The Wizard's Dilemma, New Millennium Edition by Diane Duane Read Free Book Online Page A

chain collar and tags.
    Nothing.
    Now where’d he go? Sweat started to break out all over Kit at the thought that Ponch might have gotten into someone’s backyard and caught something he shouldn’t have. Ponch’s uncertain grasp of the difference between squirrels—which he hunted constantly with varying success—and rabbits—which he chased and almost always caught—had thrown him into disgrace a couple of months back when one of the neighbor’s tame rabbits had escaped from its hutch and strayed into Kit’s backyard. Ponch’s enthusiastic response to this exciting development had cost Kit about a month’s allowance to buy the neighbor a new rabbit of the same rare lop-eared breed… a situation made more annoying by the fact that wizards are enjoined against making money out of nothing except in extreme emergencies connected with errantry, which this was not. Kit had yelled at Ponch only once about the mistake; Ponch had been completely sorry. But all the same, every time Ponch’s whereabouts couldn’t be accounted for, Kit began to twitch.
    Kit started to jog down the street toward the entrance to the school, where Ponch liked to chase rabbits in the big fields to either side. But then he stopped as he heard a familiar sound, claws on concrete, and the familiar jingle, as Ponch came tearing down the sidewalk at him. Kit had just enough warning to sidestep slightly, so that Ponch’s excited jump took him through air, instead of through Kit. Ponch came down about five feet behind where Kit had been standing, spun around, and started jumping up and down in front of him again, panting with excitement, “Come see it! Come see, look, I found it, c’mon c’mon c’mon c’mon, comeseecomeseecomesee!”
    “Come see what ?” Kit said in the Speech.
    “I found something!”
    Kit grinned. Normally, with Ponch, this meant something dead. His father was still getting laughs out of the story about Ponch and the very mummified squirrel he had hidden for months under the old beat-up blanket in his doghouse. “So what is it?”
    “It’s not a what. It’s a where . It’s a where!”
    Kit was confused. There was no question of his having misunderstood Ponch; the dog spoke perfectly good Cyene, which anyone who knew the Speech could understand. And as a pan-canine language, Cyene might not be strong on abstract concepts, but what Ponch had said was fairly concrete.
    “Where?” Kit asked. “I mean, what where?” Then he had to laugh, for he was sounding more incoherent by the moment, and making Ponch sound positively sophisticated by comparison. “Okay, big guy, come on, show me.”
    “It’s right down the street.”
    Kit was still slightly nervous. “It’s not anybody’s rabbit, is it?”
    Ponch turned a shocked look on him. “Boss! I promised. And I said, it’s not a what !”
    “Uh, good,” Kit said. “Come on, show me, then.”
    “Look,” Ponch said. He turned and ran away from Kit, down the middle of the dark, empty, quiet side street…
    …and vanished.
    Kit stared.
    Uhhh… what the—!
    Astonished, Kit started to run after Ponch, into the darkness … and vanished, too.
    ***
    Nita had come back from the Jones Inlet jetty that evening to find that her mother had left to go shopping. Her dad was in the kitchen making a large sandwich; he looked at Nita with mild surprise. “You just went out. Are you done for the day already?”
    “Yup,” Nita said, heading through the kitchen.
    “Kit coming over?”
    “Don’t think so,” Nita said, dropping her manual on the dining-room table.
    Her father raised his eyebrows and turned back to the sandwich he was constructing. Nita sat down in the chair where she’d been sitting earlier and looked out the front window. She was completely tired out, even though she hadn’t done anything, and she was thoroughly pissed off at Kit. The day felt more than exceptionally ruined. Nita put her head down in her hands for a moment.
    As she did, she caught sight