“One cannot truly experience a place by doing fast transits to and from locations,” Roshaun said, looking down his nose at Dairine. “Having come all this way, I may as well see what this world looks like from the ground up.”
“He’s right,” Sker’ret said. “I see enough gates as it is. Walking has got to be lots more fun.”
Dairine had sighed. “Just so you know that it’s not soft ground we’re going to be walking along,” she said, looking at Filif. “You can’t walk through it. It’s all concrete—”
“I can deal with that,” Filif said. “I haven’t had to walk through any of your floors here; I can manage.”
And as a result, they all walked down Dairine’s street toward Nassau Road, maybe half a mile away, and the bus stop there. It was beautiful, bright, sunny weather—unusually warm for that time of spring—and people were out washing their cars, mowing their lawns…doing all the things that would make it easier for them to see that there were aliens walking down their street. Dairine found herself praying for rain, gloom, a sudden hailstorm or blizzard—anything that would drive people in out of their front yards and reduce the chances of them seeing some part of her charges’ disguises slip.
To her eyes, they were a motley group…but then Dairine was looking for errors. People who lived on the street and chanced to be looking out their windows probably only saw five kids in a ragged group wandering down the sidewalk together. In particular, Dairine was admiring Sker’ret’s command of the human gait, which he seemed to have no trouble handling. Probably, Dairine thought, it’s all of those legs. If you can manage about forty of them, you shouldn’t have that much trouble with two.
Neither thunder nor rain nor gloom of night answered Dairine’s prayer; but somehow, striding, gliding, or just approximating walking the best they could, everybody made it down to Nassau Road in one piece, and without causing peculiar looks from anybody—even the Nassau County police cruiser that went past them at one point. Dairine had sweated as the cops had gone by; she felt as if she had INSTIGATOR OF ALIEN MALL-CRAWLING FIASCO stenciled across her forehead. But the cops barely glanced at them, having better things to do with their time. Nonetheless, Dairine heaved a sigh of relief when they were gone.
On Nassau Road, they had stood for a while at the corner, waiting for the bus. One going to Roosevelt Field, one of the oldest shopping malls in the area, was scheduled to come by every half hour. “It used to be kind of a dump,” Carmela said, “but they fixed it up—it’s better now.”
“And what does one do in a mall?” Roshaun said.
“Walk around,” Dairine said. “Look at things.”
“What kind of things?” Filif said.
“Decorations,” Dairine said. “Like the kind we were talking about before. Not the seasonal stuff—but the kind of decorations you see in Roshaun’s and Sker’ret’s disguises, the kind that humans wear all the time. Personal ornamentation.”
“Clothes,” Carmela said with relish. “And there are all kinds of other places to buy things. Electronics and appliances, and there’s a food court—”
Sker’ret looked up, instantly fascinated. He was getting the hang of showing his emotions in the human expression. Probably from watching us, Dairine thought. He’s a quick study. At the rate he’s going, we could pass him off as human in a few days…
“What kind of food?” said Sker’ret.
Some kinds that we should keep Filif away from, Dairine thought, suddenly remembering the restaurant in the food court that had a huge salad bar. Fortunately, it was at about that point that Carmela began describing one of her favorite places up there—the ice cream stand. The others, even Roshaun, were enthralled by this.
“You freeze food, and then you eat it?” Roshaun said. “Don’t you break your teeth?”
“Not if you’re careful,” Carmela said. She went on talking about ice cream for some minutes, until the bus came. Dairine was fascinated by how much attention Roshaun was paying Carmela. He’s not all that interested in ice cream, Dairine thought. Kit is just about going to bust a gut when he hears about this. I can’t wait for him to call—in fact, if I have a chance, I should message him myself from the mall.
The bus pulled up, and Sker’ret and Filif regarded it with wonder. Roshaun eyed it with some suspicion. “There are other people in this vehicle,” he said.
“Of course there are,” Dairine said behind him. “Wizards are supposed to support public transport. It’s ecologically sound. Besides, you were the one who wanted to use ground transport and see your local environment. Well, here’s the environment for you. So get in, put the money I gave you in the box, and sit down!”
Roshaun did as he was told, though not without throwing a glance at Dairine that suggested he would discuss this impertinence with her later. She snorted and sat down herself.
The ride took about twenty minutes, which ranked among the twenty longest minutes of Dairine’s life. She had cautioned her colleagues not to speak in the bus more than they had to. Because they were using the Speech, the other bus riders would hear them exactly as if they were speaking in their own languages—and some of the ethnicities in the area might find that a little strange, in terms of the way the strangers looked. Especially, Dairine thought, considering the kinds of things these guys are likely to he saying if they get started.
But, by and large, the visitors behaved themselves pretty well, at least in terms of not talking. Nothing Dairine could do or say would keep them from plastering their noses up against the window of the bus—at least in Filif’s and Sker’ret’s cases; Roshaun would not have done anything so declasse, and sat there looking scornfully unfocused. But even he would steal the occasional glance of wonder out the windows, and the others gawked at everything they saw, exclaiming softly to themselves sometimes when they just couldn’t hold it in any longer. Everything was amazing to them. Storefronts, parked cars, parking meters, traffic lights, real estate signs in front of houses, trees and flowers, garbage in the street…and advertising. Especially advertising. Dairine spent nearly half the bus ride, from the point where they left her town to the point where they entered Hempstead town and drove through it toward the shopping center, explaining what “milk” was and why it was important that you should “got” some.
Yet at the same time, the bus ride made Dairine nostalgic for the first time she had gone off-planet, when everything had been new and strange. As they piled off the bus in the parking lot of the shopping center, Dairine remembered her first alien parking lot, and how she had nearly been killed by any number of alien vehicles before she got her bearings. And how I talked to somebody’s luggage for the better part of five minutes, she thought, before I realized what I was doing. It seemed like a long time ago now. She had almost forgotten what it was like. But she was quickly being reminded; and the other wizards’ attitude toward the strangeness of her world was beginning to affect her. She found herself looking at shopping-cart pens and sliding doors and the displays in the outer shop windows of the shopping center as if she had never seen such things before. It was refreshing.
They went into the mall, and in a matter of seconds, Dairine was being bombarded with questions. “What’s that for?” “Why is that colored that way?” “You mean people actually ride on those?” “They should fall off, shouldn’t they?” “Isn’t that beautiful!” “Why is all this water in here?” “What’s that smell?” “Are those ‘decorations’?”