THIRTY-TWO

“You rascal!” said Professor Reilly, his eyes wide with disbelief. “I spent hours looking for this. Hours!”

“Sorry, Professor,” said Thomas, trying not to laugh. He’d practiced his new skill for almost two days, summoning a variety of items from around the compound. He’d even managed to get a couple of comic books from back home. The coup de gras was snagging the watch right off Professor Reilly’s wrist. “You said to challenge myself, and that was a new challenge. I couldn’t help it.”

“Couldn’t help it,” Professor Reilly muttered as he refastened the band around his wrist. He was understandably grumpy, having just retraced every step from the past day and a half. “You might think a bit of gratitude was in order, but no, heaven forbid. Why say ‘thank you’ when there’s a nice old man to torture. It’s a thankless job, I tell you. A thankless job.”

Thomas’s attempt to hold back the laughter broke down in dramatic fashion. His attempt to cover it with a fake cough only brought a crankier look to the professor’s face.

“Come on. Follow me. It’s time to step things up a bit.” Huxley glanced at Thomas as he started down the hallway, an amused twinkle in his eye. “You know, your dad was a bit of a prankster as well. Has anyone ever told you that?”

Thomas shook his head.

“Well, he most definitely was,” said Huxley. “I’m not sure I’ve ever known anyone who enjoyed a practical joke more than he did.”

“A bit of a prankster?” said Professor Reilly. “Ha! John Wildus was the king of the practical joke. Do you remember the time he materialized a bag of frozen peas in Bobby’s knickers? I’m not sure I’ve ever seen anyone jump so high in my life.”

“I do indeed,” said Huxley. “And if I remember correctly, that particular prank was your idea.”

“Me? I may have suggested that such a thing might be amusing—Bobby was acting like a stick in the mud, you know—but I didn’t expect John to actually do it.” Professor Reilly chuckled and thumped Thomas on the back. “Your dad was always willing to go after a good laugh, but he had a heart of gold and always made things right by people if they took offense. Remember that, Thomas. As someone with powers, it’s doubly important to keep your heart in the right place.”

Picturing his dad as a jokester was strange, but the idea of putting frozen peas in a friend’s pants was easy enough to imagine. He didn’t know this Bobby person, but he could practically see Enrique jumping out of his seat. Or even better, Sean Parker.

“In here.” Huxley opened a door and held it for Thomas. “It’s time that you try summoning something a bit larger.”

Thomas stepped into a space that wasn’t as large as a full-sized basketball court but wasn’t all that far off either. How big is this place anyway? “What did you have in mind?”

“Anything you can safely summon is fair game,” said Professor Reilly. “Just be thoughtful about it. Don’t do anything that could cause harm to yourself or others.”

“That’s right,” said Huxley. “Living things are off limits, but we’d like to see you challenge yourself. Start with whatever you can manage and work your way up to items that are larger than you are. We’ve put fresh fruit on the dining room table and bottles of water as well. Summon a snack when you need one.”

“Got it,” said Thomas. “Anything else?”

“Not a thing,” said Professor Reilly. “We’ll be back in a little while to see how you’re doing.”

• • •

When Huxley and Professor Reilly popped their heads into the room, Thomas was sitting in the bean bag chair he’d summoned from home and staring at his handiwork with a satisfied smile. A pair of banana peels, an empty carton of ice cream, and a container of chocolate syrup were on the floor next to a half-finished water bottle.

“A hippopotamus! Where on earth did you get a life-sized statue of a hippo?” Professor Reilly looked from Thomas to the giant bronze animal and back again.

“That’s Earl,” said Thomas. In addition to the hippo, he’d summoned his bunk bed, a potted palm tree, and a display case from Bogie’s, a bookshop where the sales clerk had treated his question about magic with uncommon rudeness. “Me and Enrique met him on a class trip to the San Diego Zoo. We took pictures sitting on his back before the security guards kicked us off.”

“Impressive.” Huxley smiled a bit wryly. “I see you also found yourself more than just fresh fruit to snack on. It seems that your command of summoning is at a sufficiently high level to move on to the next lesson. Would you agree, Professor?”

“I would,” said Professor Reilly. He put a hand on Earl’s head and looked at Thomas. “And a good thing, too. Loading this fellow into a shipping crate isn’t in the cards. You’re going to have to put him back the magical way.”