Chapter 11

Sunday was the only day of the week that Dad was reasonably sure to take off work. Sunday morning, Mom always made a big brunch around 10:00, so Mary and I couldn't go collecting lost money until after that. I woke up around 8:00 and did some guitar reading and practicing until I was sure the bathroom queue was finished, then I seized the opportunity to take a longer than normal shower and to relieve the buildup of genital tension. Thank Bog, we didn't go to church.

Although I suppose we were all nominal Christians, Arthur had literally never set foot inside a church, at least as far back as he could remember. Religion just wasn't much of a concern for our family. Dad never said anything about it. Mom said more, but I had a suspicion that she endorsed several heresies--although I couldn't be sure, given my own limited knowledge.

I don't know, either, thought Ursus. In my travels of the multiverse, I've encountered some religions that resemble your recollections of Christianity, but I've never studied them deeply. I've always done my best to avoid divine entanglements.

I thought about that. What's the most common religion you've encountered?

That would be the many variations of the religion of the people that some archaeologists call the People of the Wolf. No one seems to know what they called themselves. You would probably call them pagans. The Greek myths that you've been studying most likely descended from their religion, at least in part. They had a Sky Father and an Earth Mother. A dog guarded their underworld. Their sun was a god; their moon a goddess (although some of their descendant religions switch that), and so on.

The Wolf People were great colonizers and settled in several nodes of the multiverse. In your English, I recognize some cognates from their language. That and the similarity in myths lead me to believe that they probably colonized this node as well.

If they colonized here, why did we forget about magic?

I don't know that you forgot much. The Wolf People seem to have been rather poor magicians.

Then how did they colonize so many nodes of the multiverse, as you call them?

Ah, I see your confusion. Magic and crossing between the nodes are two different skills. The first is done by magicians, and the second is done by--he paused to search my memory--"shamans" seems to be the closest word in English to what I mean. The Wolf People were poor magicians but unexcelled shamans. They and two other peoples, whom we call the People of the Dragon and the People of the Lion, colonized many of the cognate nodes to this one. I suspect that all three colonized this node.

That's cool, I thought, but I've learned that human life evolved here.

That's certainly possible. Human life has evolved many places.

How can that be? I thought evolution was all random and stuff.

No one knows, at least no one that I know knows. There is something in the multiverse that keeps many of the nodes similar to each other. There are many nodes like your own. They have a planet that is about three-quarters water and one-quarter land. There is a big moon in the sky. The people look like people. Sometimes the people have astonishingly similar customs, and even languages. Of course, some of the similarity is caused by migration between the nodes, but not all of it. It's one of the great mysteries of the multiverse.

Could it be God? I thought, with the Christian god in mind.

I don't know. I've met more limited gods in my life--and I try to avoid them--but I've never met an Almighty God who I was reasonably sure created everything.

We dropped the subject after that. Because I had shown interest in learning how to cook over the last couple of years, Mom let me help fix brunch along with her and Mary. I got to tend the back bacon. We also had potato pancakes, fried eggs, and toast.

When we were done eating, I gave Mary the job of keeping the rest of the kids out of the basement while I cast the search spell. It went quicker than last time. When I came up the stairs to collect Mary, she told Mom, "We had such good luck finding money yesterday that we thought we would try some more today."

"Are you sure you wouldn't rather go on a Sunday drive with the rest of us?" Mom and Dad liked Sunday drives. I found them tedious.

"We're sure." The folks figured that we were old enough to stay home alone, especially if we were both there to keep an eye on each other.

"Here, you better take a key with you."

Our collecting had only one incident of note. Mary pointed out Al riding by on his bike. Both of us waved and said hello to him, but he said, "Hi, Mary" and completely ignored me.

When we had reached the point where we didn't want to continue, Mary and I had found another five pounds and twelve cents. By the time we got home, everyone else had returned as well. I headed downstairs to do my homework and go over my vocabulary words for the spelling and definitions test on Monday. It took less than an hour to get it finished. We practiced guitar for about fifteen minutes, and then Ursus thought, let's take a look at your term paper stuff.

We reviewed the instructions and read over the example paper that I had been given. When that was finished, Ursus looked over my note cards and slowly put them in a coherent order. You pretty much have everything you need to write the paper here, he thought. You have notes on the birth, areas of responsibility, and character for every god in the Greek pantheon. We could write the outline, which you eventually need to do anyway, right now. Each god is a heading, and those birth, responsibility, and character items are subheadings A, B, and C.

So that is what we did. We still had about another fifteen minutes to practice some more before supper. After supper, there was more reading and guitar.

Monday morning, 22 November, I actually felt good about going to school. I still felt the place too closely resembled a prison, but my appreciation for my fellow inmates--or at least one inmate in particular--had markedly increased. "Hi, Kirsten," I said as we waited for the door to be unlocked.

She actually gave me a brief hug, and not just an arm hug, a full torso-to-torso squeeze. I had another jolt of fear and elation, but the elation outweighed the fear. Kirsten said, "My mom told me to invite you over for lunch tomorrow." Kirsten, living so close to the school, always went home for lunch.

I didn't relish the prospect of a whole half-hour of scrutiny from Kirsten's mother, but Ursus warned me that I didn't dare refuse. "I'll have to ask my mom, but I'm sure she'll say it's OK," I replied.

"OK, I'll pencil you in. Is grilled cheese and tomato soup good?"

"That's fine. I'll call tonight if Mom says I can't go."

As we were taking off our coats, Sean whispered to me, "Way to go, man." I noticed that Kirsten was wearing a jump suit, named after the coveralls that skydivers wore, which it resembled. The integral belt helped emphasize that Kirsten was developing a figure that was worth emphasizing.

I felt Ursus give an internal shudder. I was confused for a moment before I realized it was over the thought of people jumping from airplanes. There is no way, he thought, that I would ever want to jump from high objects when I can't fly.

There have been times when you could fly?

Sure. He started to recall some of them.

You've been a dragon? Cool!

Indeed I have, and indeed it is. It changes the personality, though. One becomes more arrogant and at least somewhat bloodthirsty.

Al didn't come in until we were already heading into our classroom. I didn't see Donbo that morning at all.

Kirsten and I played look-and-smile a bit, but the morning was uneventful. When Sean and I joined the after lunch kickball game, Al turned around and stalked off. I noticed Donbo walking around by himself. That was normal; not too many people had anything to do with him.

After lunch, we had the spelling and definition tests and scored them in class. We were also given our new vocabulary words for the week. I scored 100% on both tests. I also scored 100% when Mr. Dean called me up to his desk to take the make-up tests from the time that I had been out of school. That afternoon, we had an hour of art instruction, much like we received an hour of physical education on Thursday and an hour of music on Wednesday. All things considered, it was a normal day at school.

That changed when I went to unlock my bike. The tires were flat. "That really sucks, man," said Sean.

I inspected the tires for damage. There didn't appear to be any, so I hoped that someone had just let the air out of them. At about the time I was finished my examination, Mary showed up. "Mary, will you quick go ahead and tell Mom that I'm going to need to ride with her today. My tires are flat."

"What happened?"

"I don't know. Go now, please. I'd hate to have to walk my bike all the way home."

She went, and Sean went with her. As I walked my bike toward Mom's van, my anger grew. By the time I got there, my mood was utterly black. I was angrier than the situation warranted, and I more-or-less knew it, but still couldn't help it.

Calm down Arthur, thought Ursus, it's not that serious.