Free So You Want to Be a Wizard, New Millennium Edition by Diane Duane Page A

decided last night. Get close to her, keep her busy for a little while. Fred’ll do the rest.”
    “It’s keeping her busy that worries me,” Nita muttered. “Her idea of busy usually involves her fists and my face.”
    I don’t understand, Fred said, and Nita had to laugh briefly—she and Kit had heard that phrase about a hundred times since Fred arrived. He used it on almost everything. What are you afraid of?
    “This,” Nita said, pointing to her black eye. “And this—” uncovering a bruise. “And this, and this—”
    Fred regarded her with a moment’s discomfiture. I thought you came that way. Joanne makes this happen?
    “Uh-huh. And it hurts getting this way.”
    But she only changes your outsides. Aren’t your insides still the same afterward?
    Nita had to stop and think about that one.
    “Okay,” Kit said suddenly, “here’s the Advisory list for our area.” He ran a finger down the page. “And here’s the one in town. Twenty-seven Hundred Rose—”
    “That’s up the hill past the school. What’s the name?”
    “Lessee. ‘Swale, T.B., and Romeo, C.J. Research Advisories, temporospatial adjustments, entastics, nonspecific scryings—’“
    “Wait a minute,” Nita said hurriedly. “‘Swale’? You mean Nutcase Swale? We can’t go in there, Kit! The place is just too weird . Everybody knows that! Funny noises at all hours, weird lights, it’s like a haunted house or something—”
    “If it is, it’s haunted by wizards.” Kit sounded surprisingly unconcerned. “We might as well go after school, it’s only five or six blocks up the road.”
    They were quiet for a while. It was about twenty minutes before the bell would ring for the doors to open, and a few early kids were. “Maybe we could rig you a defense against getting hit,” Kit said, as he kept looking through his manual. “How about this?” He pointed at one page, and both Nita and Fred looked at the formula he was indicating. All it needed was the right words. It would be something of a strain to carry the shield for long, but Nita wouldn’t have to; and any attempt to hit her would just glance off.
    Problem is, Fred said, that spell will alter the field slightly around this Joanne person. I’m going to have a hard enough time matching my pattern to that of your pen so that I can, get it off her—if indeed she has it. Her own field is going to interfere, and so will yours, Nita. More stress on the space in the area and I might not be able to get your pen back at all.
    Nita shook her head. She could tolerate another black eye if it meant getting that pen back. “Forget it,” she said, still shaking, and leaned forward a bit, elbows on knees and face in hands, trying to relax. Above her the old maple trees were muttering morning thoughts in the early sunlight, languid observations on the weather and the decreasing quality of the tenant birds who built nests in their branches. Out in the field the grass was singing a scratchy soprano chorus— growgrowgrowgrowgrowgrow —which broke off abruptly and turned into an annoyed mob sound of boos and razzes as one of the groundskeepers, way across the field, started up a lawn mower. I’m good with plants, Nita thought. I guess I take after Dad. Wonder if I’ll ever be able to hear people this way…?
    “Heads up,” Kit said under his breath, nudging her. “You’re on,” he said.
    Nita looked up and saw Joanne walking into the schoolyard. As their eyes met. Joanne recognized her handiwork on Nita’s face and smiled.
    Now or never! Nita thought, and got up before she had a chance to chicken out and blow everything. She walked over to Joanne without a pause, fast, to keep the tremor in her knees from showing. Oh, Fred, please be behind me. And what in the world can I say to her?
    “Joanne? Want my pen back,” she said. Or rather it simply fell out of her mouth as she got close, and she went hot at her own stupidity.
    Yet the momentary shocked look on Joanne’s face