“Goodness,” Carmela said, as Roshaun sat down on the bench at the base of one of the escalators, “we have to do something about your stamina. If you’re going to become serious about mall crawling, you can’t poop out after an hour like that.”
“I have not ‘pooped out,’” Roshaun said. “But my feet do pain me somewhat. And keeping up the disguise takes a certain amount of energy. Perhaps a restorative?”
“Food!” Sker’ret said.
Dairine chuckled. “Carmela,” she said “could you take these guys upstairs and get them something? Ice cream, probably. Filif…” She looked over at him; he was gazing down the length of the mall with a yearning expression. “I’m going to be your personal shopper for a little while. You and I should go off and see about some of those decorations we were discussing.” That way, I don’t have to worry about you stumbling into the salad bar, which is probably going to look to you like the site of a mass murder.
Filif was delighted. “Yes!” he said. “Let’s go!”
“You have enough money on you, Carmela?” Dairine said. “I brought some
spare cash—”
“It’s okay,” Carmela said. “I’m fairly loaded today.” She turned to Roshaun and Sker’ret. “Come on, boys,” she said. They got up, and she shepherded them through the mall.
“Come on,” Dairine said to Filif. Together they headed down the center of the shopping mall, toward the place that Dairine had spotted Filif looking at with most interest earlier. Well, she thought, the second-most interest.
The store she had in mind was a chain sportswear shop specializing in bright colors—indeed, colors that were almost too bright for Dairine to look at. But she had noticed several times now that whenever Filif stopped to look in any window for long, it had been one where Day-Glo colors were splashed onto things with abandon. Now, as they headed down the mall together, Dairine became aware of some looks from other kids on spring break who were passing by on the other side of the mall, and looking curiously at Filif. “Hey, kid,” one of them shouted at him, “you walk like a dweeb!”
There was a gust of laughter from the other kids. Dairine ostentatiously ignored them, but she stole a glance at Filif and saw that this was slightly true: His mimicked “gait” was already somewhat less polished than it had been when they left home. He, too, was getting tired. “Hey,” Dairine said, “never mind this. We’ll get you out of here and come back another time. But right now maybe we should get you back home, where you can get that off—”
“Oh, no,” Filif said. “Not until we see the decorations!”
She smiled at him. He was so intense about it. “Okay,” Dairine said. “Just hang on.”
They went into the sportswear store, a tremendous place full of sneakers and workout clothes and shorts and bathing suits—all in the year’s popular colors, any one of which, Dairine thought, should burn her retinas. “Look at the mannequins,” Dairine said. “See those models of people, up on top of the racks and in the windows? Those give you an idea how we wear these things. And over there”—she pointed—”are places to try things on, if you see something you like…We can always do that another time, though. There are hats, and Tshirts, and shorts…all kinds of things.”
Filif nodded. “I see,” he said.
“Okay,” Dairine said. “Look around a little, and see what you think of things. We’ll go in a little while and catch up with the others.”
Filif made his way off among the racks, delighted. Dairine watched him begin unhooking shirts and shorts from the racks, holding them up to the light, admiring the colors. For all I know, Dairine thought, maybe there’s not a lot of bright color in his world. And his people seem to go about their lives just walking around in the dirt…She turned, looked at a T-shirt, and then turned her attention back to the mall outside, listening carefully. There were no sounds of screaming, or of people running. The disguises must still be holding all right upstairs. I just hope Carmela yells for me if Sker’ret gets out of hand, she thought. That boy’s appetite…
She walked idly between the racks of Tshirts, then started looking at some bathing suits. In the background, over the insipid chain-store Muzak, she could hear one of the staff saying to somebody in the changing room, “Sir, can I give you
a hand with that? No? All right. You, sir, how are you doing in there? You need that in a twelve? Fine…”
Dairine sighed and turned her attention back to the Tshirts. I can’t believe how garish the colors are this year, she thought. I can’t wait for it to be next year, when the style changes and things might calm down a little bit.
She yawned again. “Sir?” said the cheerful voice in the background. “How are you in there? Those sizes all right? Fine. Hello? Sir—”
Dairine stretched, pulled a bathing suit off the rack, looked in astonishment at the garish print. Not on your life, she thought, and put it back, blinking. Her eyes still felt grainy; she hadn’t had a lot of sleep the previous night. The thought of going upstairs and having an ice cream herself, a big one, was looking increasingly attractive. “Sir?” said the voice in the background. “Would you like some—”
And then she heard the shriek.
Dairine suddenly realized what she had been hearing, or rather, not hearing. She hurried toward the changing room, flung the outer curtain open. Past it she saw one of the staff standing half in and half out of one of the changing rooms, the curtain held in his hand, frozen. And one after another, other people’s heads popped out of the other changing rooms, staring at the sales guy.
Oh no, Dairine thought. Spot!
She put out her hand, and an instant later Spot was in it. Dairine flipped his lid open as she came up behind the staff guy, pushing the curtain aside. The poor man was staring at something he probably had not seen in a changing room before—a Christmas tree wearing Day-Glo orange Jams and several baseball caps, all brightly colored. The top one was on backwards.
“I like the root covers,” Filif said thoughtfully, “but I’m not sure about the hat.”
There were about twelve things that Dairine was not sure of at that moment, almost all of them being why she had let Filif out of her sight. Blood sugar! But there was no time for that now; there was movement in the other cubicles—You know which spell I need, she said silently to Spot. His screen cleared and came up with the general-purpose invisibility spell—a quick one that Dairine had used on herself often enough and had had some practice in throwing over other things in a hurry. Silently she read the words, felt the air in front of her twist itself out of shape and into another refractive configuration entirely, under the influence of the Speech. A moment later, both she and the sales guy, and the three heads peering in from behind them, were all staring at what appeared to be empty space.
“Are you okay?” Dairine said to the sales guy.
He looked at her as if she’d come out of nowhere. “I, uh…,” he said. “I, uh, I think maybe I had a little too much of something or other last night…” He stared once again at the mirror in the “empty” cubicle, and then turned and let the curtain fall. The other customers went away, and after that the shop guy wandered back out onto the sales floor, shaking his head.
Dairine rolled her eyes, relieved. Silently, she said to Filif, I wish you’d asked me for help!
I didn’t need any help, Filif said. I’m doing fine!
She said, You have no idea. I’m leaving that invisibility over you for now.
You need to put that stuff down and come out with me. We’ll come back for this later, under more controlled circumstances. Let’s go!
She reached through the field of invisibility until she could feel a branch or three, and took hold of them, cautiously, being careful not to squish any of the berries. Trying as hard as she could to look casual about it, trying equally hard not to look as if she was leading something invisible away by the hand or branch, Dairine made her way out of the sportswear store and out into the center of the mall again. There she looked around, took a moment to recollect her wits, and said, You stay invisible for a few minutes, okay? I’ll be back for you. We’re going home. Don’t let anybody bump into you!