Going on how up his window the glare was coming, the sun was well up by the time he finally woke up in the morning, yet he still felt exhausted from the mental gyrations of the day before. It took him some time and two cups of coffee before he was able to get his head working, and then he pulled open the laptop and started in on the files again. At some point, he listened to the recording he had on his phone of Urasmian casting the transport spell into the wooden broom handle the sorcerer had made into a wand or staff or something. He found a couple of words on the tablets that he was sure had also been used in the spell, and these gave him a better grasp of the pronunciation of the rest of the words. He quickly found that the more he compared the two groups of tablets and attempted to decipher the Linear A text, the easier it became.

He finally broke off studying just after one, absolutely famished and made a sandwich, at which point he suddenly remembered that today was the day he was supposed to pick up the parents from the airport. Shit! What time was their flight arriving? He had absolutely no recollection! He ran around doing a headless chook impersonation for a couple of minutes, checking the calendar on the fridge, the calendar on his phone, and the note file for odd stuff he kept on his phone, getting more frantic by the minute before remembering he had stored the details on his computer! Frantic mouse pointer stuff! Relief. Not till after five. Ha!

He refrained from returning to the Linear A study just in case he got too distracted, so he sat and watched a couple of re-runs of Time Team episodes before leaving fairly early for the airport, where he got a good parking place and waited patiently in the terminal near the exit gate until their plane arrived. He spotted them easily in the middle of the main press of passengers, and they soon spotted him in turn. Much parental joy followed, along with interrogation as to the state of the house as they collected their baggage and then headed home. No, he hadn’t held any wild parties. Sheesh. Even if he wanted to, he doubted he had enough friends to hold a tame party, let alone a wild one! All traces of Urasmian had been removed except the aluminum ends on the broom pole, which casting the transport spell had sort of welded in place, he had discovered. He had to admit that it made for an interesting effect, although he kept the matter to himself. If they asked about the pole, he’d say he had been working on a prop for an outfit to wear to a Con later in the year.

His folks had the rest of the week off, not having to return to their respective jobs till the following Monday, and he quickly found that having them around the house was too distracting for serious study, so he headed into college mid-morning the next day. The drive there was frustrating as it was pouring with rain which slowed all the traffic down. Why do people drive so much slower in the wet? Around corners and such, yeah, he could understand being careful, but on the main road in a straight line when the road was merely wet, not submerged? It sure was frustrating how cautious and slow many people became in the wet. And then there were the idiots that still sped and drove like maniacs. Fortunately, there were relatively few of those idiots out today. He finally reached the campus car park nearest his building and then had to hustle through the University grounds in the rain, eventually reaching the office or the study in a slightly damp state. After unloading his laptop from the plastic bag he grabbed in the garage to carry it in to keep the rain out, he settled down to work.