A Wizard Abroad, New Millennium Edition Read Online Free PDF Page B

meeting incoming passengers from gathering right around the doors, was her aunt Annie: a tall silver-haired lady, big about the shoulders and a little broad in the beam, with a friendly face with pale grey-blue eyes, her hair tied back in a short ponytail behind. Nita grinned. After spending your life with people you know, and then having to spend a whole day with people you didn’t know, the sight of her was a pleasure. Nita’s aunt hurried over to her and gave her a big hug, then showed Deirdre her driver’s license, signed the clipboard Deirdre held out for her. “Thanks so much for taking care of her!” she said as Deirdre said goodbye to Nita and headed off. “Now how was your flight, lovey? Did you do okay?”

    “I did fine, Aunt Annie. But I’m real tired...  I wouldn’t mind going home.”

    “That’s the plan, sweetheart. You come right out here, the car’s in the parking structure right outside.” She pushed the cart out through the arrivals area and onto a crosswalk that led into a big white-painted parking structure.

    The morning was holding fresh and fine. Little white clouds were flying past in a blue sky; Nita put her arms around herself and hugged herself in surprise at the cold. “Mom told me it might be chilly, and I didn’t believe her. It’s July!”

    They paused outside for a moment at a machine by the doors, where Aunt Annie paid for her parking. “This is one of the cooler days we’ve been having lately,” she said, leading Nita through the doors and around to the elevators. “Don’t worry, though; the weatherpeople say it’s going to get warm again tomorrow. Up in the 70’s…”

    “‘Warm,’” Nita said, wondering at a place where 70 degrees would be thought of as warm. It had been in the 90’s on the Island when she left.

    “We haven’t had much rain, either,” said her aunt. “It’s been a dry summer, and they’re talking about it turning into a drought if it doesn’t rain this week or next.” She laughed a little as she came up to a white Toyota and opened its trunk. “Kind of a joke around here. Only in Ireland is it a drought if it doesn’t rain for a month…”

    They drove out of the parking garage and down to the ticket booths where Aunt Annie shoved the ticket into another machine that would let them out. Nita spent most of this period starting to get used to the weirdness of sitting on the driver’s side and adjusting to the fact that her aunt was driving on the left side of the road. It was one thing to know about it in the abstract, but actually doing it was peculiar. “So tell me,” Aunt Annie said, “how are your folks?”

    Nita started telling her, with only half her mind on the business; the rest of her was busy looking at the scenery as they came out onto the M1 freeway heading south toward Dublin, and past it to Wicklow. AN LÁR, said one sign: and under that it said DUBLIN: 8. “What’s ‘An Lár’?” Nita said.

    “That’s Irish for ‘to the city center,’” said her Aunt. “Home’s about 15 miles south of Dublin...it’ll take us about an hour to get down there and home. At least we don’t have to go through the city any more, the way we used to before they got the ring road and the dual carriageway finished. Do you want to stop in town for lunch? Are you hungry?”

    “Nnnnnno,” Nita said, “I think I’d rather just go fall down and have a sleep. I didn’t rest that well on the plane.”

    Her aunt nodded. “No problem with that...you take your time and get rid of your jet lag. The country won’t be going anywhere while you get caught up on your sleep.”

    And so they headed south. Nita was surprised to see how much the area looked like suburban New York, except that— except — Nita found that she kept saying “except” about every thirty seconds. Things looked more or less the same, and then she’d see something completely weird that she didn’t understand at all. The signs on the motorway, half in