This left Nita staring again at her original problem: how to explain to Kit why the solution he was suggesting to their present wizardly project wasn't

going to work. He's so wrong about this, she thought. / can't believe he doesn't see it. I keep explaining it and explaining it, and he keeps not

getting it. She sighed again. 7 guess I just have to keep trying. This isn't the kind of thing you can just give up on.

Her mother plopped down beside her again with a pad of Post-it notes and peeled one off, sticking it to the table and starting to jot things down on it.

"The sticky stuff on those is getting old," Nita said, turning to a clean page in her notebook. "It doesn't stick real well anymore."

"I noticed," her mother said absently, repositioning the note. "Milk, rye bread " "No seeds."

"Your dad likes caraway, honey. Humor him."

"Can't you just get me one of the little loaves without the seeds, Mom "

Her mother gave her a sidelong look. "Can't you just... you know..." She attempted to twitch her nose in the manner of a famous TV "witch" of years

past, and failed to do anything much except look like a rabbit.

Nita rolled her eyes. "Probably I could," she said, "but the trouble is, that bread was made with the seeds, and it thinks they belong there."

"Bread thinks* What about "

"Uh, well, it  See, when you combine the yeast with the flour, the yeasts " Nita suddenly realized that if this went on much longer, she was going to

wind up explaining some of the weirder facts of life to her mother, and she wasn't sure that either she or her mother was ready. "Mom, the wizardry

would just be a real pain to write. Probably simpler just to take the seeds out with my fingers."

Her mother raised her eyebrows, let out a breath, and made a note. "Small loaf of nonseeded rye for daughter whose delicate aesthetic sensibilities are