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Mantra and related characters are the property of Marvel Comics. Opening poetical quotes are by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. THE MATRIX OF THE BEAST A Tale of Mantra by Aladdin Chapter 1 READING, WRITING, AND 'RITHMETIC "And so stands he calm and childlike, High in the wind the tempests wild; O, were I like him exalted, I would be like him, a child." Whenever Gus and Evie chow down on hamburgers, it reminds me of ~The Monster that Devoured Cleveland.~ I can never understand how two tykes can pack away so much, unless somebody gave them industrial incinerators when the metabolisms were passed out. Gus Sr. is always kicking about the size of his child-support payments, but I'm not stashing it away in any Swiss bank account; the grocery bill in our little broken home exceeds the yearly expenditures of some of the smaller nations. "Another cheeseburger?" I polled Gus the Younger. "Yeah, Mom!" With a shake of my head, I passed him another dollar and let him traipse back to the counter. This summer I'm planning to spend more time with the kids. I've finally realized that their childhoods are fleeting things and I want to enjoy them for all their worth. During my first summer as Eden Blake, I was away from home whenever possible and largely ignoring the young'uns whenever I was around them. Now I enjoy their company. What a difference a year makes! The returned Gus, now having reseated himself, asked between noisy swallows, "Mom, how come you and Evie only buy Mantra glasses when we eat at Burger King?" His sister jumped in with an answer, "I don't either! It's just that I only want glasses with the ultras I've met on them. I've got one of Starburst, and one of Prime, but besides them, I don't know any other ultras except Mantra. I want as many of her glasses as I can get because I love her so much!" ~The little darling.~ By last count she already had five Mantra glasses! "Huh?" said her brother. "When did you meet Prime?" The little girl realized that she had compromised the Big Secret and searched my face for a way out. Although Evie had met Prime briefly when he'd come by our house last winter, we'd kept the visit secret from Gus. How could we explain his house call without also telling him that his mother was the super-heroine Mantra? Sort of. I mean, I definitely am Mantra; I'm just not sure that I'd past muster as the children's real mother. I have her body, true, but I didn't get it until they were ten and six respectively. I smiled encouragingly to Evie and she looked back at Gus. "I didn't actually meet him," she explained. "I only saw him fly by." Her brother's eyes narrowed. "You're lying! You never said you saw Prime before!" "Gus," I put in, "please, don't call people liars. It's not polite and it will get you into fights." "Well, she didn't see Prime!" the little boy persisted. "I did so!" "When?" "Last February." "Then why didn't you say something back then?! If I'd seen Prime I'd have told you first thing!" "I know you would!" his sister jeered. "You'd've bragged about it for a week! But I know You. You'd only get mad if I told you and then start acting mean to me!" "I know you're lying! Prime never comes around Canoga Park anymore!" That was true. Prime's civilian identity was Kevin Green, a fifteen- year-old boy, and his mom had taken him away to New York to -- ironically enough -- keep him away from bad influences such as Prime! For a while Prime was the talk of the Big Apple -- just about the only notable ultra to settle in that part of the country. That's par for the course; what sane super-hero would want to live in New York City unless his mother was making him? Actually, Prime had already departed New York and its ultra-starved citizens were back to glorying in the exploits of Captain U.S.A. and Mugger Buster. I'd only lately gotten a postcard from Kevin saying that his family had already relocated to Washington D.C. "I did so see Prime!" Evie reiterated. "He must have forgot something and had to come back to get it." "Mom!" Gus bleated with exasperation, "Make Evie stop lying!" I sighed patiently. "I can't do that, Gus. I saw Prime the same time Evie did, so your sister isn't lying. I wish you could have been there, too, because he's your favorite ultra, but you were late for supper that evening." Then, having realized that this was an opportunity to lay a valuable object lesson on him, I added, "See what happens when little boys stay out after dark? They miss all the exciting things that go on in their own homes." His glower was so sour I had to brace my jaw to keep from laughing. Really, though, Gus should have been home that night. As a tyro parent I'd been letting him run a little wild. I've since come to realize that I have to hold a tighter rein on him for his own good. Los Angeles is a lot more dangerous than Dark-Age Gaul where I grew up. Back then, all people had to worry with were barbarian invaders, a civilization breaking down under its own corruption, and bandits in every woods. Hmmm. I've sometimes wondered why I've felt so at home in L.A.! When the boy began to pout in earnest I offered him a change of subject: "Why don't you have a Mantra glass of your own yet, Gus?" "I don't want one," he muttered. "Why not? Mantra is a very famous ultra, isn't she? In fact, you were in the theater when Mantra made her very first public appearance. That would make you a very special Mantra fan." "Mantra's okay, I guess," the boy replied, unimpressed. "It's just that she's a girl and girls are never interesting." Mantra may have a lot going against her, but being uninteresting isn't one of them. Even so, I couldn't get too peeved at Gus's attitude, having been a little boy myself once. I remember going through my own I- don't-like-girls phase. "I think you'll be sorry if you don't buy the all ultra glasses, Gus," I advised him, "because Burger King won't be selling them forever. If you ask me to, I'll give you one of my Mantra glasses for your collection. But if you want any of the other super-heroines, you'll have to use your allowance." It's never too early to teach a youngster that money doesn't grow on trees. The boy let out the low, throaty noise which I've learned is kid- language for, "Aw, Mom, you're going on about nothing again." Instead of letting the subject die quietly, I said, "Gus, I bet that a complete set of Burger King ultra glasses will be worth at least a hundred dollars by the time you're ready for college." Now he looked more interested, but still didn't say anything. Just then Evie touched my arm. "Mommy." "Yes, darling?" "Do the ultras earn a lot of money when Burger King sells their glasses?" I shook my head. "Ultras who don't have secret identities -- like Hardcase and Prototype -- get a royalty, I suppose. But if an ultra wants to keep his legal identity secret, then anybody can merchandize his name and picture." "What does 'merchandize' mean?" "Merchandizing happens when factories put people's names or pictures on lunch pails, note books, glasses, and things like that." "Ohhhh," she murmured, regarding her glass with new interest. What I had told Evie was the law as far as I understood it. In a way it was a pity that I wasn't collecting a royalty for all the shameless exploitation that Mantra was undergoing, especially on the internet. But my privacy was more important than a fatter bank account. Mantra makes just too many enemies; if her address were known, even the lesser fry could strike at her by burning down the Blake house in vengeance, or even by targeting the kids or Eden's mom. So far, two enemies of mine have found out that Mantra was Eden Blake, but, as far as I knoww, both are dead. Good riddance! "I heard that Hardcase got his powers when he was hit by a bolt of lightning," exclaimed Gus, running his thumb over the glazed-on figures