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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.
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lifes_sake
"Hated the one I had," he says, "so I picked a new one."
lifes_sake
"And you hated it enough that 'Jellybean' is an improvement. Okay. So. I'm Cam, the notebook's Grace, and I'm actually still really tired, so if Iggy's not likely to try to off me again perhaps we can meet and talk universe-fixing after I'm out of school tomorrow? I'm getting the impression you guys don't attend school."
"You're getting the right impression!" says Jellybean.
"When and where would you like to meet?" asks Matilda.
"When and where would you like to meet?" asks Matilda.
lifes_sake
"The local public library, at three-fifteen?" yawns Cam. "I'll tell Rénee not to bother meeting me, that I'm meeting some friends and I can walk home myself."
"See you there," says Matilda, and Jellybean convinces the wall to let them walk through it, and Matilda casts an invisibility spell on both of them, and they go away.
lifes_sake
Cam takes ten minutes to write confused notes-to-self in Grace, and then he waves his hand warily through the prior location of the air-shield, and then he goes back to sleep.
He is at the library the following day at ten after three.
He is at the library the following day at ten after three.
Matilda and Jellybean are reading a copy of the Iliad together.
lifes_sake
Cam plops down in the seat across from them. "Hi," he says.
"Hi!" says Matilda. Jellybean waves. They close the book.
lifes_sake
"About how often do you rescue kids from Ordeals?" Cam asks. He has Grace out, ready to take notes.
"A few times a year, maybe," says Matilda. "But it's not regular. We had a dry spell of almost a year until you."
lifes_sake
"Not that many wizards, or not that many needing to be bailed out?"
"Fewer wizards than usual, and none of them needing our help except one we couldn't get to in time."
"Maybe the Powers were busy," says Jellybean.
"Maybe fewer people had the aptitude," says Matilda.
"Maybe fewer people had the aptitude," says Matilda.
lifes_sake
"So the Powers are personally intervening every time a manual lands on somebody's head, there's no automation?"
Matilda shakes her head. "Yes and no. The Powers... nudge the manuals toward the sort of people who'd be useful. And when you take the Oath, it's the Powers who give you the wizardry to match. But sometimes the manuals find their wizards without a lot of help."
lifes_sake
"Useful in combating entropy and that sort of thing?" Cam says. "Where do the manuals come from? Are they hiding wherever a sufficient mass of books hangs out, or do they spontaneously generate near appropriate wizards, or what?"
Matilda shrugs. "If I had to guess, I'd say they're planted in bookstores and libraries. There's probably wizards who do it."
Jellybean snorts.
Matilda shakes her head.
Matilda shakes her head.
lifes_sake
"Why not? You could be more effective if there were more of you."
"More effective at what?" says Jellybean.
"Most wizards wouldn't approve of our affiliation," says Matilda.
"And we're pretty sure there's some kind of policy about not interfering in anybody's Ordeal," says Jellybean.
"Most wizards wouldn't approve of our affiliation," says Matilda.
"And we're pretty sure there's some kind of policy about not interfering in anybody's Ordeal," says Jellybean.
lifes_sake
"At anything. Your affiliation, what's that mean? And that is a stupid policy that presumably gets people killed, surely the other kids you've saved get that even if others don't?"
"Wizards work for the Powers," says Matilda. "We don't."