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

said. “But this is different. Honey, you ought to be a little kinder to yourself. Go on, goof off a little! You deserve it. And maybe I could use a little controlled weirdness. Sounds like that’s what we’d be in for.” And he threw Nita a slightly wicked sidelong look. “Also, it’s a way to give Dairine a little something on the sly to make up for me, and your friends the Powers That Be, slapping her down so hard. Yeah?”
    You are such a softie, Nita thought, with a sudden great rush of love for her dad. She took a breath. “Okay,” Nita said. “Thanks, Daddy!”
    “One thing,” her dad said. “I really would be happier if Kit was with you. You two’ve been pretty good backup for each other in the past, and he’s worked hard, too. I don’t think a break from routine would hurt him, either. Obviously it’s going to be up to his folks, but when you go over there, see what they think.”
    Without knowing how she knew, Nita was already certain of what they’d think. “You talked to them about me going already!” Nita said. “When you didn’t even know what I was going to say!”
    Her dad shot her another amused look. “We have many mysterious modes of communication,” he said as he signaled the turn into their driveway. “Aided by the fact that not even teenagers who are wizards can keep an eye on their parents every minute of the day.”
    Nita had to grin as the car splashed through the puddle at the bottom of the driveway. “Let’s get this stuff unpacked,” her dad said. “Then you’d better go talk to Kit and make plans.”
     

3: Planning Your Trip
     
    Kit was sitting in his room, riffling through his wizard’s manual, frowning in concentration and trying not to be distracted by the sound of his dog’s snoring, when his sister stuck her head in through the open doorway. “You busy?” Carmela said.
    Kit sighed, pushed back from the desk. “No. What is it?”
    “You are busy,” his sister said, walking carefully around Ponch, who had stretched his big black self right across the rug in the middle of the floor and was lying there with his paws in the air, taking up most of the spare floor space in the room. “Good, I’ll hang around and make you crazy.” She leaned over Kit’s shoulder, so far over that her single long dark braid hung down in front of his face. “What’s that little red glowing thing in the air there?”
    “Just a wizardry. I’m playing with the speed of light.”
    “I thought that was supposed to be a law,” Carmela said. “You shouldn’t break laws.”
    “I’m not. I’m not even bending this one,” Kit said. “Just bending space.”
    “For the fun of it,” his sister said in wonder. “You make my brains bleed sometimes, you know that?”
    “Not half as much as I wish I did,” Kit said. “‘Mela, what is it?”
    She turned away, sat down on Kit’s bed, and grinned. “I wanted to know what you thought of Mark.”
    Endless possible answers spun through Kit’s mind, all of them true, but none of them particularly kind. He settled for one of the less injurious ones. “He looks like a dork,” Kit said.
    “How cruel!” Carmela cried. Then she smiled, and the smile was wicked. “True, but cruel.”
    “It’s the backward baseball cap,” Kit said. “I’m sorry, but that’s getting pretty ancient. Plus his cap’s too small for him, and the pop-fasteners in it always leave these marks like little rivets on his forehead—” Kit stopped himself. I’m seriously discussing my sister’s would-be boyfriends, he thought. This is not something I want her to get used to. “Listen,” Kit said, “there’s something more important than this that we need to discuss. You’ve been having a lot of fun with the TV… ”
    “Since you fixed it so it shows alien cable,” his sister said, “I’ve revised my opinion of you way upward.”
    “That concerns me so deeply,” Kit said. The “fix” hadn’t been intended to add that particular feature