of the Strangers upon his vessel. Oops! Parental warning time. "It wasn't ordinary lightning that hit Hardcase!" I sternly informed the offspring. "If it had been real lightning it wouldn't have given him any powers; it would have just sent him to the hospital, or even killed him. It was some special kind of energy, one of those strange ultra things that no one really understands." True enough. The Entity had given Hardcase him and others ultra powers, but I only vaguely understood what the Entity was. The ultra world is a nutty one, as I've found out since I'd been put into Eden Blake's body. My former patron, the wizard Archimage, was responsible. He knew Eden possessed magical powers, powers potentially greater than his own, and he wanted to capture them for his cause. Because Eden's personality didn't suit him, he transplanted my soul transplanted into her shell. Now I'm able to do amazing things just by focusing my will and visualizing, but I don't know how or why it all happens, or why Eden's bloodline seems to have been blessed with such and astonishing ability. "I'd like to be hit by lightning and get super powers," the boy continued, as if hearing nothing that I'd said. I reached out and squeezed his catsoupy fingers. "Just remember, Sluggo, the people who love you love you just the way you are. Being an ultra doesn't mean that a person is going to be happy all the time." ~Brother! I could write a book on that subject.~ "Ahhhh, Mom," he moaned, "you never let me do anything." "I'm sure not going to let you get hit by lightning, if that's what you mean!" His expression went sulky again. Every boy wants to be a super hero -- or villain - I suppose. How ironic that Gus was descended from Mantra, and yet didn't seem to carry the magical gene. Or so I supposed. All I have to go on is the fact that Necromantra rated him as a magical nonentity and didn't bother to kidnap him when she abducted Evie and Eden -- the real Eden -- in order to leech away their innate powers. Evie hasn't manifested any magical powers yet, by the way, unless one counts her flashes of remarkable insight. How could a little girl of seven have guessed that the person who looked like her mother, talked like her mother, and walked like her mother, wasn't her mother after all? I still feel guilty that I didn't lie to her, thereby sparing her a broken heart. Gus would probably be better off if he didn't have magical powers. Most persons who gain ultra talents go bad, opting for careers in robbery and terrorism. I'd only recently learned how a small twist of fate might have made me into a public menace! "Mom," Gus suddenly whispered with the same cloying intonation that he'd used last winter to confess that he'd spilled chocolate syrup on the living room sofa. "Yes, honey?" I replied, trying hard not to sound suspicious. To be perfectly honest, it had felt a little awkward at first using any of those motherly terms of address -- like darling, sugar, sweetie, pumpkin, and gum drop -- but I've been getting the hang of them lately. The boy had wriggled around to dig into his book-pack, which he'd hung on the chair behind him. He drew something out of its unplumbed depths and explained, "Mr. Storch gave me this letter to give you." The bent envelope was thereupon placed atop a gooey spot of relish. "Who's Mr. Storch?" I asked, wiping the paper clean with a napkin bearing Warstrike's image. "He's the vice-principal." "What's it about?" "I don't know." "It can't be a report card," I said with a teasing grin. "If it were, you'd never have shown it to me at all!" "Oh, Mom! I would, too! I only hid my report card once!" "That's true," I conceded, "but that was only two months ago! Okay, Gus, let's see what your Mr. Storch has on his mind." I pulled the bent sheet from the rumpled envelope. Then, on impulse, I handed it back. "You read it to me. I'd like to see if you're learning your lessons properly." I had heard worrisome things about middle class kids not being properly taught to read and thought it was high time to check on Gus's progress. With the letter in front of him, Gus shifted uneasily and commenced a slow recital: "Dear Mrs. Blake, On behalf of the Can-Can --" The can-can? Even upside down I could read Mr. Storch's letter. "Canoga Park," I coaxed. "Canoga Park Teachers' Asso -- Asso --" "Association." "Association," he parroted and then struggled on. It was painfully obvious that he was having tough sledding! It struck me that I had not been monitoring the kids' progress in school closely enough. Why was I surprised? Hadn't I noticed him struggling to read bottle labels and game instructions from time to time? I should have tried to get to the bottom of his difficulty, but every time my routine seemed to be settling down a little, I'd suddenly find myself fighting for my life as Mantra, or for the preservation of Civilization As We Know It. "Gus," I said gently, "you really sound like you're having a hard time reading. Why is that? You got a 'C' in English last winter. Do all the C-students struggle the way you do?" He shook his head. "No, Mom! Most of the kids in my class can't read at all!" I scowled, but not at Gus. How widespread was the problem in Los Angeles schools? I glanced toward Evie, wondering whether she was getting short-changed, too. What was the problem? The Blake kids were bright and the state was giving the teachers' union everything but the kitchen sink. Maybe it was time to start making demands on a craft that didn't seem to care about the competence of its members. When I was growing up, only youths studying for the Church were taught literacy. Those were days of continual warfare and most boys of the upper class had to learn to fight; reading was for clerks who needed to keep estate accounts. Illiteracy didn't seem like a hardship back then; I wanted to be a warrior, just like the father whom I hardly knew. I died in that first life never having read a page of parchment, but because I'd already pledged my sword to the wizard Archimage, my spirit was brought back to Earth in the body of another man. Eventually, between battles with Archimage's enemies, I learned my letters little by little, getting help wherever I could. In a century or so I had a decent facility in Latin and Greek. I've learned scores of other languages and scripts since then. If Gus was falling behind, I couldn't sit on my hands. I owned it to Eden to do the best for the boy. Besides, it burned me up that Gus's teachers hadn't warned me that he was having problems. What exactly did "C" mean in their school? Average illiteracy? I shook my head. "Grade inflation" doesn't seem to be a big deal until it hits home. Now hardly anything that concerned me as Mantra seemed quite as important. Well, the way I see it, my kids deserved every chance to improve themselves, and Mantra was going to see that they got them! Chapter 2 WALTZING WITH BEARS "Through leafy alleys Of verdurous valleys With merry sallies Singing their chant." I took the letter back and read it carefully myself. It turned out to be an invitation to something called "the annual parent-child camping trip." Each year, it seemed, a select group of parents were invited to bring their children to a four-day weekend of group education in one of the state forests. Several teachers would accompany the excursion and there would be lectures, discussions, games, and nature-trail activities. The letter went on to explain that this year the invited families were being selected from among "parents of significant accomplishment," especially persons whose work had so far prevented them from being very active in their children's school experience. That latter line meant that beneath all the slick language the letter was really an indictment of every parent who received it. I think the insinuation stung me all the sharper because I couldn't help but feel