Текст книги "Carry On"

Автор книги: Rainbow Rowell

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Текущая страница: 6 (всего у книги 25 страниц)

I keep looking for Baz.

Or a clue.

Every night I turn back when I get to the end of my rope.

18

LUCY

Do you know these walls are a thousand years old?

There are spirits moving through them who speak languages no one is left to understand. But it doesn’t matter, I guess. Nobody hears them.

The walls are the same as when I walked them. The Chapel. The Tower. The drawbridge.

The wolves are new. The fish-beasts. Where did Davy find them, I wonder? What spell did he cast to bring them here? And what does he think they’ll prevent?

“Paranoid,” Mit always said. “He thinks everyone’s out to get him.”

“I think a few people might actually be out to get him,” I argued.

“Only because he’s such a spiteful git,” she said.

“He cares too much.”

“About himself? Agreed.”

“About everything,” I said. “He can’t let any of it go.”

“You’ve been listening to him for too long, Lucy.”

“I feel sorry for him.… And if you’d listen to him, you’d realize that he’s making sense. Why can’t pixies and centaurs with mage heritage come to Watford? And why did my brother have to stay home? Just because he isn’t powerful?”

“Your brother’s an idiot,” she said. “All he cares about is Def Leppard.”

“You know how much it hurt my mother when he was rejected. He has a wand, and he doesn’t even know how to use it. My parents almost got a divorce over it.”

“I know.” Mitali softened. “I’m sorry. But the school’s only so big. It can’t take everyone.”

“We could make it bigger, Davy says so. Or we could build a new school. Imagine that—schools all over the country for anyone with magic.”

She frowned. “But the point of Watford is that it’s the best. The best education for the best magicians.”

“Is that the point of Watford? Then Davy’s right. It is elitist.”

Mit sighed.

“Davy says we’re getting weaker,” I said. “As a society. That the wild, dark things will wipe us from the earth and let it reclaim our magic.”

“Does he tell you that they live under your bed?”

“I’m being serious,” I said.

“I know,” she said sadly. “I wish you weren’t. What does Davy expect you to do? What does he expect from any of us?”

I leaned towards her and whispered my answer—“Revolution.”

*   *   *

I’ve been wandering.

Trying to find my way to you.

The walls are the same. And the Chapel. And the Tower.

The neckties are thinner. The skirts are shorter. But the colours are the same.…

I can’t help but feel proud of Davy now—you’ll think that’s funny coming from me, but I can’t help but feel proud of him.

He managed it. His revolution.

He opened these doors to every child blessed with magic.

19

SIMON

It’s almost Halloween before I finally talk to the Mage.

He calls for me himself. A robin flies into Greek and drops a note onto my desk. The Mage often has a bird or two flapping around him. Robins, mostly. And wrens and sparrows. (Like Snow White.) He’d rather cast A little bird told me than use his mobile.

When class is over, I head towards an outbuilding at the far end of the grounds, up against the outer wall. There are stables back there that have been turned into a garage and barracks.

His Men are outside—Penny says she’d like the Mage’s Men better if there were a few women among them—and they’re gathered around a big green truck I’ve never seen before, something like a military truck with canvas walls. One of them is holding a metal box. They’re taking turns reaching for it and watching their hands pass right through.

“Simon,” the Mage says, stepping out of the garage. He puts his arm around my shoulder and leads me away from the truck. “Here you are.”

“I would have come right away, sir, but I was in class. And the Minotaur said you would have sent a larger bird if it were an emergency.”

The Mage frowns. “The spell doesn’t work with larger birds.”

“I know, sir. I’m sorry. He wouldn’t listen.”

“Well.” He claps my shoulder. “It wasn’t an emergency. I just wanted to see you. To check on you. Miss Possibelf told me about the attack, the bugs—she said it was the Humdrum.”

Flibbertigibbets. In Magic Words class. A whole swarm of them. I’d never even seen a swarm of flibbertigibbets before.

We call them bugs because they’re about the size of bumblebees, but flibbertigibbets are more like birds. One can kill a dog or a goat or a gryphon. Two or three can take down a magician. They burrow into your ears and buzz so loud, you can’t think. First you lose your mind—and then they get to your brain, and you lose everything else.

