Read Online Stork Raving Mad by Donna Andrews - Free Book Online

probably won’t even notice if I don’t bring him any tea,” Bronwyn went on. “When I left, he was yelling into his cell phone. Something about the heating plant.”
    “If he’s working on getting the heat back on, let’s do anything we can to help him,” I suggested. Blanco was probably the administrator Michael had mentioned earlier—the onerunning around with a roll of Tums in his pocket. And if he was the person in charge of solving the heating-plant problem, perhaps I should revise my already pessimistic estimate of how long the repairs would take.
    Rose Noire finished fussing with the tea tray and carried it out. I glanced at the kitchen clock. Almost noon. We should probably offer some kind of lunch to Michael and the other professors. And by “we” I meant Rose Noire, who wouldn’t let me fix a meal even if I had the energy to do so.
    I followed her out of the kitchen and plunked myself down in one of the dining room chairs that cluttered our hall, my glass of ginger ale in hand. Time for another nap. Past time, in fact. But I didn’t want to nod off while there was anything I could do to help Michael, and climbing the stairs wasn’t something I did any more often than I had to.
    I pulled out my cell phone and then paused to study it. At one point in my life, I’d refused to get a cell phone. The idea of being always interruptible appalled me. “I’m a blacksmith,” I said. “How connected do I need to be?”
    But the safety and convenience of having a cell phone when I traveled had made a dent in my resistance, and when Michael entered my life, I realized that there was at least one person I nearly always wanted to talk to, no matter where I was and what I was doing when he called. And now I wouldn’t go two steps without it. I was deathly afraid of going into labor at a moment when everyone around me was doing such a good job of leaving me in peace and quiet that they wouldn’t hear mycries for help. These days, the cell phone only left my pocket when I slipped it into the charger on my nightstand.
    “What a negative person!” I looked up to see Rose Noire returning from the library. Evidently she hadn’t lingered to chat with Dr. Wright. “I should start the cleansing now.”
    “Make it an exorcism,” I said. “Maybe you can chase her out.”
    Rose Noire giggled at that, and returned to the kitchen in better spirits. I speed dialed my brother, Rob. Although he was devoid of any skill with computers or talent for business, his uncanny ability to come up with ideas that would turn into popular computer games had catapulted him into his present role as CEO and chief game theorist at Mutant Wizards, now an industry leader in designing what his head of public relations referred to as “infotainment.”
    Right now Rob’s easy access to technologically savvy people was just what I needed.
    “Hey,” he said, as he answered his phone. “Do I have nieces and/or nephews yet?”
    “Alas, no,” I said. “Soon, but not yet.”
    “You don’t want to wait too long,” Rob said. “Don’t do to them what Mother did to me and stick them with a birthday too close to Christmas.”
    Rob’s upcoming mid-December birthday had always been a sore spot with him. He was convinced that everyone ignored his birthday, giving him a slightly larger Christmas present in lieu of two presents, so that his overall present haul sufferedgreatly. I was five years older and remembered events quite differently—it seemed to me that our parents had gone to great lengths to throw him quite elaborate birthday parties, and that our friends and relatives had brought heaps of presents out of pity for the poor December birthday boy.
    But what seemed to matter decades later was his perception, not what really happened. For that matter, how could I be sure my own perception wasn’t off base?
    “If you like, I’ll jog around the yard a few times after I hang up. See if I can bring on labor before the holidays get any