guilty about the previous year. But I had had a rough time of it. What was the school's excuse? Considering Gus' English-language problems, it seemed like Gus's teachers had not been "very active" themselves. But something seemed vaguely wrong. What was this about me being a "significantly accomplished" member of the parental community? As far as the school district knew, Eden Blake was only a low-level analyst for a sleazy federal spy organization -- a job, by the way, which was a marked improvement over the place where I'd started Eden Blake's work experience -- a catalog company where she was a phone-order-taker! "Gus, this is dated a month ago," I addressed the boy. "When did they give it to you?" "Sorry, Mom; I forgot that I was carrying it around. I only remembered it when my teacher asked me about it today." "Do you really want to go to this camp?" "I guess it could be fun," Gus replied with noticeable ambivalence. Then again, nothing outside of heavy-combat video-gaming ever imbued August Blake Junior with detectable excitement. "Do you think you'd like the idea of roughing it outdoors?" I asked, suddenly gripped by a new idea. He only shrugged, which I took as a positive gesture. Gus had always seemed like a TV-watching, Cheez-O-munching, video game playing layabout, the sort of boy that adults would have called a "house plant" a century ago. The world outside seemed to hold no fascination for him, which I suspected was a whole lot of his problem. "Gus, have you even thought of joining the Boy Scouts?" I asked. He shifted as if something didn't fit well. "Mr. Decker says he doesn't like the Boy Scouts." "Mr. Decker sounds like a blockhead," I muttered. "Say, isn't he the gym teacher who almost got your district sued last year?" "No, that was Mr. Brown," replied Gus. "Then Decker must be the one who can't teach kids to read?" "Yeah, that's him." I'd begun to think that Gus was being wasted where he was. He needed more structure -- a little discipline, some old-fashioned values, some challenge to compete with the best of his peers and excel. He needed to know that all good things in life didn't come from a microchip. I knew that the divorce had been especially hard for him, as it often is with children. Boys need fathers; no one knows that better than me. I'd experienced growing up with a father cold and distant, one who -- until the end of his life -- had barely acknowledged that I existed. Fortunately, I had had an uncle who was a completely different sort. He taught me to ride, to use the sword and the bow, to face responsibilities like a man, and more or less acted like my personal scoutmaster. A good scoutmaster could partially make up for an absentee pop and I wanted Gus to have the same chance I'd had. Also, it wasn't good that an eleven-year-old didn't have more buddies. The boys he hung with seemed to relate to him on a very superficial level. Then again, I had heard about the deep interpersonal bonding that went on inside Boy Scout troops. Some of the fellows Gus could meet there might become his friends for life. "I think the Boy Scouts are a pretty fine outfit," I said. "Is Decker really such a smart man?" Gus frowned. "I don't know. Most of the guys call him Butt-Head Burt. But the Cub Scouts are like army, aren't they? Don't they make you get up early?" "Come on, Gus, getting up early can be as much fun as staying up late! Early mornings in the woods are gorgeous. The air is sweet, the birds are singing. All the animals that you'll never see otherwise are up and around looking for food." The grimace he made at that point hardly suggested enthusiasm. "And think about how much fun you'd have sleeping in a tent in a forest, wearing a uniform, and carrying a big knife on your belt." ~Now~ he looked genuinely interested. Who says I don't know how to talk to little boys? I pressed my luck. "Wouldn't you like to drink from a canteen, and cook raw meat in a fire that you built yourself by rubbing two sticks together -- just like an Indian? Mr. Decker likes Indians, I bet." "Yeah, he does, but he calls them Native Americans." I smiled inwardly. Indians, or "Native Americans," was a subject on which I could have taken Mr. Decker to school -- having been several different Indians myself over the last few centuries. In fact, I'd been an Indian long before Columbus discovered America. "Are you going to go camping with Gus, Mommy?" Evie asked. I glanced at my daughter. I was so busy -- earning a living, managing a family, spying on Aladdin, fighting evil, and learning magic. . . . "Maybe. I'm not sure." What were my priorities now? Being a hero, ostentatiously seeming to care about an abstract mankind while shying away from the most important flesh-and-blood relationships wasn't noble; it was only self- aggrandizing. I'd been lucky as a kid. My father hadn't had any use for me, but my uncle had given me a lot of his time, treated me like I was the most important person in the world. A pat on the back from him always made me feel three inches taller than I really was. He worked hard at making me the man I was going to be for the next fifteen hundred years. Where I'd gone wrong was my own fault, not his. I had determined to act the role of a natural parent, and so I had an even greater responsibility to Gus than my uncle had had to me. I couldn't just let him drift if I had a chance to put him on the right track *** As far as little boys went, Gus was neither particularly troublesome nor especially gifted -- unless the ability to rack up a fantastic score in Duke Nukem qualifies as a gift. Afterwards, when I called Mr. Storch to talk about the camping trip, all he would tell me was that Gus's very unexceptional ability made him stand out to the Los Angeles Area Elementary School Teacher's Council. Of course, that sort of illogic came straight from bird land, but when I pressed Storch for a clarification I only got a pat slogan: "It's the policy of our school never to let a child get lost in the anonymous middle." Swell. The more Storch and I talked the less I understood. Exasperated, I brought up my son's difficulties with reading, writing, and arithmetic, and finally, in a fit of pique, went so far as to question Mr. Decker's competence as a teacher. "Mr. Decker's performance always evaluates very well," Storch assured me. "Our teachers work wonders with children of all ability levels and every ethnic background, but they only have your child for six hours of the day. You have him for the other fifteen hours and parental input is absolutely vital in advancing a child's development. That's one reason that I hope you can come to our parent-teacher camp-out." It occurred to me that six plus fifteen equaled twenty-one, not twenty- four. No wonder children couldn't add in Canoga Park, if the members of the school administration hadn't mastered simple arithmetic either. "You've never taught mathematics, have you, Mr. Storch?" I asked with all the sweetness of a fly amanita. "Why, no," he answered mildly. "I was a social studies instructor." So far, nothing I'd heard had given me much confidence in the Canoga Park Public School System. "Look, Mr. Storch, I'm not finished on this subject by a long shot, but nobody can say that I'm not willing to do my part. Are you going to join us in the woods us next week?" "Yes, ma'am," he replied unctuously. "I'm the main organizer, in fact. And I'm looking forward to seeing you there." "Yes, you can count on it! Bye," I said, hanging up the phone. *** That Friday the bus full of parents, children, and teachers joggled over rough gravel roads until they got way back into the Sierra Nevada foothills -- where the roads took the opportunity to really misbehave. I watched the changing scenery gloomily; I had been looking forward for a long conversation with Gus en route, but the instant we boarded Gus had rushed to the rear to join a couple boys whom he knew from school. One had a laptop and soon all three were playing a noisy combat game. So now I sat alone, forlornly thinking about nothing, seated beside a man who was reading a copy of ~Liberal Opinion.