A Wizard of Mars, New Millennium Edition Read Free

one of us did, anyway...
    Mr. Mack glanced at the clock. It suddenly said two forty-three, and now Kit found himself wishing desperately that time would slow down again. “Well,” Mr. Mack said, “I’m sure you’re all thinking we’ve all seen enough of each other for one year. For the moment, I’m inclined to agree with you. So all of you just get yourselves the heck out of here!”
    This invitation was immediately followed by a muted cheer and the concerted shriek of chairs being pushed back as the bell went. Everybody who hadn’t already leapt to his feet did so now and plunged toward the door: the classroom emptied as if it had been turned upside down and shaken. Kit stood there and watched everyone go... then finished stuffing his manual and other books into his book bag and went up to Mr. Mack’s desk.
    “Well,” Mr. Mack said, glancing up from Kit’s notebook. “Any thoughts?”
    This gambit was one of the Mack’s favorite ways to get a student to say something dumb, allowing him scope to verbally torture the unfortunate victim for many minutes thereafter. Kit was determined not to let this happen. “Okay, I shouldn’t have been drawing,” he said. “I should have been paying attention.”
    Mr. Mack put his eyebrows up as if resigned at so quick a surrender. Kit had seen this maneuver, too, and what came of it: he refused to rise to the bait. For a few moments there was silence as each of them concentrated on outwaiting the other.
    Then Mr. Mack glanced at the notebook. “It’s a thoat, isn’t it,” he said.
    Kit followed his glance, surprised. “Uh, yeah.”
    “Not a lot of people still read those books,” Mr. Mack said. “Burroughs’s style has to seem antiquated these days. But you can’t fault his imagination.” He looked down at Kit’s sketch of what had to be a very large creature, to gauge by the scale of the humanoid being standing next to it. “What made him decide to put so many legs on these things, I can’t imagine. I could never assemble a clear picture of a thoat in my head no matter how I tried.”
    “If you sort of divide the legs into two sets—” Kit said.
    “Six and two, huh?” Mr. Mack said, studying the drawing. “With the six in the back grouped for better traction? You may have a point.” Mr. Mack glanced up at him again. “But it’s possibly still an effort that might better have been saved for your art class.”
    “Uh, yeah.”
    He glanced across the page. “And that would be the calot, I guess. Another nice solution for the multiple legs. Nice tusks, too. You wouldn’t want to get on the bad side of that thing. And as for her…” Mr. Mack said, glancing down at the sketch again with a critical eye. “Well, you’ve put more clothes on her than Burroughs did. This rendition owes more to Victoria’s Secret than the descriptions in the original... so let’s let the inappropriateness issue ride for the moment.”
    Kit blushed fiercely. “Now about your test,” Mr. Mack said. “You and Mr. Eschemeling have been working together. Pretty hard, I believe. So I was curious about... let’s call it a discrepancy in your performance on the final.”
    What have I done to deserve this?  Kit thought in despair.  I worked so hard! I really studied for this, it should have been all right, I should at  least  have passed—
    “Especially since there’s nothing wrong with your ability to discuss the material, even in front of your admittedly unsympathetic classmates,” Mr. Mack said. “That was a nice touch, by the way— that bit about being able to see the border from space. Saw that picture myself, some months back. It brings you up short.”
    Kit didn’t feel inclined to mention that he hadn’t seen the image as a picture: the difference was clearly visible from the surface of the Moon when the weather on Earth was right. “The light on one side, and the darkness on the other...” Mr. Mack said. “A striking image. Too bad things aren’t