Old, old story, Mama. You should see some of these guys  literature. Shakespeare would have loved it.  Kit considered that briefly: His lit class had been doing the late Shakespeare comedies, and suddenly a whole set of opportunities opened out before him.  Just imagineA Midsummer Night s Dream with ten or twelve extra genders 

His mother raised her eyebrows, gave up on the soap, and started changing channels again.  Doesn t this thing have an online channel guide   she said.

 I ll have a look at it later and let you know,  Kit said.

He saw the look she threw at his pop.  Are there cooking channels 

 Oh, yeah. Then Kit paused, having a horrible thought.  On second thought, it might be smarter to avoid those. Some of them feature humans  and not as the cooks.

The look on his mother s face made Kit wish he d kept quiet. She began changing channels with unusual speed. Kit raised his eyebrows and went back into the kitchen with the plate.

He was spooning out rice when his dad came back in and began rooting around in the silverware drawer in an aimless way that didn t fool Kit for a moment.  Son,  he said, very quietly,  is therereally a cooking channel, uh,  about  us 

 Pop,there s lots of them.

His father looked shocked.  But how is something like thatpermitted* .

Kit shrugged.  You go where you shouldn t go,  Kit said, and couldn t help grinning,  youfind out stuff you shouldn t find out. Like how you taste in a sweet-and-sour sauce with galingale. The universe is full of little surprises.

 I always have the feeling that there s a lot about this wizardry you re not telling me,  his father said.  Sometimes it worries me. Then come times like this when I m horribly glad about my ignorance. Just don t go places where you shouldn t go, okay 

 I try to avoid it,  Kit said.  Is it okay with you if I go toBaldwin in the next couple of days, though