~ "Isn't it terrible, the way the price of gas has gone through the ceiling?" he suddenly said out loud. I absently glanced his way. "Huh? Oh, yeah. We need a real energy policy in Washington and open up more domestic reserves." For more than a millennium and a half I never needed to worry about petty expenses; Archimage always provided us with heavy purses and, more recently, with credit cards. But nowadays I died a little every time I had to go to the filling station. America was paying a huge price for indulging the environmental kooks. "The worst thing is the way it affects the poor," my neighbor added gratuitously. This comment raised my eyebrow. I just didn't agree. "Why is that worse than what happens to people who don't earn very much but still have to drive long distances to work?" He shrugged. "People like them are lucky just to have a job. I think there should be a federal program to see that the unemployed have all the gas they need." I shook my head. "If the poor don't work, how much gas do they need? I mean, people who have cars and places to go aren't bag ladies or winos living in packing crates. Unemployed people who drive around are doing it for recreation, right? So why do working people with families have to subsidize their good times?" Instead of answering, the fellow shifted his cold shoulder my way and me and resumed his silent reading, silently this time -- which was just fine with me. For the first couple hours of the trip there had been a lot of talk among the passengers, especially about problems in their children's education, but eventually Mr. Storch silenced the exchange by suggesting a song-fest. Maybe because most of us had grown bored, the songs were soon flowing. Mostly they were standard camp fare, some as old as the California Gold Rush. When Storch called upon the man sitting beside me, he offered up a song that all but the most cynical kids on the bus loved, "Waltzing with Bears." I couldn't help thinking that "I've Been Working on the Railroad" would have better dignified a grown man and a father. "Very good," crowed Mr. Storch at the end. "Now, isn't it your turn, Mrs. Blake?" My first reaction was to demur. "No, really, I --" "She's shy!" someone chortled. "Come on, Mrs. Blake," a woman spoke up. "You must know a few songs. Like, everyone knows "Coming 'Round the Mountain!" I bridled. Anyone with the nerve to wear Eden's clothes in public doesn't deserve to be called shy and I happen to know plenty of songs. In the old days everybody sang whether they had a good voice or not; there wasn't much else to do after dark during the first fourteen hundred years of my life -- especially if one eschewed drinking oneself under the table, gambling, or consorting with painted ladies -- none of which I eschewed, by the way. Sensing myself trapped, I decided to inject a little whimsy into the proceedings. "Okay," I sighed, "here's a song I learned from the radio. If anyone would like to join in, great." There were some mutters of support now that I was showing myself to be a good sport; once the bus quieted, I began: "Some people think they can waltz with the bears, Or polka with wolves or with birds in the air; I say it's unlikely, exceedingly rare To find a wild creatcha that's willing to meetcha, To socialize, visit, or dance anywhere. "So, don't go da-da-da-da-da dancing with wolves, Wary wolves, scary wolves, hairy wolves, too. There's nothing on you that a wolf w If you went out dancing, went dancing and prancing, If you went out dancing, went dancing with wolves. "It wasn't that we didn't treat him okay, It wasn't that he wasn't given his way; Free room and board, he had nothing to pay, But still Uncle Walter went dancing that day. "He went da-da-da-da-da dancing with wolves, Wary wolves, scary wolves, hairy wolves, too. There's nothing on you that a wolf wouldn't chew If you went out dancing, went dancing and prancing, If you went out dancing, went dancing with wolves. "A wolf is a creature that roams with a pack; If cornered or hungry they're prone to attack. I told him be careful, I begged him in fact, But now Uncle Walter is not coming back. "He went da-da-da-da-da dancing with wolves, Wary wolves, scary wolves, hairy wolves, too. There's nothing on you that a wolf wouldn't chew If you went out dancing, went dancing and prancing, If you went out dancing, went dancing with wolves. "Don't go da-da-da-da-da dancing with wolves!" Before I was finished kids were joining in the chorus. The second time through the kids were with me all the way; then, the third time, most of the parents. I couldn't tell whether any of the teachers sang since I didn't know what most of them looked like. I only know that Mr. Storch didn't open his mouth once. That man was certainly betraying an attitude problem Chapter 3 SIERRA NEVADA "Hearest not the osprey from the belfry cry? The hideous bird, that brings ill luck, we know!" The bus just kept going and going, which wasn't too surprising since we had to cross the entire state. The sun was hanging low by six o'clock and I began to hope that we wouldn't need a lot of setting-up time when we finally reached camp. I could do the job with a sack over my head, of course, but this group. . . . Can the snobbery, Lukasz, I told myself. PTA types and office workers are going to be your peers from now on. Get used to it and see if you can't help them learn something useful. From all the muttering, I could tell that some of the other parents were growing restless. The kids were too, but they didn't count; they'd been restless since we'd gotten beyond the San Fernando Valley. At long last I espied a row of somberly-painted lodges through the dusty sun-glare on the windshield. The bus pulled over and Storch assigned each family a lodge number as we stepped down to earth. I pried my young'un away from his pals and got him to help carry our baggage across the clearing to our one-room cabin. I thought the lodge was a comfortable-looking, if simple, affair. "Are we going to stay here?" Gus asked with the same expression he normally awards to a plate of broccoli. "What's wrong with it?" "I thought we were going to have a tent!" "Where's your logic, Sherlock? If we were going to sleep in tents, wouldn't we have packed sleeping bags?" When he didn't answer immediately, I glanced outside at the rapidly dimming evergreen forest. "There's plenty of wide-open spaces out there if you really want to go camping." "Did you bring a tent, Mom?" he asked dubiously, gazing down at the modest pile of baggage he'd helped me tote in. "No, but I've got a hunting knife. It would only take us an hour to put up a shelter. It wouldn't keep out the mosquitoes, I'm afraid, but we wouldn't have to worry about rain. Not much, anyway." "Oh, come on, Mom. What do you know anything about camping?!" Ah, how my sandy-haired boy underrated me! I sat down on edge of the bed and rested back on my elbows. "I know plenty!" "Yeah, since when did you get so smart?" "You know that Aunt Lila and I used to go to lake camp every summer. Anyway, I've read a couple of Sierra Club books since then." He laughed. "I just can't see you in the woods, Mom! What if a wolf sneaked up on us in the dark?" He made a Wolf Man howl. "I hope he does," I answered lightly. "If any wolf is dumb enough to let me get my hands on him, we'll have him for breakfast and use his pelt for a blanket." "Pecos Mom!" he guffawed. "Don't laugh, Squirt. I'll show how much I know about woodcraft before we're out of here!" "Oh, yeah? If you know so much, what kind of duck is that quacking outside?" "That's no bird, Daniel Boone. That's a wood frog." Just then I heard familiar call, ~cheeup, cheep, cheeup,~ which was immediately altered to ~chewk, chewk, chewk.