Flibbertigibbets don’t attack people, not usually. But they came in through the classroom window last week and surrounded me like a chattering orange cloud. The worst part was that dry, sucking feeling that always accompanies the Humdrum’s attacks.

Everybody else in the class ran.

“It felt like the Humdrum, sir. But why would he send flibbertigibbets? They’re hardly a threat.”

“Not for you, certainly.” The Mage rubs his beard. “Maybe he just wants to remind us that he’s out there. What’d you hit them with?”

“Dead in the air.”

“Well done, Simon.”

“I … I think I killed some other things, too. Ebb found pheasants in the field. And Rhys had a parakeet.…”

The Mage glances at the robin flitting above his shoulder, then squeezes my arm. “You did what you had to. And no one was hurt. Did you see the nurse?”

“I’m fine, sir.” I step closer. “Sir. I was hoping—I mean. Have you made any progress? With the Humdrum? I see the Men coming and going. But I don’t—I could help. Penelope and me. We could help.”

His hand slips from my shoulder, and he rests it on his hip. “There’s nothing to report on that front. No breakthroughs, no attacks. Just the constant widening of the holes. I almost wish the Humdrum would show his face again”—I shudder at the memory of that face; the Mage goes on—“to remind these backwards fools what we’re really up against.”

I look over his shoulder at the truck. The Men have been carrying boxes past us the whole time we’ve been talking.

“Sir, did you get my note?”

He narrows his eyes. “About the missing Pitch boy.”

“About my roommate. He still hasn’t come back.”

The Mage rubs his beard with the back of his leather glove. “You’re right to be concerned, I think. The Old Families are closing ranks, calling their sons home, bolting their gates. They’re readying to make a move against us.”

“Their sons?”

He starts rattling off names—boys I know, but not well. Sixth, seventh, and eighth years.

“But surely,” I say, “the Families know that the Humdrum will finish us if we don’t stand together. He’s more powerful than ever.”

“Perhaps that’s part of their plan,” the Mage says. “I’ve stopped trying to figure these people out. They care more for their own wealth and power than for our world. Sometimes I think they’d sacrifice anything to see me fall.…”

“How can I help, sir?”

“By being careful, Simon.” He puts his hand on my arm again and turns to face me. “I’m leaving again in a few hours. But I was hoping, in the light of this new attack, that I could convince you to heed my words. Leave here, Simon. Let me take you to the haven I spoke of—it’s the farthest I can put you from danger.”

I take a step back. “But it was just flibbertigibbets, sir.”

“This time.”

“No. Sir. I told you … I’m fine here. I’m perfectly safe.”

“You’re never safe!” he says, and he says it so fiercely, it almost seems like a threat. “Safety, stability—it’s an illusion. It’s a false god, Simon. It’s clinging to a sinking raft instead of learning to swim.”

“Then I may as well stay here!” I say. Too loudly. One of the Mage’s Men, Stephen, looks up at me. My voice drops: “If nowhere is safe, I may as well stay here. With my friends. Or I may as well fight—I could help you.”

We lock eyes, and I see his fill with disappointment and pity. “I know you could, Simon. But the situation is very delicate right now.…”

He doesn’t have to finish. I know what he means.

The Mage doesn’t need a bomb.

You don’t send bombs on reconnaissance missions or invite them to strategy meetings. You wait until you’ve run out of options, then you drop them.

I nod my head.

Then I turn away from him, walking back towards the heart of the grounds.

I can feel his Men watching me. They’re all just a year or two older than I am. I hate that they think they’re even older—that they feel so important. I hate the dark green breeches they wear, and the gold stars on their sleeves.

“Simon!” the Mage shouts.

I flatten my expression, then turn back.

He’s holding up a hand to shield his eyes from the sun. He gives me a rare smile. A small one. “The Humdrum may be more powerful than ever, but you’re more powerful than ever, too. Remember that.”

I nod and watch him walk back to the garage.

I’m late to meet Penelope.

20

PENELOPE

We’re studying out in the hills, even though it’s cold, because Simon doesn’t like to practise where anyone can see him.

He’s got his grey duffle coat on, and a green-on-green striped school scarf, and I should have worn trousers because the wind is blowing right through my grey tights.

It’s nearly Samhain—the Veil will close soon, and Aunt Beryl hasn’t shown a whisker.

