didn't see as much of each other at school as they'd used to. Kit, now in an accelerated-study track with other kids doing "better than their grade,"

was spending a lot of his time coaching some of the other kids in his group in history and social studies. That was fine with her, but Nita disliked the

way some of her classmates, who knew she was best friends with Kit, would go out of their way to remind her, whenever they got a chance, how well Kit

was doing.

As if they're fooling anyone, she thought. They're nosing around to see if he and I are doing something else...and they can't understand why we're not.

Nita frowned. Life had been simpler when she'd merely been getting beaten up every week. In its own way, the endless sniping gossip the whispering

behind hands, and the passed notes about cliques and boys and clothes and dates was more annoying than any number of bruises. The pressure to be like

everyone else

to do the same stuff and think the same things just grew, and if you took a stance, the gossip might be driven underground... but never very far.

Nita sighed. Nowadays she kept running into problems for which wizardry either wasn't an answer, or else was the wrong one. And even when it was the

right answer, it never seemed to be a simple one anymore.

As in the case of this project, for example. Nita looked down at the three notebook pages full of writing in front of her. If I didn't know better, I'd

think it was turning into a disaster. Nita knew that wizards weren't assigned to projects they had no hope of completing. But she also knew that the

Powers That Be weren't going to come swooping in to save her if she messed up an intervention. She was expected to handle it: That was what wizards were

for... since the Powers couldn't be everywhere Themselves.