~ "...Listen! I bet you don't know what bird that is." "A robin?" Gus ventured hesitantly. I shook my head. "The bird outside could eat a robin in one gulp." Then, seeing Gus's disbelieving glance, I shrugged and said, "Well, okay, maybe three gulps. It's an osprey -- a hawk that catches fish." "Fish?" "Sure. Lots of birds eat fish. Eagles eat fish, too. Did you know that?" If I'd really thought I could get my city boy interested in nature study I was sadly mistaken. "Can I go see Bob's and Jim's cabins?" he suddenly asked, apparently unable to fix upon a single subject for longer than two minutes. "Oh, go ahead!" I sighed. "I'll get things straightened up. That's what moms and ~khansamahs~ are for." "Khansa-what?" he puzzled. "Just go out and play!" And so he was off again, having bailed out of the longest conversation we'd managed to have in at least a month. Kids! He'll miss me when I'm gone, if not before. But again, I knew where he was coming from. I've always been sorry I didn't talk to my own mother more -- I mean Lukasz's mother, not Eden's -- before I got killed that first time. On the plus side, I hadn't wasted those our two minutes of quality time with Gus; they'd given me an idea. Maybe the youngster would respect his mom more if I showed him that I could handle myself outside the kitchen. What was I saying? I can't think of any place where I'm less able to handle myself than in the kitchen! When I turn on the oven, innocent bystanders had better head for the bomb shelter if they know what's good for them! Fortunately, though, there are a few other things that I'm able to do well. Anyone need a swordfighter? *** This permanent camp setup wasn't exactly roughing it. The cabins all had electric lights -- the current being supplied by a generator in a nearby utility shed -- and running water. I was rather sorry to realize that it was a camp built for citified wimps. If I was ever going to give Gus the feel of being part of the wild, to get him in touch with the living, breathing world, I'd have to pry him away from electrical outlets, battery-operated laptops, lighting fluid, and all the other conveniences that negate the wilderness experience. Well, maybe not all conveniences; I sort of like insect repellant. Be that as it may, I hoped that the group leaders didn't intend to smother us with a lot of pre-planned activities; they could only get in the way of my spending time with the boy one-on-one. After I'd made the bunks, I filled the small dresser with our clothes, then hung our larger things in the open alcove which served for a closet. By the time it was dark outside, the waft of cooking meat served notice that somebody was roasting weenies in a big way. I glanced out the window; the picnic tables were lighted by battery-lamps and already some of the children were in line to receive their hot dogs. Gus would be drawn to the eats like a moth to a flame, I knew, so I decided to go and make sure he minded his manners. Stepping out the door, I was met by a woman in her mid-thirties wearing a pinstriped shirt and blue jeans. She smiled amiably and extended an open palm. "Hi, I'm Erica Shelton." I took the hand and shook it. "That's my little girl Marci over there," she said, pointing at a tow- haired girl about a year older than Evie. "I've been hoping to run into you to tell you that I liked your song." "I'm Eden Blake. Thanks for the compliment, but I can't take credit for writing it." "I also liked when you said that people who don't work should have to buy their own gas. Most of us have been so brow-beaten by television news! I'm going to have to have more guts about speaking up about what I believe, just like you do." I shrugged. "I know what you mean about having to be careful. I work for a government agency." She nodded commiseratively. "And I'm in a newspaper office where everybody has just one mind-set. Who's laying down these rules anyway? It seems that if a person isn't a chop-em-up radical, everything he says is automatically too controversial too utter." I smiled uneasily, knowing that I was a chop-em-up sort of guy myself. Some ultras manage to avoid large body counts, but old habits die hard with us Dark-Age barbarians. I am trying to taper off, though. Erica was a fine-looking woman, the sort that I might have gotten interested in once upon a time. But she seemed to have a political bent and I knew from long -- long -- experience that too much political talk at the outset of an acquaintanceship isn't smart, so I changed the subject. "Isn't it odd, the children they picked to come up here?" She looked askance. "Why do you say the children are odd?" "I mean, the kids they invited come from the whole range of different ages, first-graders to sixth-graders. I get the idea that it's really the parents they're interested in, but so far I haven't gotten a straight answer as to why." "Now that you mention it, you may be right," Erica nodded. "All the group activities I've attended up to now have always been for children from one class ranking." "Maybe they've grouped the students together for equal reading skills," I quipped dryly. "You may be right!" Mrs. Shelton laughed. "I haven't seen a book in a child's hand since the trip began, just those silly computer games. My little sister was able to read better at the end of first grade than Marci can read now at the end of her third year. My older girl is sub- par, too. Is it the same with your son?" "He's struggling," I admitted, nodding. "I've got a good mind to have it out with his teacher, but I haven't gotten Gus to finger him yet." She smiled tentatively. While Erica appeared to approve of my sentiment, her expression didn't convey a good deal of hope. "Be my guest, Eden. They always say you can't fight city hall, but it's even harder to try and get anywhere with a teacher who has tenure." "I just can't figure it out!" I lamented. "Back in the Nineteenth Century, any kid able to walk a mile to school carrying a tin lunch pail could read and write better than his pioneer parents." She shifted her stance, suppressing a sigh. "Tin lunch pails have been banned; we have to use plastic ones now. The old kind is supposed to be dangerous in the hands of kids. Schools can't keep guns out, but metal dinner pails are absolutely verboten." "When did kids become so wild?" I asked, not really expecting an answer. "Every country boy used to have a rabbit gun, but they didn't shoot their friends; and everybody carried a jackknife, but nobody stabbed anybody in those one-room school houses." Mrs. Shelton regarded me with lively, ironic eyes. "That tone you take -- it's almost like you're remembering the good old days." ~Watch it, Lukasz!