Put That Kid Down

Chapter Twenty Four

"Reports of strange new flora and fauna continue to roll in-"

Static crackled as the channel changed but the voice did not, gamely continuing on another topic with high winds in the background.

"-and you heard this singing off the port bow? Was it an alto or a sopr-"

"-Missus Mary's Meddlin' Mess cookies are sure to ward off all manner of brownies, pixies, hide-behinds, and-"

"- so that's all from your friendly, live reporter Azira Fail, handing it off to, you guessed it, the lovely Azira Fail! Thank you, Azira, as I was saying -"

Rather than yet another change in channels, the reporter was cut off this time by a cry of rage. The radio blissfully carried on in the background, unaware and thus unthreatened by the explosion of fury taking place before it.

"Blasphemy!" Preston declared, "All of the late night radio dramas have been replaced by this infernal creature! How will we digest in peace? She has NO sense of DRAMA!"

Picking up his fork and scratching his cheek with it thoughtfully, Max pointed abruptly upward as if realizing something. "Oh, that's right!" His finger fell and expression went flat as he informed the other camper, "No one cares."

"I, for one, appreciate the amount of lore she's willing to share with us," Nerris replied absently, focused on scribbling notes in her leather bound journal. "She's not even charging for it!"

"Yeah, whatever," Max said dismissively, gaze drifting reluctantly to David. He still needed to talk with him, but the counselor was even now trying to get Space Kid to cough up the opal pendant he'd found and swallowed - or Nurf had made him swallow once he realized it gave the holder the ability to levitate. Space Kid ended up both ecstatic and twelve feet off the ground.

Whether Nurf was trying to be kind or cruel was equally up in the air, as he'd given Space Kid a thumbs up and gone back inside for dinner.

"I can make it!" Space Kid was arguing, even as Gwen agitatedly gripped the string tied around his ankle with both hands. "Just let me go!"

"Don't you want some delicious medicine first?" David asked with a tinge of desperation, still holding out the spoon full of syrup of ipecac.

"You know your 'space suit' is cardboard, Space Kid!" Gwen tugged the string, making the child bounce against the ceiling to no ill effect. "You will die before you get to the moon."

"Aim for the moon," Space Kid replied with a serious expression, "and you will always land among the stars."

"Dead," Gwen emphasized, not noticing David's chagrin slide off his face to leave something a tad less patient in its place at the reminder.

"Harrison!" he called sharply, and the magician was at their side in a poof of glitter that had them all coughing.

Mysteriously unaffected by the cloud, Nerris hummed to herself pensively as she shut her journal, "I'm going to make people pay out the nose for a guidebook."

"And that's why," Harrison coughed, "David always calls me."

A roll of her brown eyes, "I was talking to Max, Harrison."

Max blinked out of his scheming to get David alone after dinner with a bemused blankness. "What?"

Harrison gestured wordlessly at Max's continued confusion, in part because he was still coughing up glitter.

"Whatever," sniffed Nerris, hopping to her feet and heading to another table. "I'm sure Erid will appreciate my brilliance."

As the glitter settled, David found his voice once more, "Harrison." He held up a finger for a moment and spat red sparkles into a napkin before continuing, "Curse Space Kid to throw up the pendant."