“It is what it is!” Simon says, pointing his wand at a small rock sitting on a tree stump. The rock shivers, then collapses into a pile of dust. “I can’t tell if the spell’s working,” he says, “or if I’m just destroying things.”

Every eighth-year student is tasked with creating a new spell by the end of the year—with finding a new twist in the language that’s gained power or an old one that’s been overlooked, and then figuring out how to apply it.

The best new spells are practical and enduring. Catchphrases are usually crap; mundane people get tired of saying them, then move on. (Spells go bad that way, expire just as we get the hang of them.) Songs are dicey for the same reason.

Almost never does a Watford student actually create a spell that takes hold.

But my mother was only a seventh year when she worked out The lady’s not for turning—and it’s still an incredibly useful spell in combat, especially for women. (Which Mum’s a bit ashamed of, I think. To have a spell taught in the Mage’s Offence workshops.)

Simon’s been trying a new phrase every week since the beginning of term. His heart’s not in it, and I don’t really blame him. Even tried-and-true spells hiccup in his wand. And sometimes when he casts metaphors, they go viciously literal. Like when he cast Hair of the dog on Agatha during sixth year to help her get over a hangover, and instead covered her with dog hair. I think that’s the last time Simon pointed his wand at a person. And the last time Agatha had a drink.

He brushes the rubble off the stump and sits down, shoving his wand in his pocket. “Baz isn’t the only one missing.”

“What do you mean?” I point my wand at some chess pieces I’ve set on the ground. “The game is on!”

The bishop falls over.

I try again. “The game is afoot!”

Nothing happens.

“This phrase has got to be good for something,” I say. “It’s Shakespeare plus Sherlock Holmes.”

“The Mage told me that the Old Families have been pulling their sons out of school,” Simon says. “Two seventh-year boys didn’t come back. And Marcus, Baz’s cousin, is gone. He’s only a sixth year.”

“Which one is Marcus?”

“Fit. Blond streaks in his hair. Midfielder.”

I shrug and stoop to pick up the chess pieces. I’m being fairly literal myself at the moment, because I’ve tried everything else with this phrase. I feel like it could be a good beginning spell—a catalyst.… “Is it just boys who haven’t come back?” I ask.

“Huh,” Simon says. “Dunno. The Mage didn’t say.”

“He’s such a sexist.” I shake my head. “Marcus—is he the one who got trapped in a dumbwaiter our fourth year?”

“Yeah.”

“That one’s joined the other side, eh? Well, I’m shaking in my boots.”

“The Mage thinks the Families are getting ready for some big strike.”

“What does he want us to do about it?”

“He doesn’t,” Simon says.

I slip the chess pieces in my pocket. “What do you mean?”

“Well, he still wants me to leave—”

I must frown, because Simon raises his eyebrows and says, “I know, Penny—I’m not going anywhere. But if I stay here, then he wants me to lie low. He wants us to lie low. He says his Men are working on it, and it’s delicate.”

“Hmm.” I sit next to Simon on the tree stump. I have to admit, I sort of love the idea of lying low—of letting the Mage get up to his mad business without us for once. But I don’t like to be told to lie low. Neither does Simon. “Do you think Baz is with these other boys?” I ask.

“Makes sense, doesn’t it?”

I don’t say anything. I really, really hate to talk to Simon about Baz. It’s like talking to the Mad Hatter about tea. I hate to encourage him.

He knocks some bark off the stump with the back of his heel.

I lean into him, because I’m cold and he’s always warm. And because I like to remind him that I’m not afraid of him.

“It makes sense,” he says.

21

THE MAGE

Books. Artefacts. Enchanted jewellery. Enchanted furniture. Monkeys’ paws, rabbits’ legs, gnomes’ gnoses …

We take it all. Even if I know it’s useless to me.

This exercise has more than one aim. It’s good to remind the Old Families that I’m still running this show.

This school.

This realm.

And there’s not one of them who could do better.

They call me a failure because the Humdrum still drums on, stealing our magic, scrubbing our land clear—but who among them could pose a threat?

Maybe Natasha Grimm-Pitch could have put the Humdrum in his place—but she’s long gone, and none of her friends and relatives have even a fraction of her talent.

I send my Men to take my enemies’ treasures, to raid their libraries. I show them that even a red-faced child in my uniform has more power than they do in this new world. I show them what their names are worth—nothing.

But still …

I don’t find what I need. I don’t find any real answers—I still can’t fix him.

