junior high, reading would be seen as normal behavior for someone her age. She was still waiting for this idea to occur to some of her classmates. "It's nothing wizardry will cure. Just believe me when I tell you that dressing in style will help me blend in a little. I know I didn't care much about clothes in grade school, but now it's more of an issue. As for the length, if you're worried that moral rot will set in, I'll promise to let you know if I see any early warning signs."
Her mother smiled slightly. "Okay," she said, put back the skirt she'd been holding, and reached out to take the one Nita was carrying. "Moral rot hasn't been much of a problem with you. So this is an experiment. But if I hear anything from your principal, I'm going to make you wear flour sacks down to your ankles until you graduate. You and the dinosaurs better make a note."
"Noted, Mom," Nita said. "Thanks." She went off to put the other two skirts back where she'd found them. This one's a start. She'll soften up in a couple of weeks, and we can come back for the other ones.
They went to the cash register and paid for the skirt. Then Nita's mom drove them to the supermarket, and as they tooled up and down the aisles with the cart, Nita began to feel normal, almost against her will. But then, while standing there with a bottle of mouthwash in her hand and working out if it was a better bargain than other bottles nearby, Nita's mother suddenly turned to her and said, "What kind of dinosaurs?"
Boy, Nita thought, maybe it's a good thing I didn't mention the giant squid!
When Nita and her mom got home, Nita and Dairine helped put away the groceries (and Nita helped her mom keep Dairine out of them); so it was half an hour before she could get up to her room and fish out her manual. As she picked it up, she felt a faint fizz about the covers, a silent notification that there was a message waiting for her. Hurriedly she flipped it open to the back page. At the top of the page was Kit's name and his manual reference. In the middle of the page were the words: If you need some time by yourself, feel free.