Wizard's Holiday, New Millennium Edition by Diane Duane Page B

had pointed out more than once that there was nothing he could do about the amount of noise Carmela made—the number of times the phone rang in a given day was hardly anything to do with wizardry. But any time Kit said this, his mom would just glance first at the TV, which did have something to do with it… and then she’d look out the window to where half the dogs in the neighborhood were sitting, gazing at their house as if it were full of top sirloin, or something even more important. And then the howling would start—
    Kit turned away from the kitchen window. “Ponch,” he said softly to his dog, “they’re all out there again.”
    I keep telling them they shouldn’t do that, Ponch said silently, concentrating on licking his bowl clean. And for a while, they don’t. But then they forget.
    “But why are they doing it?”
    I don’t know. I keep asking them, hut they don’t understand it, either. They’re not so good at figuring things out. Ponch looked up, licking his chops. He sounded faintly aggrieved. I’ll let you know when I figure out what’s on their minds.
    “Well, hurry up and do what you have to do to find out,” Kit said. “And when you go out there, tell them no howling!”
    They like to sing, Ponch said, sounding a little injured. I like it, too. Even Carmela likes to sing. What’s the matter with it?
    Kit closed his eyes briefly. His sister’s singing voice was, to put it kindly, untrained. “Just tell them, okay?” Kit said.
    Okay…
    Ponch turned his attention back to the bowls, starting a long, noisy, sloppy drink of water. From the living room, Kit heard Carmela start laughing again.
    “Grenfelzing,” Kit thought. Should I be worried that my sister is being invited to grenfelz? I just hope this isn’t something that’ll rot her morals somehow…
    From down the street, Kit could faintly hear the sound of a familiar car engine coming toward the house: his dad, coming back from the printing plant three towns over where one of the bigger suburban New York newspapers was produced. The station wagon pulled in and parked. A few minutes later, Kit’s father came in the back door, pulled his jacket off his burly self, and chucked it at the new coat tree by the back door, which Kit’s mama had bought a few weeks before. The coat tree swayed threateningly, but for once it didn’t fall over—Kit’s pop was getting the hang of the maneuver. “Son, they’re out there again,” he said as he came through the kitchen.
    “I know, Pop,” Kit said. “Ponch is working on it. Aren’t you?”
    There was no reply. Kit looked over at Ponch, who had left the water bowl and turned his attention to the neighboring bowl of dry, crunchy dog food. He was now steadily eating his way through it with an air of total concentration.
    Kit’s pop sighed as he came into the dining room, leaned over Kit’s mama (now sprawled out on the sofa) to smooch her, and took the newspaper from her, straightening up to glance out the window of the dining room. “It’s like being in a Hitchcock movie,” Kit’s pop said, “except I don’t think he’d have gotten the same effect by covering someone’s front yard with sheepdogs and Great Danes. Whose sheepdog is that? I’ve never seen it before.”
    “I don’t know, Pop. I could go ask it.”
    “Look, son,” Kit’s dad said. “Don’t bother. Just ask Ponch to have another word with them, okay? Otherwise we’re going to have the neighbors over here again, in a group, like last time… and I have a feeling this time they might think about bringing torches and pitchforks.”
    “I asked him, Pop. He’ll go out when he’s finished his dinner.”
    “Right. When’s ours, honey?”
    “Three-quarters of an hour.”
    “Then I’m going to go sit down and read this awful rag,” Kit’s pop said, “and see if I can figure out what’s wrong with the world.” He walked into the living room, leaving Kit wondering yet again why his dad was so unfailingly rude