The Greatest Mage is our only hope now.

But our greatest mage is fundamentally flawed. Cracked. Broken.

Simon Snow is that mage; I know it.

Nothing like him has ever walked our earth.

But Simon Snow—my Simon—still can’t bear his power. He still can’t control it. He’s the only vessel big enough to hold it, but he is cracked. He is compromised. He is …

Just a boy.

There must be a way—a spell, a charm, a token—that can help him. We are mages! The only magickal creatures who can wield and shape power. Somewhere in our world, there is an answer for Simon. (A ritual. A recipe. A rhyme.)

This isn’t how prophecies work.…

This isn’t how stories unfold.…

Incompletely.

If there’s a crack in Simon, then there’s a way to mend him.

And I will find it.

22

SIMON

I’m failing Greek, I think. And I’m lost in Political Science.

Agatha and I get into a fight about going to her house for half-term break: I don’t want to leave Watford, and I don’t think she actually wants me to go home with her. But she wants me to want to. Or something.

I stop wearing my cross and put it in a box under my bed.…

My neck feels lighter, but my head feels full of stones. It would help if I could sleep, but I can’t, and I don’t really have to—I can just sort of get by, on catnaps and magic.

I keep having to kick Penny out of my room, so she doesn’t catch on to how I’m spending my nights.

“But nobody’s using Baz’s bed,” she argues.

“Nobody’s using your bed,” I say.

“Trixie and Keris push the beds together when I’m not there—there’s probably pixie dust everywhere.”

“Not my problem, Penny.”

“All my problems are your problems, Simon.”

“Why?”

“Because all of your problems are my problems!”

“Go to your room.”

“Simon, please.”

“Go. You’ll get expelled.”

“Only if I get caught.”

“Go.”

When Penny finally leaves, so do I.

I give up on the Catacombs and start haunting the ramparts instead.

I don’t really expect to find Baz up here—where would he hide? But at least I feel like I’ll see him coming.

Plus I like the wind. And the stars. I never get to see stars over the summer; no matter which city I end up in, there are always too many lights.

There’s a watchtower out there with a little nook inside, with a bench and a roof. I watch the Mage’s Men coming and going all night in their military truck. Sometimes I fall asleep.

*   *   *

“You look tired,” Penny says at breakfast. (Fried eggs. Fried mushrooms. Baked beans and black pudding.) “Also—” She leans over the table. “—there’s a leaf in your hair.”

“Hmmm.” I keep shovelling in my breakfast. There’ll be time for second helpings before lessons, if I hurry.

Penny reaches for my hair again, then glances at Agatha and pulls her hand back. Agatha’s always been jealous of Penny and me, no matter how many times I tell her it’s not like that. (It’s really not like that.)

But Agatha seems to be ignoring us both. Again. Still. We haven’t spent any time alone since our argument. Honestly, it’s been a relief. It’s one fewer person asking me if I’m okay. I put my hand on her leg and squeeze, and she turns to me, smiling with the bottom half of her face.

“Right,” Penny says. “We’re meeting tonight in Simon’s room. After dinner.”

“Meeting about what?” I ask.

“Strategy!” Penny whispers.

Agatha wakes up. “Strategy about what?”

“About everything,” Penelope says. “About the Humdrum. About the Old Families. About what the Mage’s Men are really up to. I’m tired of lying low—don’t you feel like we’re being left out?”

“No,” Agatha says. “I feel like we should be grateful for some peace.”

Penny sighs. “That’s what I thought, too—but I’m worried that we’re being lulled. Intentionally lulled.”

Agatha shakes her head. “You’re worried that someone wants us to be happy and comfortable.”

“Yes!” Penelope says, stabbing the air with her fork.

“Perish the thought,” Agatha says.

“We should be in on the plan,” Penelope says. “Whatever it is. We’ve always been in on the plan—even when we were kids. And we’re adults now. Why is the Mage sidelining us?”

“You think the Mage is lulling us?” Agatha asks. “Or is the Humdrum doing it? Or maybe Baz?” She’s being sarcastic, but Penny either doesn’t notice or pretends not to.

“Yes,” Penny says, and stabs the air again, like she’s making sure that it’s dead. “All of the above!”

I wait for Agatha to argue some more, but she just shakes her head—shakes her cornsilk hair—and scoops some egg onto her toast.

