‘Oops!’ he/she suddenly said, eyes opening wide. The doppelganger scrambled over to the pack and pulled out a mirror, then groaned and sat down. ‘Oh, Shattering Glass!’
Back under the tent, Kaz was waking up, blinking. He sat up, then began to chuckle.
‘What?’ I asked, looking back at him.
‘My Talent,’ Australia said, sounding morose. ‘I warned you, didn’t I? Sometimes, I look really ugly when I wake up.’
‘What are you saying about my grandfather?’ I said, growing amused.
Australia – still looking like Grandpa – blushed. ‘I’m sorry,’ She said. ‘I didn’t mean to say he was ugly. Just, well, this is ugly for me.’
I held up a hand. ‘I understand.’
‘It’s worse when I fall asleep thinking about someone,’ she said. ‘I was worried about him, and I guess the Talent took over. It should begin to wear off in a little bit.’
I smiled, then found myself laughing at Australia’s expression. I’d seen several very strange Talents in my short time with the Smedries, but until that moment, I had never run into one that I thought was more embarrassing than my own.
I would like to point out that it’s not very kind to take amusement in someone else’s pain. Doing so is a very bad habit – almost as bad as reading the second book in a series without having read the first.
However, it’s quite different when your female cousin goes to sleep, then wakes up looking like an old man with a bushy mustache. Then it’s okay to make fun of her. That happens to be one of the very few exclusions covered by the Law of Things That Are So Funny You Can’t Be Blamed for Laughing at Them, No Matter What.
(Other exceptions include getting bitten by a giant penguin, falling off a giant cheese sculpture carved to look like a nose, and getting named after a prison by your parents. I have a petition in the courts to revoke that third one.)
Kaz joined me in the laughter, and eventually, even Australia was chuckling. That’s the way we Smedries are. If you can’t laugh at your Talent, you tend to end up very grumpy.
‘So, what did you want to talk to me about?’ I asked Australia.
‘Huh?’ she asked, poking at her mustache with her finger.
‘You woke me up.’
Australia looked up, shocked. ‘Oh! Right! Um, I think I found something interesting!’
I raised an eyebrow, and she stood, rushing over to the other side of the Library’s hut. She pointed at the ground. ‘See!’ she said.
‘Dirt?’ I asked.
‘No, no, the footprints!’
There were no footprints in the dirt – of course, Australia was wearing the Tracker’s Lenses. I reached up and tapped her Lenses.
‘Oh, right!’ she said, pulling off the Lenses and handing them to me.
In all fairness, you shouldn’t judge Australia too harshly. She’s not stupid. She just gets distracted. By, you know, breathing.
I slipped on the Lenses. There, burning on the ground, were a set of fiery white footprints. I recognized them immediately – each person leaves distinctive prints.
These belonged to my grandfather, Leavenworth Smedry. Australia herself trailed a set of puffy pink prints. Kaz’s were the blue footprints, mixing with my own whitish ones, glowing in front of the hut where we’d inspected the day before. I could also see Bastille’s red ones crossing the area several times, and since I hadn’t known Draulin very long – and she wasn’t related to me – there were only a few of her gray ones, as they disappeared rather quickly.
‘See?’ Australia asked again, nodding quickly. As she did so, her mustache began to fall free. ‘None of us gives off prints like those – though yours are close.’
Kaz had joined us. ‘They belong to your father,’ I said to him.
He nodded. ‘Where do they lead?’
I began to walk, following the prints. Kaz and Australia followed as I made my way around the outside of the hut. Grandpa had inspected the place, just like we had. I peeked inside and noted that the prints led to one corner of the hut, then turned and walked down the stairs into the darkness.
‘He went in,’ I said.