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Cam studies. He studies madly. The next week elapses with him having very little sense of individual days. He doesn't want anyone to know anything special is up, so he goes to a movie with Renée and to a friend's house after school to play Nintendo games and Charlie gets his weekly phone call and he shows up to his classes and gets his homework adequately done. But other than that he studies. He wants to be fluent in this thing inside three months if possible. It's easier than Spanish, he's motivated, he can use it in everyday conversations as he asks passing animals and convenient plants how smart they are (dogs: smarter than goats; squirrels: about goat level; his friend's hamster: dumb as a rock; shrubs: way dumber than trees; indoor potted rosemary: just a step above grass) and chats with Grace, he's basically dropping himself in an immersion course with some inconvenient English here and there so he can interact with humans. He thinks three months is ambitious but reasonable.
He's not actually doing that many spells. He does wheedle tofu into tastiness on a nightly basis, and when he feels a cold coming on he looks up a spell about that, but he wants to know what he's doing before he gets going on what he most wants to be doing, because he wants to be doing big things. He swore to oppose death. He meant that.
Today he is preparing to oppose death in his backyard. It's threatening rain and he doesn't want to be all the way down the street with Leafy if the clouds open up. The jerk tree doesn't talk to him if he doesn't talk to it and it's perfectly serviceable as something to sit under, anyway.
lifes_sake
When he sits down, an irritable not-voice that isn't the same as the tree says, "Hey! Watch where you're parking that!"
lifes_sake
"Sorry - what - who said that?" Cam asks, getting up again and stumbling a step when he's on his feet again.
"Down here," snorts the voice. "You animate people, always putting yourselves inconvenient places."
Under the tree is some grass, some dirt, and a rock. It's not an especially interesting-looking rock, although there might be traces of long-faded paint on its surface.
Under the tree is some grass, some dirt, and a rock. It's not an especially interesting-looking rock, although there might be traces of long-faded paint on its surface.
lifes_sake
Cam sits not-on-the-rock. "You are... more talkative than typical rocks," he observes. "Have you got a fossil in you or something? Did somebody use to talk to you a lot?"
"I used to be somebody's pet rock," says the rock. "Not that it's any of your business."
lifes_sake
"Okay, okay," says Cam. If the rock doesn't want to be friendly it can join the tree in not talking to Cam.
The rock says nothing more for a few seconds.
Then it sys, less belligerently, "What're you up to, anyway?"
Then it sys, less belligerently, "What're you up to, anyway?"
"Studying what?"
"Figures," says the rock. It gives the impression that if it had a point of articulation with which to do so, it would be nodding.
lifes_sake
Cam supposes it does figure, since he's talking to a rock. He goes on scribbling practice (true) sentences in Grace.
"So you're a wizard?" says the rock.
lifes_sake
Cam's not clear on whether sarcasm counts as lying. "Yep," he says, instead of no, I just hold conversations with rocks by unrelated mechanisms.
"I was a wizard's pet rock," sighs the rock. "Sorry, pal."
"Never mind," it says hastily. "Forget I said anything."
"Oh, you know how it is," says the rock. "Kicked down the street, thrown over fences..."
lifes_sake
"I don't in fact know much about what it's like to be a rock."
"Ever kicked one down the street?" it inquires.
"Meh," says the rock, "it probably wasn't me, anyway."
"And there's not a lot of wizards' pet rocks kicking around," it says dryly.