~ "Do I look that old?" I grinned. "I only wish I looked so svelte ten years ago! But when I was Marci's age I had a hundred children's books and wanted to read them all over and over again. All Marci wants to do is watch television. The kids can't have changed that much. It must be the schools." "I think you're near the mark," I said. "I honestly don't know what to do sometimes." Careful, you're beginning to sound a lot like a care-worn mom, Lukasz! Suddenly her eyes gleamed like glassy volcanic rock. "There's a way to get in a punch or two," Erica said. "I belong to a South-California parents' group trying to get schools back to basics and cut out the nonsense and the political agendas." I meet a lot of put-upon mothers at work, but there was something about Erica Shelton that I liked right from the start. People with lively ideas are always more interesting than those with just cow-like stares. "Is your group getting anywhere?" I asked, slightly interested but hesitant since I'm by no means the joiner type. Maybe my fifteen hundred years with Archimage's band has something to do with that. I hadn't even signed up with UltraForce when Prime invited me in last fall. I find plenty of trouble just trying to make it through the day. When one gets involved with sorcery he can really get blind-sided by danger. A whammy once came at Evie and me right out of my trusty old magical cloak! And disinfecting it was a tough job, let me tell you! "It's hard going," Erica admitted with a wince. "The teachers' union is against us, the school administrators just bury their heads, and then there's the stunts that the Department of Education in Washington pulls." "The more things change the more they stay the same," I reflected out loud. To tell the truth, I've known a lot of bad governments in my time, though I never had to live under any particular one of them for very long. Now that Erica thought she had me primed, she struck, "Maybe you should join our group?" Even though I'd been expecting the invitation, I still didn't have a ready answer. "I don't know. . ." I hedged, drawing out my words to give myself more time to think. Join a parents' group? Me? "We've got to band together and fight for our kids. If we don't, they'll drop out of school and leave home by the time they're sixteen." Sixteen? That was just five years for Gus, and only nine for Evie. A decade is just a blink of an eye to a person who's lived as long as I have. "Maybe I should do something," I said carefully, "...but I'm just so darned busy." "We're all busy, Eden. But trying to turn our responsibilities over to professional educators always causes more trouble than it's worth." Probably, but Erica didn't appreciate exactly how busy was busy when I say "busy." I didn't just have home and office to worry about, but home, office, and super hero. True, except for a little exercise to keep my magical energy in tone, I don't set aside any special time for Mantra. But even so, things happen on their own. One minute I might be at the zoo with the kids, and the some super-being snatches me away to some alien planet for a battle royale. It makes things impossible to plan. Just then the bus's ignition churned noisily and the orange vehicle withdrew down the pebbly road. "Where's the bus going?" I asked. Erica frowned. "I don't know. Maybe the driver is going to stay in the nearest town, or maybe the bus needs servicing." "I didn't notice a service garage since we left the 'burbs. This is back-road city. I'd almost forgotten that California still has so much empty land." "Well, let's get something to eat," Mrs. Shelton suggested. "We won't save the world tonight, no matter how much we want to." I fought down an ironic grin when I should have knocked on wood instead... *** Carrying steaming hot dogs and plates of banked beans, I looked around for Gus, but he had apparently run off to somewhere with his pals, so I just followed Erica. She found us places at a table with some of the other parents, a couple of whom already knew her. It took her only minutes to steer the conversation around to the latest educational fads, seemingly a pet subject of hers. Despite the way she soft-peddled it, I don't think Mrs. Shelton had ever had much trouble saying exactly what she thought. Some few diners seemed not to like the topic, and so excused themselves after wolfing down their dogs on the double-quick. On the other hand, just as many folks were drawn over from other tables to join in the lively chat. One thread of discussion led to another, patriotism, for instance. This evolved into a critique of the movie The Patriot, which most of us had liked. I put in my two cents, saying, "I just don't see what the critics are fussing about. That's how it was in those days. If enemy troops murder your brother and torch your home, you were within your rights to shoot them down like dogs when you get the chance. In some places in Asia and Africa that's still the only way that families can get justice." For some reason this opinion raised the eyebrows of some of our companions who had never seen a tribal war. I suppose they'd never heard a suburban mother of two speaking in favor of vendetta before. Maybe if the same words had come through the rotten teeth of a Viking warrior with a broadsword slung over his shoulder they could have taken it more in stride. It's a shame that modern people always try to pigeonhole folks into comfortable little stereotypes, and then do a double take if just one person turns out to be an individual. "Eden is an ardent admirer of the past," Erica volunteered grinningly. I was beginning to like the way that my frankness never put her into a tizzy, as it did a lot of my co-workers back home. I liked that trait in my friend Lila, too, even though the latter had acted surprised to discover sudden changes in Eden Blake's attitudes. Of course, it hadn't been any attitude that changed; it was the soul that occupied her best friend's body. "You must read a lot, Mrs. Blake," someone observed, and that brought the conversation around to, "Has anyone ready any good books lately." I felt a little at sea once the topic had shifted away from killing enemies to reading books. I'm a dunce when it comes to modern novels, particularly the women's romances which my companions seemed to know best. So, just like the men, I resigned myself to occasional nods and a benign smile or two when the ladies looked my way for input or support. Of course, when Diana Gabaldon's ~Outlander~ came up I was able to illuminate certain points of interest in respect to clan life in early Eighteenth-Century Scotland. The night was already well advanced and the mosquitoes had come out in force by the time we stifled the gab and retreated inside our cabins. I had intended to tell Gus an exciting bedtime story about Lew Case, the Colorado gunslinger I'd been at the time of the Pike's Peak Gold Rush, but he'd dragged himself in from supper tired and cranky. When he gave me the familiar, "Oh, Mom, bedtime stories are for kids," I put him to bed and changed into my own pajamas once the lights were out. Obviously Operation Relationship still hadn't found its sea legs. Lying awake, I mulled over how much of Gus's behavior might stem from the boy's refusal to think of himself as a kid. Admittedly, Osgood's book, The School-Aged Child, warned that parents often had to face this sort of problem once a youngster got fired up with pubescent hormones, but Gus was only eleven. I sifted over all that I knew about Gus's early days, most of the information having come from the real Eden Blake before I'd tragically lost her. It seems that the lad had gone into depression when his folks separated. After he had emerged from that ordeal, he was no longer the same warm and friendly boy. As far as Eden could make out, Gus had come up with the idea that everyone in the world was out for himself and that nobody cared about other people. Nobody seemed able to get close to Gus anymore and I suspected that he had become a good candidate for leaving home at an early age. Even though I have problems relating to Gus, I have to ask myself what the hell use is it being a parent if it doesn't last as long as you live? An hour must have crawled by and, though I probably could have put myself to sleep with magic, I preferred to lie quietly in the moonlight and think. I didn't mind the night sounds and even enjoyed the cool, clean mountain air wafting in. Many times I'd fallen asleep fanned by an alpine breeze with only a bedroll or less under my shoulders, and it carried me back though the long years. I had a few good memories of woodland retreats like this one, but what would I have thought a century ago had someone accurately predicted where I would be, what I would be, and what sort of problems I'd be facing in the Twenty-First Century? Chapter 4 MISSING PERSONS "A region of repose it seems, A place of slumber and of dreams. Remote among the wooded hills! For there no noisy