She doesn’t look happy or comfortable. She’s frowning, and her eyes are pinched, and I don’t think she’s wearing makeup.

“You look tired,” I say, feeling bad that I’m just now noticing.

She leans against me for a moment, then sits straight again. “I’m fine, Simon.”

“You both look tired,” Penny declares. “Maybe you have post-traumatic stress disorder. Maybe you’re not used to this much peace and quiet.”

I squeeze Agatha’s leg again, then get up to get us some more eggs and toast and mushrooms.

“Lulled,” I hear Penny saying.

23

PENELOPE

It was a murder of crows getting them both up here, and Agatha’s still complaining:

“Penelope, this is a boys’ house. We’ll be expelled.”

“Well, the damage is done,” I say, sitting at Simon’s desk. “You’re as likely to get caught leaving now as leaving later, so you may as well stay.”

“You won’t get caught,” Simon says, flopping down on his bed. “Penny sneaks up here all the time.”

Agatha is not happy to hear that. (I ignore her; if she’s moronic enough to believe that Simon and I have romantic feelings for each other after all these years, I’m not wasting my time talking her out of it.) She deliberately sits as far as she can from both of us, even though that means sitting on Baz’s bed.

Then she realizes what she’s done, and looks like she wants to stand up again. Her eyes dart around the room, as if Baz himself might walk out of the bathroom. Simon looks just as paranoid.

Honestly. The pair of them.

“I still don’t know why we’re having this meeting,” Agatha says.

“To pool our knowledge,” I say, looking around the room for materials. “This would be so much easier if we had a blackboard.…”

I raise my wand and cast a “See what I mean!” then start writing in the air—What We Know:

“Nothing,” Agatha says. “Meeting adjourned.”

I ignore her. “The way I see it, there are three things we always have to worry about.”

1., I write, The Humdrum. “What do we know about the Humdrum?”

“That he looks like me,” Simon says, trying to go along with me. Agatha doesn’t look surprised by this information; Simon must have told her what happened. “And that he wants something from me,” Simon continues. “That he comes after me.”

“And we know that he’s been quiet,” I say. “Nothing but flibbertigibbets since June.”

Agatha folds her arms. “But the Humdrum’s still out there eating magic, isn’t he?”

“Yes,” I acknowledge. “But not as much. I saw my dad on the weekend, and he said the holes are spreading much more slowly than usual.” I add this to my notes in the air.

“We don’t know that he eats it,” Simon says. “We don’t know what the Humdrum does with the magic.”

“Sticking to what we do know…,” I say, and write, 2. The War with the Old Families.

“I wouldn’t call it a ‘war,’” Agatha says.

“But there have been skirmishes, yeah?” Simon says. “And duels.”

Agatha huffs. “Well, you can’t walk into someone’s house and demand to go through their attic without expecting a few duels.”

Simon and I both turn to look at her. “What do you mean?” I ask.

“The Mage,” Agatha says. “I heard Mother talking to a friend from the club. He’s been raiding magicians’ houses, looking for dark magic.”

This is all news to me. “Has he raided your house?”

“He wouldn’t,” Agatha says. “My father’s on the Coven.”

“What sort of dark magic?” Simon asks.

“Probably anything that can be used as a weapon,” Agatha says.

“Anything can be used as a weapon,” Simon says.

I add to my notes: Raids, dark magic, duels.

“And we know that the Old Families have kept some of their sons from Watford,” Simon adds.

“Which could just be coincidence,” I say. “We should do some legwork—maybe the missing boys just went to university.”

“Or maybe they’re tired of being treated like villains,” Agatha says.

“Or maybe,” Simon says, “they’re joining an army.”

I add to my notes: Pitch allies leaving school.

Simon’s getting jumpy. “What about Baz?”

Agatha runs her hand along the mattress.

“We’ll get there,” I say. “Let’s stay focused on what we know.”

He keeps pushing. “Miss Possibelf thinks he’s missing. She said his dad sounded scared.”

I sigh and add a third column: 3. Baz. But there’s nothing to write underneath it.

“I still don’t think it’s a war,” Agatha insists. “It’s just politics, just like in the Normal world. The Mage has power, and the Old Families want it back. They’ll bitch and moan and cut deals and throw parties—”

“It’s not just politics.” Simon leans towards her, pointing. “It’s right and wrong.”

