Read Online The Pictish Child by Jane Yolen - Free Book Online

“Pop lets him practice in the driveway. Pop says he’s a … a natural.”
    But Peter, who had been looking in through the driver’s side window, shook his head vigorously. “Not a shift car, I can’t. Not on the left side of the road, I can’t. Not—”
    The dog interrupted. “You wee, sleekit, cowrin, tim’rous—”
    â€œAll right,” Peter said, as much to shut the dog up as for anything else. “I’ll try. Just no more name-calling.”
    They covered the backseat and back floor with blankets and a down duvet, but even then Ninia and the dog had a hard time breathing, both being creatures of magic now totally enclosed in a metal shell.
    Trembling and silent, Ninia perched on the backseat as if on some sort of wild and unpredictable steed. She kept her eyes closed tightly and her hands clasped. Her knuckles—the ones that were not bandaged—were white with the effort.
    On the other hand, the dog lay on a blanket on the floor with his teeth clamped together, and growled continuously.
    Jennifer pushed up the garage door nervously, in case the mist was still around.
    But there was not a sign of mist, or rain.
    Jennifer ran to get into the backseat, shoving over next to Ninia.
    Luckily Da had backed the car into the garage and all Peter had to do—once he figured out how to start it and get it into first gear—was to let the car drift down the driveway and out onto the lane.
    The first real problem they had was when they had to turn into Double Dykes Road. Peter narrowly missed plowing into a passing motorcycle.
    The man on the cycle waved his fist at them and called Peter a name.
    Frantically Peter hit the brakes and they were all flung forward. Like all cars of that vintage, it had no seat belts.
    Molly screamed. Jennifer cursed—something she never did. Gran cried out, “Keep us!”
    And the car died.
    It took almost five minutes for Peter to get it started again, for he had flooded the engine without knowing it. They sat, anxiously staring out of the windows and wondering if the mist was going to come back, while he tried and tried again to get the thing to turn over. The whole time they were stuck, Ninia jabbered in her foreign tongue and the dog moaned.
    But once the engine started up again, putt-putting with a steady rhythm, Peter did just fine, though he never did get the car out of first gear.
    â€œYe are a natural,” Gran said. “There’s American magic in those hands, lad.”
    Peter was concentrating so hard on the road ahead, he almost did not hear the compliment.
    So , Jennifer thought, that’s what American magic is. Electricity and cars.
    The old car juggered along Double Dykes, into Burial Brae, and then—with Gran shouting, “Right! Right!”—Peter maneuvered them around a traffic circle and down Market Street to the little museum.
    Of course, he did not so much park the car as abandon it by the roadside. At which point they all stumbled out, Ninia and the dog being the most careful, so as not to touch any of the metal parts. Then they raced pell-mell into the little museum.
    But they needn’t have hurried. There was not a sign of the dark mist anywhere.

Thirteen
    Museum
    The museum was smaller than Jennifer had expected. It was housed in an old fisherman’s cottage, with only two low-ceilinged rooms and a small entryway.
    â€œThis is tiny,” Jennifer said.
    â€œAye—’tis a wee thing. Not much to it,” said Gran. “But it’s all we’ve got.”
    She paid a pound for a family admission fee to a bored-looking woman in a sweater and dark tartan skirt behind the desk. The woman barely looked up from her magazine and so didn’t even notice Ninia’s odd dress.
    â€œYe three take that room,” Gran said to Molly, Peter, and the dog. “And we will look at this one.”
    Jennifer took Ninia by the hand and pulled her over to the