railway speeds, Its torch-race scattering smoke and gleeds...." For a long time I lay awake in bed, preoccupied. The only sound to disturb the night was my own restless breathing, punctuated occasionally by the soft noises of wildlife outside the cabin. Even so, despite the quiet, I couldn't seem to drift off to sleep. Eventually yielding to impulse, I got up and ten seconds later stood quietly over Gus's bunk. It had grown very dark; we had lost the moon behind the silhouette of a nearby peak and so I conjured up my own light, courtesy of Mantra's magic -- a faint plasma-like glow imbued with just enough candlepower to illuminate the face of my sleeping son. My son. I had a son. Yes, it was true. What a mind-boggling thought! But.... But wasn't this the first time that I had thought of Gus as my own son without adding a qualifier? Early on, Evie had evoked a response in me -- something new to my experience and which I had fought against for some reason. My attitude changed gradually after Eden returned from the oblivion that Archimage had exiled her to, and the feelings only became more poignant after her sudden death. Maybe it had been bereavement that made me turn toward the children. All I really know is that from that having a daughter like Evie has made my stale old life seem fresh and new. Also, I was beginning to feel something of the same emotion toward Gus. Why? What was so lovable about Gus? Well, I have to admit that Gus Jr. looked kind of cute just then, with his eyes shut and one arm tucked under the blanket, while the other rested on his forehead. My son. What an amazing thought. Was he really my son? Could I ever have children that were truly my own? The man who'd been born before the fall of the Roman Empire and named Lukasz never sired a physical son. He had died childless in the year 452 A.D. Many of the men whose bodies I've stolen since then have had children -- and that's something else I don't like to think about. Besides the children I've abandoned, I made more than a few new offspring myself in the course of fifteen hundred years of soldiery carousing in stolen bodies. Even so, siring a child and being a father is not exactly the same thing. It didn't have to be that way, of course. Occasionally, a knight of Archimage would call it quits and drop out of the band, usually to wed and settle down. I couldn't follow suit; I couldn't accept age, sickness, and death even in exchange for love and home. I didn't want to become pathetic, I didn't want to have no future to look ahead to, and spend my humiliating last years looking back. I wanted to live, even at the terrible price that Archimage exacted. The strange thing is that I never stopped to think exactly why I so much wanted to live. Maybe it was simply gamesmanship. I'd cheated Death for so long that I couldn't bring myself to let the stubborn old codger win, no matter what. I still don't want to. Not now that I finally have something to live for. Why should I suddenly feel this way? It can't be because I'm finally happy; whatever I'm experiencing it doesn't exactly fit my definition of happiness. Can it be that women feel things differently than men do? I refuse to accept that; I don't believe I've changed at all on the inside. Of course, I may be too close to the subject to judge it objectively. All I know is that somewhere along the way I'd become restless. Lukasz had stopped liking himself for some reason. Why? Up to the end nothing much had changed. Could it be that doing the same thing in the same way, ~ad infinum,~ is the surest way to lose oneself? Was that logical, was it even possible? If not, what, then, exactly, made the difference? Is it because this present life is the first since my original one that wasn't stolen by force from another person? Did the fact that it came as a gift from one who loved me somehow make it truly mine, along with everything that comprised it? One component of Eden's life was, of course, a son. There's something gratifying in that idea, but it's no bed of roses either. For one thing, I'd always supposed that if I ever had a son he'd like me a good deal better than Gus seems to. Why is he so cold when I speak to him? Am I so unlovable, despite everything I try? Or is it that for some reason I've failed to tune into this particular boy's emotional wavelength? God knows he doesn't make it easy for me. Maybe I came along just too late to understand him like a parent should. Maybe everything would have been different had he been as young as Evie. . . . Don't go there, Lukasz! In another minute I'd be feeling sorry for myself and blaming Eden for messing things up with Gus. It's not true; Eden Blake was as smart as any other parent when it came to child-rearing and she loved her son every bit as much as her daughter. So here I was, a confused amateur in the nurturing game trying to do the world's hardest job while beating myself up for every perceived shortcoming. Compared to parenting, fighting Boneyard seemed easy. What whimsy of fate had made me a parent? All I've known for centuries has been war and children don't fit into that kind of life. Offspring by definition make one think about the larger questions. They also make a person anticipate future generations and give us the responsibility to prepare the way for them. Parenthood has changed me. For whatever reason, looking inward is no longer good enough. Of course, all that may be very well and fine, but still it begged the question, did I really love Gus? That wasn't one question; it was five: ~Did~ I really love Gus? Did ~I~ really love Gus? Did I ~really~ love Gus? Did I really ~love~ Gus? Did I really love ~Gus?~ Or Evie, for that matter? Might it only be guilt or a sense of duty? Or was this emotion that I believed I felt not my own but a thing inherited along with Eden's body, like her aversion to smoking and drinking, her problems with manual transmissions, her taste in clothes? Are my emotions and attachments really just poor, borrowed things? Is my own heart, in fact, empty? I looked up at the beams of the roof, visualizing the sea of stars beyond it. Please don't let that be so, I thought. Let what I feel be the true mirror of my own soul. I lowered my gaze and drew in a soulful breath. Whatever the reason I felt what I felt, I felt it most keenly when I looked down at one of my slumbering children. I've hurt many sons and daughters over time, but I can't bear to see Gus hurt, no matter what. And the best way to keep him from being hurt is to keep pretending for him that his real mother isn't really dead. That's the type of kindness that I can no longer do for Evie, to my everlasting regret. *** I awoke to an excited rapping on my cabin door. Getting up, I put on the green robe I'd brought along and undid the latch. There on the step stood the man who I'd sat next to on the bus, but this time he was accompanied by his red-haired wife. Both of them looked extremely distraught. "Mrs. -- uh," the lady began. "Blake," I volunteered. "Excuse us; our name is Daschle," she said. "Our little girl Debbie is missing. She wasn't in her bunk when we woke up and nobody else has seen her. We're afraid that she's wandered off into the woods and gotten lost." "I'm sorry," I said, "I haven't seen her either. I was asleep until you knocked. You'd best wake up Storch and get him to organize a search. A forest this size is a dangerous place even for an adult." "Mr. Storch wasn't in his cabin," replied Mr. Daschle, his tone strained. "In fact, we haven't been able to find any of the teachers." Now that sounded distinctly odd. "None of them?" The Daschles shook their heads. I looked past my callers at the other parents and children milling about. There was, in fact, no school personnel in sight. "What is it, Mom?" Gus asked sleepily from his bunk. I spoke to him over my shoulder. "A little girl is missing. You