“Just hurry up,” Kit said. “I need some moral support!”
To Kit, it seemed to take hours for Nita to arrive: His brain was buzzing with plans
and possibilities that couldn’t start getting handled until he’d settled things with his folks. But it was really only about ten minutes before Nita bounced in the back door, grinning. “Here,” she said, and handed Kit a chicken, wrapped in plastic wrap on a little cardboard tray.
“Thanks,” Kit said, and stowed it in the fridge.
“What’s that noise? Opera?”
Beyond, in the living room, the entertainment system was making a sound like a fire siren bewailing its lot. “No,” Kit said, “just ‘Mela’s chat application again. Come on.”
“By the way, the K-9 Corps is out there again,” Nita said as she and Kit headed through the dining room. “Hi, Mrs. Rodriguez.”
“Hi, Nita,” Kit’s mama said from the sofa, where she was still lying with her feet up on the arm and her eyes closed. “Dinner in half an hour.”
“Thanks!”
“At least they’re just sitting there now,” Kit said softly. “They were howling before.”
“I missed that. Where’s Ponch?”
“Out back somewhere. He got them to be quiet, and after that he took off. For some reason he’s never real social after he has to go talk to them.”
They went into the living room. There, Carmela was sitting cross-legged on the rug in front of the TV, a cell phone on the floor nearby but, miraculously, not in use. “Hi, ‘Mela,” Nita said. She peered at the screen. “ ‘Multispecies General Discussion,’” she read off the channel-indicator band at the bottom. “What’s it like?”
“Interesting, mostly.”
“What’re you talking about?”
“Grenfelzing. Which for some reason Kit doesn’t want me to get involved with. He thinks it’ll stunt my growth.”
“Anything that would keep you from needing to buy new clothes every other week would be welcome,” said Kit’s pop from behind the paper. “If grenfelzing has that effect, bring it on.”
Kit looked at the screen, which Nita was studying with interest. It was divided into three main parts: a status bar along the bottom; a constantly scrolling column down one side; and the main part of the screen, subdivided into eight squares, each of which featured a live image, or what looked like one. The scrolling column was full of words in the Speech, moving very fast indeed, and the audio was screeching or blatting or warbling or hooting with any number of alien-sounding voices, all talking (it seemed) at once.
“Which one is supposed to be you?” Nita said, looking at the screen.
“That one.” Carmela pointed at what appeared to be a portrait of a pink octopus. “I picked it off a screenful of sample cover faces.”
‘“Mela,” Nita said, “you know what would be better? Go off-line and pick something more humanoid. Otherwise, if Pink Octopus Guy turns up at school someday and wants to sit next to you, the explanation you’re going to find yourself making is going to sound like something out of a lame sitcom.”
“Oh,” Carmela said. “Okay.” She tossed the remote to Kit. “But do aliens
really turn up on Earth just like that?”
“There’s no other possible way to explain you,” Kit said.
“Ooooooooo,” Carmela said, standing up without uncrossing her legs. “I feel unloved now. Nita, come see my catalogs!”
“I’ll come up in a while,” Nita said. “Thanks.”
Carmela wandered upstairs.
Kit glanced at his pop. “Uh, Popi,” Kit said, “uh, is it okay if I go halfway across the galaxy for a couple of weeks?”
“Sure,” Kit’s father said from behind the paper. “Is Nita going with you?”
“Uh, yeah, Pop.”
“Her dad said it’s okay?”
“Yeah.”
“Fine. Dress warm,” Kit’s father said, and turned to the comics section.
Kit and Nita exchanged a glance. Finally, Kit turned toward the kitchen.
“You’ll want to fill Mama in on the details,” Kit’s father said, in a tone of voice suggesting complete unconcern.
Kit couldn’t bear it anymore. He looked over his shoulder and saw his father just peering over the top of the newspaper at him, waiting for his reaction. His father bent the paper down just enough to let Kit see his grin, then let the paper pop up again and went on with his reading.
“I’ve been had,” Kit muttered to Nita as they went back into the kitchen.
Kit’s mama was up off the couch now, and looked up as she poured herself some coffee. “In case you were wondering,” she said, “Tom was on the phone a while ago.”
“Oh,” Kit said.
“He gave us the basics,” Kit’s mama said, leaning against the counter. “I gather that this isn’t going to be at all dangerous, and that you’ll be able to come home at night if you want to, or if we want you to.”
“Uh, yeah,” Kit said.
“Well, let’s think about this,” his mother said. “Your grades have been okay…” Kit was already beginning to grin when his mama glanced up at him and said, “I emphasize the ‘okay’ Not brilliant. I’m still not entirely pleased with your midterm grades, especially that history test.”
“Mama,” Kit said, “my history teacher is a date freak. He doesn’t care if you understand anything about history except when things happened!”
“Aha, the appeal to vague generalities as opposed to concrete data,” Kit’s mother said. “Sorry, honey. Not having the dates is like knowing why someone’s having a cardiac arrest but not being real sure where their heart is. You’re just going to have to work harder at that, even if you can’t see the point right now.”
“You’re gonna tell me that it’ll all make sense someday,” Kit said.
“It sure will,” his mother said, “and on that day you’ll suddenly realize that your mom wasn’t really as dumb as you secretly thought she was at the very moment you were also trying to wheedle her into letting you go off on a jaunt halfway across the galaxy.”
I think this is a real good time not to say anything, Kit thought.
“Okay,” Kit’s mama said. “I want a commitment from you that you’re going
to work harder in that history class. Otherwise, the next time you want to go out on a recreational run like this, the answer is going to be no. Even if you work in other worlds, you have to live in this one…and Tom says even wizards need day jobs.”
“I promise, Mama,” Kit said.
His mother had another drink of coffee, then looked reflectively into the cup. “Of course,” she said, “you’d promise to turn into a three-headed gorilla as long as you could go on this trip.”
“Mama!”
Her grin broke out at full strength. “I know,” she said. “Wizards don’t lie. But if I don’t get to tease you sometimes, life won’t be worth living. When do you leave?”
“Thanks, Mama!” Kit said, and jumped at her and hugged her harder than necessary, if only to get her back for the teasing.
“It’s some time in the next couple of days, Mrs. Rodriguez,” Nita said. “I didn’t check the exact date—I was looking at the rest of the info package. We can tell you in a few minutes.”
“Okay,” Kit’s mama said. “Get that sorted out and you can fill us in over dinner.”
They went up to Kit’s room—or, rather, Kit ran up the steps three at a time in his excitement, and Nita came up after him. As Kit passed Carmela’s room, she put her head out and looked him up and down as if he were nuts. “What’s going on with you?” she said.
“I get to go away for spring break!” Kit said.
“Oh, really? Where to?”
“Sixty-two thousand light-years away,” Kit said casually. “The other side of the galaxy.”
“Great!” Carmela said. “I’ll give you a shopping list.”
“You do your own shopping,” Kit said as he and Nita went into his room. He glanced over at Nita and saw her grinning. “What’s so funny?”