I laughed. “No, I don’t care. It was going to happen someday soon, I’m sure. Even, my sister has done it before. A few times.”“Cool. So ... ...do you want to go do it again?”“You mean smoke?” I clarified.Alana nodded expectantly. “I have some.”“Oh, you mean, like, now?”Another nod.“Uh ... sure.”She scanned the area and then hopped up in the pool at her feet. “Let’s cross the stream. People walk the trail here all the time ... Actually, I know a better spot. Come on!”I grabbed my fishing pole and. A balding, fat man in a dirty undershirt slid down off a stool behind the counter at the back of the store. He could have been anywhere between sixty and eighty years old. Each move he made was slow and deliberate, as though he was afraid of breaking something.'Maybe there's something wrong with his back, ' Jake thought to himself. 'He's kind've rheumy-eyed, too.'"Hey! Bee-Bee! Where you been?" the old man said, taking a cigar out of his mouth and opening his big arms in greeting."Hello,. We knew we wanted to ‘go home,’ we just weren’t exactly sure where home was. We decided against California, however, because everything there seemed to have gone wrong, terribly wrong. Too many bogus lawyers chasing the legal lottery, businesses crushed by never-ending greed, prices always either out of control or crashing through the floor. Anyway, that’s what we thought at the time, but a lot of people we knew were leaving the coconut highway, headed north to Seattle, so we considered that. He grinned and nodded. “Correct. And when you build the spell, you do it your own way. Don’t think of it in terms of piece shapes or sizes, but in simple energy. Your Magical energy is like the Lego pieces you had. The more you have, the more you can do, and the more elaborate you can make it.”“So, I shouldn’t worry about sound waves, or acoustics?” I said, confused.He shook his head with that lop-sided grin. “No. Don’t worry about that. Think about the final effect, what you want your Magic to.