stay within sight of the camp, Gus; I'm going to try to help these people find her." "Maybe a maniac got her!" he gushed excitedly. "Did you see that movie where one of the campers is a crazy killer?" "Gus!" I scolded, then looked back to the Daschles and apologized, promising to help them as soon as I could get my things on. They accepted my offer distractedly and then continued their inquiries at the next cabin. Once dressed, I went out and found a troubled- looking Erica talking seriously to a couple of other parents. "Eden, did you notice that the electricity is off?" she asked as I stepped up to her. I frowned; now that I paused to listen it was true that I could hear no sound from the generator shack. "First things first," I told her. "We've got to start a search for Debbie Daschle." One of Erica's companions added a complaint of his own, namely that the faucets weren't working either. Some camp! I thought. Increasingly, there wasn't much to choose from between this place and the accommodations available to beaver-trappers on the Columbia in 1830. "Erica," I urged, "try to organize the grownups into two or three search parties and get someone to keep the kids in line while the adults are away." "What are you going to do?" "I'm going to check the utilities." Frankly, I didn't care a lot about the electricity and water, not while a life was in danger, but they gave me an excuse to get out of sight. Whatever Eden Blake might do in this case, Mantra could do a lot more. The generator shed was locked, I discovered, but since I was a witch, that didn't present much of a barrier -- I simply went around back and stepped through the rear wall unseen. It took me less than thirty seconds to ascertain that the fuel tank was bone dry. If there wasn't more gas available somewhere, the electricity couldn't be restored -- nor could the running water, since the latter's pump ran electrically. My frustrations were mounting. What a way to manage a parents-teachers get-together! If this was how credentialed educators fulfilled their responsibilities, no wonder California's schools were failing down academically. It was a wonder that they weren't also falling down physically! With effort, I put such trivial annoyances out of my mind, switched into my Mantra costume, and exited through the floor. As Mantra I emerged down-slope from the shed, just short of the water table, and set out skimming the treetops, guessing that a bird's-eye view would serve me best. But I'm still fairly new to aerial reconnaissance woodlands and so I found out to my consternation that springtime foliage makes it hard to see the ground. Also, a light morning fog added to my problems. Having failed as a spotter-plane, I decided to use "radar." That is, I evoked my life-sensing powers and buzzed the main trail, the one that followed the lakeshore. My hunch was that even if I didn't turn up the vanished child immediately, I might at least locate the absent teachers, who -- presumably -- would be found as a group. That might pay double-dividends, since Debbie might have tagged along with them and would be found safe in their company. To my perplexity, I sensed nothing at first, except for small life forms, which I supposed to be squirrels, chipmunks, and such. Before long, I broadened my search pattern, circling the woods in daisy-petal loops. It was about that time that I noticed that the other campers were moving out in search parties. Some of the folks below might be wondering what had happened to Eden, but at the risk of making my alter- ego look bad I continued my solo-survey -- betting on my ultra powers to get quicker results. A minute later, an inner tingle alerted me to some yet-unseen source of life-energy larger than a raccoon. There was something deuced strange about that vibration, but I was in too much of a hurry to think about non-essentials as I descended below the treetops for a better look. Almost immediately, I spotted a patch of pink and blonde moving blithely along a forest path. Debbie! I noted that the path she was following would take her to one group of searchers in just a few minutes. In fact, she was walking so confidently it seemed like she knew exactly where she was going. Rather than wait for the others to come along, I dropped down behind a dense stand of jack pines and changed back to my civilian outfit. If I let Eden Blake find the tyke rather than Mantra, the ultra's presence wouldn't have to be explained away. I waited where I was until the little girl passed just opposite me, and then stepped out saying, "Debbie! Where have you been? Your parents have been frantic!" The youngster glanced up. Though she must have been surprised to see me lurch out of the bushes, her expression seemed calm and indifferent -- coldly thoughtful, like a mask. But a second later she opened her mouth wide and started to bawl. "I got lost! Where's mommy? Where's daddy?" I went to her, knelt, and hugged her. Yet something bothered me about that fleeting, mask-like look on her face. It put me off somehow and made my embrace careful and tentative. "You're folks are coming," I assured the youngster. "Listen. You can hear their voices now." A minute later, the search party came into view and they saw Debbie and me standing side-by-side in the middle of the path. Mrs. Daschle ran forward, seemingly out of her mind with relief. I didn't notice Mr. Daschle, though; he was apparently with another group. I stepped deftly aside, letting mother sweep child up into her arms and swing her around, but, not really meaning to, I kept my eye on Debbie's face. The girl's tearful excitement seemed natural enough for one of her tender years and nothing seemed in the least amiss. Before I knew it, I was telling myself that my instincts were all wet. "Debbie," I asked carefully when Mrs. Daschle's effusive endearments and stern scoldings had subsided, "have you seen any of the teachers?" The little girl turned my way with red eyes and a runny nose. "I didn't see anybody. I was all alone!" Scratch one theory. We all trekked back to the camp after that, relieved to know that the most immediate of our problems had been happily resolved. *** "Mom, I'm hungry," Gus told me when I returned. I looked askance at his thin face, wondering when he was going to ask about the lost girl, but he never did. Amazing! Sometimes I wonder whether the real Gus Blake hadn't been spirited away from Eden's cradle to fairyland while a cold- hearted Grinch had been left there sucking his thumb. And I used to think of myself as a hard case! "So you're hungry. What's new about that?" "Who's going to make breakfast?" he pressed. I didn't know anything about the food supply and so I poked my head out the door, hoping that some of the teachers had strayed back. They hadn't. The pedagogues' absence from our fun-in-Nature group was becoming more baffling by the minute. As I've said, I hadn't seen any sign of Storch and Company during my aerial reconnaissance, even though the troop of them should have been a good deal easier to pinpoint than one little girl. "Maybe some of the other parents know where the food is cached," I ventured absently, not yet very hungry myself. I led Gus outside and started asking around. A helpful suggestion led us to Mrs. Stern's cabin, a logical place to start the search since she had been Storch's assistant. There was nothing in her room, though, save for one last can of beans, a stub from a mostly-used-up bread loaf, and about two wieners in a broken package. No further exploration there or elsewhere turned up additional grub. What was this? Had some fool left most of the food on the also-vanished bus? "I can't figure," Erica remarked when she came up to join us. "What are the teachers playing at? Is this some sort of egghead experiment in stress and survival?" "It's beginning to look that way," I replied with a nod, myself