Seniors’ Song
The alarm clock went off right above Nita’s head, a painful blasting buzz like a dentist’s drill. “Aaagh,” she said, reluctantly putting one arm out from under the covers and fumbling around on the bedside table for the noisy thing.
It went quiet without her having touched it. Nita squinted up through the morning brightness and found herself looking at Dairine. Her little sister was standing by the bedside table with the alarm clock in her hands, wearing Star Wars pajamas and an annoyed look.
“And where are we going at six in the morning?” Dairine said, too sweetly.
“We are not going anywhere,” Nita said, swinging herself out of bed with a groan. “Go play with your Barbie dolls, Einstein.”
“Only if you give them back,” Dairine said, unperturbed. “Anyway, there are better things to play with. Kit, for example—“
“Dairine, you’re pushing it.” Nita stood up, rubbed her eyes until they started working properly, and then pulled a dresser drawer open and began pawing through it for a T-shirt.
“What’re you doing, then — getting up so early all the time, staying out late? You think Mom and Dad aren’t noticing? — Oh, don’t wear that,” Dairine said at the sight of Nita’s favorite sweatshirt. It featured numerous holes made by Ponch’s teeth and the words WATCH THIS SPACE FOR FURTHER DEVELOPMENTS. “Oh, really, Neets, don’t, it’s incredibly tacky—“
“That sounds real weird,” Nita said, “coming from someone with little Yodas all over her pajamas.”
“Oh, stuff it, Nita,” Dairine said. Nita turned her head and smiled, thinking that Dairine had become easier to tease since she’d decided to be a Jedi Knight when she grew up. Still, Nita went easy on her sister. It wasn’t fair for a wizard to make fun of someone who wanted to do magic, of whatever brand. “Same to you, runt. When’re Mom and Dad getting up, did they say?”
“They’re up now.”
“What for?”
“They’re going fishing. We’re going with them.”
Nita blanched. “Oh, no! Dair, I can’t—“
Dairine cocked her head at Nita. “They wanted to surprise us.”
“They did,” Nita said, in shock. “I can’t go—“
“Got a hot date, huh?”
“Dairine! I told you—“
“Where were you two going?”
“Swimming.” That was the truth.
“Neets, you can swim any time,” Dairine said, imitating their mother’s tone of voice. Nita zipped up her jeans and sat down on the bed with a thump. “What were you gonna be doing, anyway?”
“I told you, swimming!” Nita got up, went to the window, and looked out, thinking of S’reee and the summoning and the Song of the Twelve and the rest of the business of being on active status, which was now looking ridiculously complicated. And it looked so simple yesterday…
“You could tell them something—“
Nita made a face at that. She had recently come to dislike lying to her parents. For one thing, she valued their trust. For another, a wizard, whose business is making things happen by the power of the spoken word, learns early on not to say things out loud that aren’t true or that he doesn’t want to happen.
“Sure,” she said in bitter sarcasm. “Why don’t I just tell them that we’re on a secret mission? Or that we’re busy saving Long Island and the greater metropolitan area from a fate worse than death? Or maybe I could tell them that Kit and I have an appointment to go out and get turned into whales, how about that?”
Even without turning around, Nita could feel her sister staring at her back. Finally the quiet made Nita twitchy. She turned around, but Dairine was already heading out of the room. “Go on and eat,” Dairine said quietly, over her shoulder. “Sound happy.” And she was gone.
Under her breath, Nita said a word her father would have frowned at, and then sighed and headed for breakfast, plastering onto her face the most sincere smile she could manage. At first it felt hopelessly unnatural, but in a few seconds it was beginning to stick. At the dining-room door, where her father came around the corner from the kitchen and nearly ran her over, Nita took one look at him — in his faded lumberjack shirt and his hat stuck full of fish hooks — and wondered why she had ever been worried about getting out of the fishing trip. It was going to be all right.
Her dad looked surprised. “Oh! You’re up. Did Dairine—“
“She told me,” Nita said. “Is there time to eat something?”
“Sure. I guess she told Kit too then — I just looked in his room, but he wasn’t there. The bed was made; I guess he’s ready—“
Nita cheerfully allowed her father to draw his own conclusions, especially since they were the wrong ones. “He’s probably down at the beach killing time,” she said. “I’ll go get him after I eat.”
She made a hurried commando raid on the kitchen and put the kettle on the stove for her mother, who was browsing through the science section of The New York Times and was ready for another cup of tea. Nita’s mother looked up at her from the paper and said, “Neets, where’s your sister? She hasn’t had breakfast.”
That was when her sister came thumping into the dining room. Nita saw her mom look at Dairine and develop a peculiar expression. “Dari,” her mother said, “are you feeling all right?”
“Yeah!” said Dairine in an offended tone. Nita turned in her chair to look at her. Her sister looked flushed, and she wasn’t moving at her normal breakneck speed. “C’mere, baby,” Nita’s mother said. “Let me feel your forehead.”
“Mom!”
“Dairine,” her father said.
“Yeah, right.” Dairine went over to her mother and had her forehead felt, rolling her eyes at the ceiling. “You’re hot, sweetie,” Nita’s mother said in alarm. “Harry, I told you she was in the water too long yesterday. Feel her.”
Nita’s dad looked slightly bored, but he checked Dairine’s forehead and then frowned. “Well…”
“No ‘wells.’ Dari, I think you’d better sit this one out.”
“Oh, Mom!”
“Cork it, little one. You can come fishing with us in a day or two.” Nita’s mother turned to her. “Neets, will you stick around and keep an eye on your sister?”
“Mom, I don’t need a babysitter!”
“Enough, Dairine,” her mom said. “Up to bed with you. Nita, we’ll take you and Kit with us the next time; but your dad really wants to get out today.”
“It’s okay, Mom,” Nita said, dropping what was left of the smile (though it now really wanted to stay on). “I’ll keep an eye on the runt.”
“Don’t call me a runt!”
“Dairine,” her father said again. Nita’s little sister made a face and left, again at half the usual speed.
As soon as she could, Nita slipped into Dairine’s room. Her sister was lying on top of the bed, reading her way through a pile of X-Men comics; she looked flushed. “Not bad, huh?” she said in a low voice as Nita came in.
“How did you do that?” Nita whispered.
“I used the Force,” Dairine said, flashing a wicked look at Nita.
“Dair! Spill it!”
“I turned Dad’s electric blanket up high and spent a few minutes under it. Then I drank about a quart of hot water to make sure I stayed too warm.” Dairine turned a page in her comic book, looking blase about the whole thing. “Mom did the rest.”
Nita shook her head in admiration. “Runt, I owe you one.”
Dairine looked up from her comic at Nita. “Yeah,” Dairine said, “you do.”
