We ll see,  Carl said, and benthimself over sideways again.

 It s a brute force solution,  Tom said.  Inelegant. The phone s right there!

Carl ignored him and started doing something with the duct tape.

 So now we come to this kid,  Tom said, indicating the highlighted listing again.

Clunk! went the circuit breaker, and the house went dark again; only the text on the page in front of them continued to glow, while in the back bedroom the dogs paused, then went on barking. Tom gestured once more at the breaker box, and the lights came on.  It s not like he s been physically absent from the area for all this time, as far as I can tell,  Tom said.  If he were, certainly there would have been something about it in the news, and there s been nothing. But at the same time, this is not a normal duration for a human Ordeal. We need to find out what s going on, but quietly. Do you or Nita know him well enough to look in on him and see what s happening  Or do you know anyone who does 

Kit shook his head.  I can check withNeets , but she s sure never mentioned him to me,  Kit said.  Why bring me in on this, though  You re aSenior ; you d probably be able to tell a lot better than I can what s going on with him.

 Well,  Tom said,  let s put it this way. How come you chose to do a direct transit here rather than just walk over and knock on the front door 

Kit was briefly surprised that Tom would bother asking so obvious a question.  It s not exactly like you ve got any kids of your own,  he said.  And if the neighbors keep seeing kids wandering in and out of here every five minutes 

 Say no more,  Tom said.  We re on the same wavelength. It s just another facet of the way wizards have to behave in our culture. Attracting attention toyourself is usually unwise. In this particular situation, if people start noticingyou in the neighborhood around the object of our mutual interest, they won t think too much about it it s not far enough from your own stamping grounds to provoke suspicion.Whereas if Carl or I went to investigate personally, notice might be taken. This kind of initial fact-finding is better suited to a wizard of your age.