DIANE DUANE - A Wizard Alone

Thedrumroll went on and on. Beyond the light, a heartless crowd laughed and clapped and cheered. But there was no sound of growling now, no tiger waiting to pounce. It had already pounced. Now the tiger had become part of the clown and the clown was its cage.

Nita woke up to the bright daylight, reflected from snow onto the ceiling of her bedroom  and she grinned.

The doorbell rang. Kit glanced up as he was throwing books into his book bag. He would have gone to the door himself, but his sister plunged past him.  What   Kit said, looking all around to try to understand whyCarmela was suddenly so hot to answer the door.

No answer came back. Kit could do little but shrug and finish packing his book bag. He stood up from the sofa just in time to look out the window and see the UPS truck pull away.

His sister closed the front door and nearly danced past him into the kitchen.  What   Kit said.

Carmelagot a particularly large knife out of the knife rack and began slitting the packing tape on thelargeboxshe d been carrying. Kit fastened his bag and wandered over.

 It has to be clothes,  he said. After a childhood during whichCarmela s major occupation had been ruining theOshKosh overalls that were all their parents dared buy her,Carmela had suddenly discovered clothing as something besides protection from the elements. Now all her pocket money went in this direction, either down at the mall or via various strange mail-order firms.  Nothing but clothes gets you this excited anymore,  Kit said. Except maybe Miguel.

And having said that, Kit prepared to protect himself from the explosion that was sure to follow.Ican t believe I said that to her while she was holding a knife !

But the explosion didn t follow.Carmela , grinning all over her face and singing a little la-la song, put the knife aside, opened the top of the box, and started removing the contents. These seemed to be only Styrofoam peanuts for the first thirty seconds or so. But thenCarmela reached in and lifted out something wrapped in foam.

 It s not clothes,  Kit said, astonished.

 Nope, Carmela said. Much better.

This statement left Kit completely confused.Carmela carefully startedunwrapping the foam from around the object.

 It s some hair thing,  Kit said. One of those hot curlers.

Carmelajust smiled and kept on unwrapping.

The last bit of wrapping fell away.Carmela held the object up delightedly, admiring it in the morning light, and then thrust it into Kit s hands.

 Let s see what the directions say,  she said. She turned back to the box and started digging through the Styrofoam peanuts again.

Kit looked at what he was holding. It looked very much like an eggbeater, except that eggbeaters don t usually have pulse lasers built into them.

Neets hesaid silently.

A moment later the answer came back.What 

Can I please move in with you

There was a pause  and then laughter.

I'll be right over