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“Freak,” said Nick without thinking.
“Did you enjoy being called that?”
“Uh . . . no,” said Nick. “But you have to admit, you are kind of a—”
“Not in my world,” said the half-horse, throwing back his chest-length black hair. “By its standards, I am rather ordinary.”
Nick tried to will the blood back into his limbs. He put down his cloth, staring at this . . . thing which the horses welcomed with neighs.
“You’re a centaur,” Nick blurted.
“And you’re a boy,” said the centaur, rolling his human eyes.
“You say you’re my dad?” Nick asked. “You must be as wack as me.” He started mumbling. “First the bird chick, now you—and how do you know about Star Wars?”
“Who doesn’t?” the centaur asked.
“How-how did you get here?”
“Through the curtain, of course.” The centaur must have noticed that Nick could no longer speak. “My name is Chiron,” he said. “I taught Achilles and am half-brother to Zeus.”
Nick stared in silence.
“Dude,” he finally whispered. “Do you know Brad Pitt?”
Chiron shook his head. His black coat of hair, along with his black tail, made him hard to see in dim barn light.
“But,” he went on, “be assured, my son, that that is who you are. Seventeen years ago, your mother came through the curtain. That’s how you were conceived.”
“Noo,” Nick yelled, plugging his ears with his fingers. To think of his mom . . . hooking up . . . with . . .
“Calm yourself,” said Chiron. “Your mother did no wrong, for, if I wish, I can become a man.”
“That better be true.”
“Of course,” the centaur answered. “Your dear mother had no choice, for she was named by Delphi.”
“Huh?”
“All will be clear in time.”
This reminded Nick of something: strangely, Harry Potter.
“Are you,” he asked, “the kind of centaur who speaks in riddles and is all mystical and stuff?”
“Bah!” huffed Chiron. “Did you learn nothing in school?”
“Well . . .” Nick thought. In AP English this year, they’d read a graphic novel; and, in social studies, they’d spent exactly a day on Greece. He sighed. “Not really.”
“My own son, thick as a Cyclops.”
“Hey,” Nick protested, “you’re the one who came here.”
“True,” said Chiron. “I only hope you can accept our judgment.”
“I don’t think so!” Nick shouted, and, as he faced the looming creature, he felt, as he often did, an unstoppable urge—to run.
Nick did: out of the barn, through the streets of P.R., and into his modest house.
“Mom!” he panted, flying into the kitchen.
That’s where he found her, with Chiron, in human form, cuddled by her side.
