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it. And by the second time, he'll catch on to the fact that someone
jinxed him. Then he'll just invoke a counterspell. In the meanwhile,
he's got credit cards and he's not afraid to use them. There's nothing
in his check-in bag that can't be replaced by a quick shopping trip."
"A shopping trip that will steal precious time from his interviews with
potential allies," Peez pointed out. She smiled.
"Why are you smiling like that?" Teddy Tumtum asked, looking
suspicious. "I've never seen you smile that way. It's almost . . .
Machiavellian. You're up to something more than a simple Lost
Luggage spell. What is it?"
"Oh, nothing much." Peez said airily. "Just a two-for-the-price-of-one
deal for my darling baby brother. Not only will his check-in bag go
wandering through the cosmos, but every time he comes up against
any kind of security checkpoint in his travels, he's going to set it off
like Krakatoa on a bad day."
"Why, you sly dog, you!" The bear was impressed. "I didn't think you
had it in you."
"And he won't just set off mechanical screening devices," Peez went
on, relishing Teddy Tumtum's admiration. "It works on humans, too.
When he tells the person at the check-in counter that he packed his
bags himself, they won't believe him. When he's asked to step out of
the boarding line for a spot search of his car
ry-on bag, they'll examine it so closely they'll split the seams. Strip-
search will become his middle name, and by the end of his trip he'll be
announcing his engagement to a pair of latex gloves!" She cackled
wildly.
"Oh, Peez." Teddy Tumtum sighed in bliss. "My little girl is growing
up. You were never this ruthless when you were a virgin."
Peez blushed. "That has nothing to do with it," she said.
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"Maybe yes, maybe no. Could be that you always had the capacity for
sheer, cold-blooded skullduggery, but you've never really exploited
your talent to the fullest until now." The bear wiped away a
nonexistent tear. "I'm so very proud of you."
It was the strangest thing: While waiting for her suitcase to appear,
Peez was accosted by a kindly little old man who decided that she
looked just like his late sister, Beruria Jane, who had done missionary
work in China and came back home to Ohio with the most fascinating
collection of hand-carved ivory snuff bottles. There was one that
looked like a dragon. Was she aware that the Chinese used an entirely
different zodiac system than we did? They still had a dozen different
signs, but instead of your fate depending on which month you were
born, it all relied on a rotating twelve-year cycle. Each of the years
was ruled by an animal, including the dragon, the horse, the ox, the
rat, the monkey, the tiger, the snake, the dog, the rooster, the rabbit,
the pig, and what was the twelfth one again?
She smiled and tried to be polite about it-he was such a dear,
grandfatherly type-but he kept droning on and on and on about that
elusive twelfth animal. Then he let her know that he had been born in
the Year of the Rabbit, while Beruria Jane had been born in the Year
of the Dragon. Naturally this led him to explain the charac
teristics of people born under those two signs, and which signs were
compatible, and that his late wife had been born in the Year of the
Horse. He had forgotten whether that made the two of them
compatible or incompatible, but since she had been run over by a
combine harvester on their fifth anniversary they really had not had
much opportunity to discover whether or not they were compatible in
the long run.
"And have you ever seen a combine harvester in action, my dear?
Fascinating things, really. Even in spite of their tendency to run over a
person's wife now and then, they are quite ingenious machines. It
makes me proud to be an American, just thinking about them. Even if
the Industrial Revolution didn't get started over here, we Yankees
sure as shootin' knew how to make the most of it, I'll say. Although a
body could come to believe that the Industrial Revolution has
generated more problems than solutions, especially if you listen to
the way Beruria Jane's boy, Kelvin, tells it. Not to speak ill of one's
own nephew, but if that boy wasn't a born Bolshevik, then God didn't
make little green apples, and I know for a fact that He did. Mighty
tasty things, too, with enough sugar sprinkled on 'em. There's not
enough sugar in this world to take away the taste of that Kelvin's sour
attitude, though. Still, he's my dear, late sister Beruria Jane's only
child, and children are a blessing. Too bad my darling Lucy Kathleen
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