"I'm not sure," Nita said, and this was true. She had read the mission statement, which had appeared in her copy of the wizard's manual shortly after

Dairine left, but the fine print had made little sense to her  probably the reason why she or some other wizard had not been sent to deal with the

trouble, and

Dairine had. "It's kind of hard to understand what single-celled organisms consider a problem." She made an amused face. "But it looks like Dairine's

the answer to it."

"All right." Her mom leaned back in the chair and stretched. "When will she be back "

"She didn't say. But there's a limit to how much air you can carry with you on one of these jaunts if you're also going to have energy to spare to

actually get anything done," Nita said. "Probably a couple of hours."

"Okay...We don't have to have a formal dinner tonight. Everyone can fend for themselves. Your dad won't mind; he's up to his elbows in shrubs right now,

anyway." The buzz of the hedge trimmer could still be heard as Nita's dad worked his way around the house. "We can take care of the food shopping

later... There's no rush. Is Kit coming over "

Nita carefully turned the notebook page she'd been working on. "Uh, no. I have to go out and see him in a little while, though... Someone's meeting us

to finish up a project. Probably it'll take us an hour or two, so

don't wait for me. I'll heat something up when I get home."

"Okay." Her mother got up and went into the kitchen, where she started opening cupboards and peering into them. Nita looked after her with mild concern

when she heard her mom's tired sigh. For the past month or so, her mom had been alternating between stripping and refinishing all the furniture in the