Agatha rolls her eyes. “But that’s what the other side says, too.”

“Is that what Baz says?” he asks.

I try to cut in. “Simon.”

“It’s not just politics,” he says again. “It’s right. And wrong. It’s our lives. If the Old Families had their way, I wouldn’t even be here. They wouldn’t have let me into Watford.”

“But that wasn’t personal, Simon,” Agatha says. “It’s because you’re a Normal.”

“How am I a Normal?” He throws his hands in the air. “I’m the most powerful magician anyone knows about.”

“You know what I mean,” Agatha says, and she’s being sincere, I think. “There’s never been a Normal at Watford.”

She’s right, but I wonder who she’s parroting.

“I was prophesied,” Simon says, and it sounds so pathetically defensive, I try to think of a way to change the subject.

Simon was prophesied.

Or someone was. Over and over.

The most powerful magician ever to walk the earth was coming, and he (or she) was supposed to get here just when the World of Mages needed him most.

And Simon did.

The Humdrum was eating our magic, the Mage and the Old Families were at each other’s throats—and then Simon arrived. He came into his power and lit up the magickal firmament like an electrical storm.

Most magicians can remember exactly where they were that day. (I can’t. But I was only 11.) My mum was giving a lecture. She said it felt like touching a raw wire and feeling the electricity shake you from the inside. Raw, scalding, scorching magic …

Which is still how Simon’s magic feels. I’ve never told him so, but it’s awful. Just standing near him when he goes off is like taking a shock. Your muscles are tired afterwards, and your hair smells like smoke.

Sometimes Simon’s power seduces other magicians; they can feel it, and they want to be closer. But anyone who’s actually been close to Simon is long past feeling seduced.

Once, he went off while protecting Agatha and me from a clan of worsegers—like badgers, but worse—and Agatha twitched and ticced for a week. She told Simon she had the flu, so he wouldn’t feel bad. Agatha’s less tolerant of his power than I am; it might be because she has less of her own. It might be that their magic is incompatible.

That can happen sometimes, even when two people are in love. There’s an old story, a romantic tragedy, about two lovers whose magic drove each other mad.…

I don’t think Simon and Agatha are in love.

But it isn’t my job to tell them so. (And also I’ve already tried.)

Anyway, Mum says that when the Mage brought Simon back to Watford, it was like he was calling bluff on the whole World of Mages. Here’s that saviour you’ve been talking about for a thousand years.

Even the people who didn’t believe it couldn’t say so out loud. And nobody could deny Simon’s power.

They did try to keep him out of Watford. The Mage had to make Simon his heir to get him into school—and to have him entered into the Book of Magic.

There are still a lot of people who don’t accept Simon, even among the Mage’s allies. “It takes more than magic to make a mage,” is what Baz has always said.

It sounds like classist nonsense, but in a way, it’s true:

The unicorns have magic. The vampires have some. Dragons, numpties, ne’er-do-wolves—they all have magic.

But you’re not a magician unless you can control magic, unless you can speak its language. And Simon … Well. Simon.

He gets up now and walks over to the window, opening it wide and sitting on the ledge. His wand is in his way, so he pulls it out of his back pocket and tosses it on his bed.

No. 4, I write in the air, The Mage.

“So we know the Mage’s Men are raiding…,” I say. “And, Simon, didn’t you say they were unloading things back in the stables? We could sniff around back there.”

He ignores me, staring out the window.

“Agatha,” I say, “what else have you heard at home?”

“I don’t know,” she says, frowning and fiddling with her skirt. “Father’s had lots of emergency Coven meetings. Mother says they can’t meet at our house anymore. She thinks our Normal neighbours are getting suspicious.”

“All right,” I say, “maybe we should move on to questions now—what don’t we know?”

I start a new column in the air, but Agatha stands up and starts walking out. “I really need to study.”

I try to stop her—“Agatha, wait, you’ll get caught if you leave by yourself!”—but she’s already closing the door.

Simon exhales loudly and runs his hands through his hair, making it stand up in curly bronze chunks. “I’m going for a walk,” he says, marching towards the door, leaving his wand on his bed.

Part of me wishes he were following her, but I don’t think he is.

I sigh, then sit down on his bed and look at our meagre lists. Before I leave, I blow my words out the window with a “Clear the air!”