I wish this were over with. I wish life were normal again... But she knew that the old kind of normal was never going to come back. Somehow she was just going to have to make a new one.

Nita turned over to try to go back to sleep, but it took a long while: From the shadows of dream, those eyes kept watching her

The next day was Tuesday. Kit went through his early classes more or less mechanically. The problem of Tom s  lost wizard  was on his mind. Tracking him down and identifyinghim wouldn t be a problem the manual would be able to localize him and point him out when Kit was close enough.But what then he thought as the bell rang for fourth period. He picked up his backpack and walked out of his math class on his way to history.Do I just walk up to him, say,  Hi,there. I m on errantry and I greet you. What s the problem   Is it better to just take a good look at him from a distance, maybe 

 Hey, KF, don t say hi or anything!

Kit glanced around and foundRaoulEschemeling walking along next to him. Or rather, he glanced over and then up, becauseRaoul went up a good ways. He was a skinny, pale blond guy, tall enough to be a basketball player the kind of person for whom the wordgangly originally could have been coined. Friendly and gregarious,Raoul was constantly inventing bizarre nicknames for the other kids in the advanced history class,a motley crew of crazies of various ages, all fast-tracked together into a single advanced unit.  KF  was short for  kit fox,  and this nickname had stuck longer than any of the othersRaoul had hung on Kit at one point or another.

 Hey, Pirate,  Kit said.  Sorry, I was daydreaming.

 Saw that. You almost walked into a locker there. You ready for Machiavelli s quiz 

 Oh, god, no,  Kit said as they turned the corner and headed down the corridor toward their classroom.  Machiavelli  was Mr. Mack, their history teacher, and, in his case at least, the nickname was justifiable: He had a twisty, calculating mind that made learning history from him a pleasure.  I forgot. Well, I did the reading. Maybe I ll survive.