“Skeevie, are we going to go shopping?” Bunny slithered into the room. “I need … who’s that!?”
“Me? I’m nobody.” Luanna responded grimly. “I never realized until just now how much of a nobody I am!”
“Well, the job’s already taken, if that’s what you’re here for,” Bunny smirked.
“Wait a minute! It’s a different job! Really! Luanna, luanna . .. Luanna??”
Sometime during my hysteria, the love of my life had gathered up her bags and left. I was talking to empty air.
“Gee, Skeevie. What’re you talkin’ to her for when you got me? Aren’t I…”
“Daddy. Can I…”
“SHUT UP! BOTH OF YOU! Let me think!”
Try as I might, the only thought that kept coming to me was that maybe Aahz was right. Maybe kids were more trouble than I thought.
Chapter Six:
“Bring the whole family . . . but leave the kids at home!”
-R. McDONALD
“REALLY, Hot Stuff. Do you think this is such a great idea?”
“Massha, please! I’m trying to think things out. I couldn’t get my thoughts together back at Chaos Central with Aahz nattering at me, and I won’t be able to do it now if you start up. Now, are you going to help or not?”
My apprentice shrugged her massive shoulders.
“Okay. What do you want me to do?”
“Just keep an eye on those two and see that they don’t get into any trouble while I think.”
“Keep them out of trouble? At the Bazaar at Deva? Aren’t Guido and Nunzio supposed to …”
“Massha!”
“All right. All right. I want it noted, though, that I’m taking this assignment under protest.”
I’m sure I didn’t give Aahz this much back talk when I was apprenticed to him. Every time I say that out loud, however, my partner bursts into such gales of laughter that now I tend to keep the thought to myself, even when he isn’t around.