“You see our problem,” said Baba. “But Principal Massey kindly offered us the use of his office for our conversation.”

“No,” said Danny, walking back out of the office.

“Come back here, young man!” demanded Massey.

Mama followed him. “Please,” she whispered. “Please, I beg you. If you have any feeling for me at all.”

“I spent most of my life with feeling for you,” whispered Danny. “It almost led to Hammernip Hill. Should I tell the principal to ask the sheriff to do some excavating there?”

“Please,” she said.

Principal Massey had followed them out into the corridor by then. “Danny North, that was the rudest thing I’ve seen you do—and that takes some doing.”

“I don’t remember a single act of kindness from these people,” said Danny. “I’m settled in here now and I don’t know what they want from me. Don’t you have rules about letting strangers have access to the children in this school?”

“But…” Principal Massey reached his hands out helplessly, one toward Danny, one toward his parents. “It didn’t occur to me that they might be strangers. I still don’t believe they are. They look so much like you.”

Danny had no answer to that. It had never crossed his mind that he could not deny being his father’s son, let alone his nephew. He looked just like Baba. Except for the fact that he also had a strong resemblance to Mama. Both resemblances in the same face, at the same time. If Principal Massey had half a brain in his head, he’d wonder why anybody looked so much like both his aunt and his uncle, one of whom, presumably, was not his blood relative.

“We’ll talk out in the parking lot,” said Danny. “We’ll talk where I can walk away if I feel like it.” And where nobody can listen through a door. And nobody can sneak up unobserved.

“Well, that’s all right then,” said Massey.

“In fact, we’ll talk out on the street, which isn’t school property. Then you won’t get in trouble, Principal Massey.”

“Very … thoughtful of you.”

They left him behind and walked in virtual silence until they were beyond the parking lot and across the street. Virtual silence, because Mama kept trying to talk and Danny gave her a sharp sh! and walked faster. Finally they were so out of breath from keeping up with a young man who was, after all, a sprinter that they couldn’t have spoken if they tried.

“I told you the terms,” said Danny. “I told you that I’d come for your answer. I told you not to come for me. As far as I’m concerned, there’s no Great Gate for you. You’d have been too dangerous, anyway. The two of you.”

“We aren’t the ones the Family chose,” said Baba. “I’m not Odin anymore.”