Chicken!Ponch was shouting in his head.Hurry up! It s chicken !

 And philosophy goes right out the window, huh   Kit said as he twiddled the mass-displacement variable; it shaded down from a bright blue to a darker one.  You re a bad influence on those guys, you know that 

Me Never. Chicken!

 Right,  Kit said, folding the variable s tail back in and shaking the spell through a quick sine wave tounkink it. It fell smoothly to the ground and knotted itself.  Now sit down or you regonna wind up in two different places, and not in one piece!

Ponchsat down but still managed to bounce a little.

The spell flared up, its blue a little darker this time. A second later they were standing in Kit s backyard again, without the ear-popping effect this time, and the light faded out of the spell.

 Better   Kit said, winding the spell-chain up and sticking it back in his  pocket.

It s fine. I m hungry!Ponch shouted, and ran for the house.

Kit breathed out, feeling hungry, too, and tired. This, at least, had nothing to do with the emotional climate. No wizardry is without its price, and this was the normal reaction toa transit wizardry: a small but significant deduction from Kit s personal energy supply. It was one of the reasons why, as they got older, a lot of wizards spent as much time as they could making sure they were in decent physical shape.

Kit went afterPonch and was surprised not to see his mama and pop eating in the kitchen, as they usually did. He wandered into the living room and found them there on the sofa. Kit s pop was finishing the last of what must have been a second helping ofarrozcon polio , watching the TV screen, while Kit s mama sat next to him, cross-legged, punching the scan button on the remote and looking at the TV with an expression of extreme bemusement.