though”--she rubbed her belly--”it’s a different business.”
Wisely, Leino changed the subject. “When do you think you’ll be ready to run your experiment again?”
“I don’t know,” she answered. “I just don’t know. I’ll need Siuntio and Ilmarinen to back me up, and powers above only know when they’ll both be able to get down here. And even if they do . . .” Her voice trailed away. She looked unhappy.
“Things would be better if the fall of the palace up there hadn’t caught Prince Joroinen, wouldn’t they?” Leino asked gently.
Pekka nodded. That was part of what ate at her, sure enough. “He was the one who really brought us all together,” she said. “He was the one who believed we could do it, and who made other people believe it, too. Without him, our funds are liable to dry up.” She rolled her eyes. “Without him, I’m already starting to have trouble with the distinguished Professor Heikki again.”
The mage who presided over thaumaturgical studies at Kajaani City College was a specialist in veterinary sorcery. The next new idea she had would be her first. Irked that she couldn’t learn more about the work Pekka was doing, she’d tried to cut off the theoretical sorcerer’s experimental budget. Prince Joroinen had put a stop to that and made Heikki remember for a moment that there was more to being a mage than attending departmental meetings. With him gone, the department head was already starting to reexert her petty authority.
Before Pekka could say anything more, a crash from the other end of the house sent her and Leino running to see what had made it. They almost ran over their son--Uto was coming their way as fast as they were going his. He barely had the chance to assume his usual look of almost supernatural innocence before his father snapped, “What was that noise?”
“I don’t know,” he answered, sounding as self-righteous as only a six-year-old could.
Pekka took up the challenge: “Well, what were you doing in the kitchen?”
“Nothing,” Uto replied.
Leino took him by the shoulder and turned him around, saying, “That’s what you always tell us, and it’s never true. Let’s go have a look.”
Everything looked fine .. . till Pekka opened the pantry door. Somehow or other, a whole shelf had fallen down there, with all the groceries on it, and made quite a mess. “How did this happen?” she asked in tones of mingled horror and admiration.
“I don’t know,” Uto repeated in tones like a silver bell.
“You’ve been climbing again,” Leino said. “You knew what would happen if you went climbing again.”
Of course, Uto knew. Of course, he’d never thought it would matter. He’d no doubt managed to convince himself he’d never get caught no matter how often he did what he wasn’t supposed to do.
And, now that he had been caught, Uto reacted just as an adult would have. “Don’t do it, Father!” he wailed, recalling all too well the promised punishment. “I’ll be good. I promise I will.”
“You’ve already promised,” Leino told him. “You broke your promise after you made it. That’s not something Kuusamans should ever do. And so your stuffed leviathan will go up on the mantel for a week.” He started for his son’s bedchamber.
“No!” Uto howled, and burst into tears. “It’s not fair!”
“Aye, it is,” Pekka said. “You didn’t keep your word. How can we trust you if you don’t keep your word?”
Uto was paying no attention to her or to anything but his catastrophic loss. “I can’t sleep without my tiny leviathan under my chin!” he cried. “How can I go to sleep without my leviathan?” He stamped his foot.
“You’ll have to find out, won’t you?” Pekka said evenly. She dreaded putting him to bed without his special toy, too, but she didn’t want him to see that. “Maybe next time you’ll think a little more before you do something we’ve told you not to.”
“I’ll be good!” Uto sounded as desperate as a bureaucrat caught with his hand in the till. Leino’s footsteps coming up the hall announced the imminence of the tragedy ahead. Uto ran off to try to tackle him. “My leviathan!”
Following her son, Pekka wished her sister’s husband had never bought Uto the stuffed toy. But if Olavin hadn’t given him that one, he would have grown attached to some other stuffed animal: he had a good many. “It’s over. It’s done,” Leino told him. “Go back to your
