rine, Carmela said, can we use the TV for a moment I ll show him a few things and lay a groundwork. Be my guest, Dairine said, drinking some tea. If you think it ll do any good… She went in with her mug of tea and sat down at the table with Sker ret and Filif as Carmela and Roshaun headed into the living room. So how are you guys this morning Dairine said to them. Everything s well, Sker ret said. Though I m getting hungry again… We ll find you something, Dairine said. And how about you Filif said. Are you well From the living room, Dairine heard Carmela s muted chuckle. A moment later, Roshaun said, Under no circumstances will I be seen in anything like that Dairine grinned. Getting better every minute, she said, and drank her tea. The mall was still fairly quiet when they got there later that morning. It was Sunday morning, and a lot of the most serious shoppers wouldn t be in for some hours yet. There were, however, going to be a lot of kids there who were also on spring break, getting an early start on their malling. It was meeting these that Dairine was secretly most dreading, but she refused to show any sign of her concern to her fellow wizards. She had been nervous enough, earlier, over the prospect of simply getting them all out of the driveway. But in retrospect, that had worked well enough. Everyone s disguises looked good, and stayed in place, repaying the hour or two of work that Dairine and Carmela had spent on their charges before letting them out. Filif had needed the most coaching. His disguise was no shape-change, but a visual illusion keyed to a wizardry he built, with some assistance from Dairine, to mimic human limb action, facial affect, and clothing. The illusion would not withstand close examination, such as being touched, but Dairine had no plans to let anyone near enough to touch him, and told him so. Your people must be very easily shocked, Filif said, in a pitying tone of voice. It sounded funny coming from the big, stocky, dark-haired guy that he had become, partly with Carmela s coaching. They are, Dairine said, and sometimes so am I. I certainly will be if your disguise falls off in the middle of the street because somebody bumps up against you. So keep your distance from people, and we ll all be fine. What about me Sker ret said. Do I look all right You look excellent, Dairine said, sizing him up. Carmela had talked him more or less into the shape of a slim, redheaded surfer guy. In fact, I m not sure you need any advice from me. You may want to go talk to Carmela about that sweatshirt, though. The sweatshirt was illusionary and looked perfectly orthodox, except for the words Will Do Magic for Food, which he had added to the front of the illusion, in the Speech. And then there had been Roshaun. Carmela had worked him over most effectively, and without completely losing her temper a feat Dairine had to admire. Roshaun was wearing, over some of his real clothes, a long, floppy shirt and large trousers. You ve got the height to carry them, Carmela had said, just a little admiring. Not many people do. And Roshaun had fallen for the line. Carmela had also made him reduce his epic ponytail to a more manageable length, at least in illusion. The two long front locks in front of his ears had given Carmela the most trouble; Roshaun adamantly refused to put them behind his ears, where they would show less. They re supposed to show! he said. What they re going to show here, Carmela said is that you look too different. All you need is for some wise guy to come along and pull one of those Roshaun looked at her, indignant. Who would dare ! I would, Carmela said, suiting the gesture to the concept. Roshaun winced. And if it s something I d do, it s something that will probably occur to other people. This is not your palace you re going into, Your Royal Highness. This is a mall. You are entering a world where anything can happen mostly having to do with people getting real judgmental about your looks. She raised her eyebrows. Fortunately, she said, your looks are okay. But if I were you, I wouldn t push your luck with the hair. As you say, Roshaun had muttered, but he agreed with ill grace, if any at all. At the time, Carmela had thrown Dairine a look that said, This boy is going to take some kicking into shape. Dairine had kept her face very straight. But Carmela had caught her answering flicker of eyes, and knew that Dairine was in complete agreement. With everyone s disguises well in place, they had set out for the mall. Originally, Dairine s plan had been to do a private-gating transit there, a variant of Kit s and Nita s beam-me-up-Scotty spell. She had long had several sets of prelocated coordinates laid in for each of the major malls nearby. But Dairine was astounded to come up against serious resistance to this concept from all her guests even Roshaun, who she would ve thought would resist so plebeian an option as walking on general principles. 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 That was the question that got asked most frequently. Filif was fixated on the concept. Those decorations, Filif said, those look especially nice… He moved over to the window in question and peered in. Dairine came up behind him, not wanting to touch him that always ran the risk of breaking the visual illusion but she leaned over him and whispered, I don t think these are for you. Why not Well… Dairine looked up at the sign over the store s door. Can you read that Filif turned his human face up toward the sign, dutifully. Though he seemed to be looking at it with human eyes, somehow Dairine could still perceive the alert attention of a whole array of berries trained on the letters. Victoria s did I pronounce that right Secret. That s right, Dairine said. Who s Victoria said Filif. And what s its secret I ve never been clear about that myself, Dairine said. But if you start wearing those, people are going to talk. Come on. She turned away, having a great deal of difficulty dealing with the image of a Christmas tree in a garter belt. Filif moved away carefully, but not without a backward look at the bright colors of the lingerie in the window. Then Dairine saw Sker ret hurrying ahead of them, and she began to fear the worst. Sker ret she said. Wait up! She went after him as quickly as she could, with a glance at Carmela to suggest that she should keep an eye on the others. But Carmela already had her hands full. She and Roshaun had paused by a window display of clothes and were apparently discussing them. Sker ret had moved a little farther away and was closely examining a freestanding gift stall stacked high with balloons, cards, gift plaques, and bright-colored candies. Oh no, Dairine thought. What is it with the colors These guys are like five-year-olds. The sound of laughter came to Dairine from down the mall. A group of five older kids high school juniors, Dairine guessed came wandering along toward them, much more interested in the shoppers of their own age than in the merchandise. Hey, sweet things! one of them called to Carmela. Who s your skinny friend Carmela didn t respond. Hey, elf boy! shouted another of the guys. Nice hair! This was followed by a chorus of snickering and laughter. Dairine saw Roshaun draw himself up to his full height and turned to favor the oncoming group with an expression of truly withering scorn. Elf boy he said softly. What kind of disrespectful, speciesist One of his hands moved in a gesture that Dairine recognized as the preliminary to producing some predesigned wizardry. She gulped and hurried toward him. But Carmela merely glanced over her shoulder at the approaching group. Ah, ah, ah, she said under her breath, and reached out sideways to take Roshaun s hand in hers. Roshaun s eyes went wide, and he stopped absolutely still, as if he d been frozen that way. Dairine slowed down a little, caught between surprise and admiration. She may not be a wizard, she thought, but she s got some moves. Just loudly enough to be heard, as the five passed close by, Carmela said to Roshaun, Don t mind them. They re just wonder-struck by your profound majesty and glory and so forth. We don t get a lot of princes around here, and when they see somebody like you and contrast your elevated station with their tiny antlike lives, it s really hard for them to cope. Carmela said all this not in English, but in perfect Japanese, the language she d been studying when she first started to pick up the Speech. As wizards, Dairine and Roshaun had no problem understanding her; they heard the language through the Speech and made sense of it that way. But the five guys were completely thrown off. They saw what seemed like a Japanese translator of some kind who looked at them as coolly as if they were members of an alien species who was apparently carefully translating what they d said for someone who looked like a living anime star, someone whose expression was better suited to the last half hour of a samurai movie than anything else…the part where things really break loose. Dairine saw faint unease ripple through the guys as they found themselves facing something they didn t understand. The guys passed close to Carmela and Roshaun, who watched them with expressions of clinical interest and complete disdain