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I skipped trying to fake a shower entirely, hoping no one noticed. I’d had a bath the day before and hadn’t done much since except sleep.
I took a little time getting dressed. I’d put on another gray skirt—a little darker in color—with a pink T-shirt and a nice light jacket. Gabriel had left me more knee-length socks to wear with closed-toe shoes for the cold weather.
When I emerged, Kota was already ready, wearing tan slacks and a button up white shirt with a green tie. Nathan kept on his jeans, but wore a long-sleeved blue shirt with a red tie. Everything looked freshly pressed. I wondered if Kota had ironed their clothes.
“Will we need to bother with uniforms on Monday?” Nathan said as he looked over our clothes. “We skipped them while in suspension. Can’t we just wear normal clothes?”
Kota patted his pockets to make sure he had his keys and his wallet in place. “We’re going to go over the plan this weekend. Today, let’s try to forget about school.” He looked over my outfit. “Are you going to be warm in that?”
I hesitated. I did have on a jacket. We were just going to walk over, right?
Before I could say anything, Nathan stepped up beside me and put his arm around my neck. It was a casual move, something they did all the time. This time, though, it felt different. He held me closer, and his eyes were completely on Kota.
There was confusion in Kota’s eyes as he looked at Nathan and then at me.
“You don’t have to worry about her,” Nathan said. “We’re not going far. If she gets cold, I’ll bring her back to change.”
There was an awkward pause and I looked at the wall, as I wasn’t sure what to do. Should I change now so I might not have to come back? Or casually suggest I bring clothes if there might be a problem?
I also got the feeling there was something more to what they were debating. There really shouldn’t have been this much tension around what I was wearing.
“Right,” Kota said finally. “I guess.” He turned, opened the door, and held onto it for us.
I clenched my teeth, looking up. Kota was simply holding the door, the confusion gone from his face. Nathan urged me on. I wished one of the others was around to help relieve the tension.
Could I be mistaken? Was I just imagining it? Being paranoid? I wondered if my own feelings were putting off my judgement of their behavior.
Nathan closed up the house while Kota and I waited on the porch. Then, we walked together toward the road, and when I started to turn toward Kota’s house, Kota redirected me.
Surprised, I followed, realizing we were heading to the diner. Nathan walked to my left, Kota on my right. I stayed quiet, remembering Kota’d mentioned the diner, but I wondered why we got so dressed up if we were heading over to help out.
I don’t know why I hadn’t thought to ask what Thanksgiving was like for the boys. I just assumed everyone had their own family traditions. In my mind, I figured if Nathan did anything special, it was probably to go to Kota’s house, or possibly with one of the others. Nathan and I were pretty much the only ones without someone for Thanksgiving.
I realized the diner must have changed things for them. I hoped it wouldn’t be too busy so we could relax a bit. Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do for the holiday?
We rounded the bend in the road and the diner came into view. The lot was packed with cars. The front porch had a line going out to the parking lot.
I slowed, suddenly uncertain about heading into such a crowded area.
Kota stopped, and when he did, Nathan did as well. Kota looked back at me with a small smile. “Something wrong?”
“What are all those people doing here on a holiday?” I asked, my voice scratchy with panic. “It’s so busy. Are you sure we should go? What if Mr. McCoy…or Mr. Hendricks is there?”
Kota opened his mouth to speak and then looked at Nathan, perplexed. “Did we not tell her?”
Nathan shrugged and then started to laugh, rubbing a palm over the back of his neck. “I guess we didn’t. I just assumed you did.”
Kota broke into a big smile, seeming to immediately break the tension between them. “They won’t be here. If they swing by, they’ll realize they’ve stopped in at a bad time. On Thanksgiving, we usually go down to the homeless shelter and pass out food. Funny enough, it actually gets overcrowded with volunteers down there at this time of year. A lot of the college students take it over.”
“So Uncle thought up a new tradition for us,” Nathan said. He waved toward the lines of people waiting to get inside the building. This time when I looked, a group of teenagers—about our age—left together with armloads of cardboard boxes. From the way they carried the boxes, they appeared to be full and heavy. They piled each box carefully into the back of an SUV. Once the boxes were secure, they talked briefly to each other, before they split up—half going to the SUV and the rest into another car—and drove away.
Kota put his arm around me, pointing to the SUV driving away. “See that?” he asked. “Remember the food you made all week?”
“Yeah,” I said, getting where this was going, yet wanting him to tell me.
“It’s not just the homeless that are hungry,” he said. “They deliver these to the poorer parts of the city, areas we manage. It can really help out.”
“We manage?” I asked.
Kota cringed. “Not sure if I was supposed to tell you.”
Nathan stood with his hands in his pockets, staring at the collection of people standing in line. “She’ll be finding out sooner or later.”
Kota’s eyes drifted to the crowd, and then back at me. With a fingertip, he shifted his glasses higher on the bridge of his nose. “The Academy,” he said simply.
My heart fluttered at the name. I’d been getting acquainted with the organization, yet still was surprised when I learned a new part of what they did. There had been hints before, but seeing these people taking food from the diner away, forced me to realize how much bigger it was than I’d previously thought. “The Academy manages parts of the city?”
“Entire neighborhoods,” Kota said. “Poorer sections. But not like slum-lords; we put good people in secure homes. When neighborhoods are safe, the children get good grades, better themselves, and there’s less crime in general. Once they become a true community, they require less management. Just the occasional helping hand can be enough. We have an application process that’s a little different.”
“There’s lots of good people that have important, but low paying jobs,” Nathan said. “There’s no reason neighborhoods they live in shouldn’t be as safe as one like ours.”
I remembered how, not long ago, we had helped some children who were living in an abandoned store. I wondered if they ended up in one of these neighborhoods. “So we donate food around Thanksgiving?” I asked.
Kota laughed. “We sell the food to teams, and then they deliver them to different neighborhoods.”
Sell? They ask the individual teams to pay for the boxes they take? “What? They don’t just donate the food?”
“The teams buy the food,” he said. “It’s a genius idea.”
“The money goes into a pool,” Nathan said. “Each team collects the money and pays for so many boxes. Then the money gets put into a charity
pool and gets dispersed. It’s like a double giving. There’s some accounting reason they do it this way; Mr. Blackbourne helped put it together.”
Donations and giving food away. I turned again toward the diner, curiously studying the people who were waiting, and those who emerged from the diner with boxes. So this meant the majority of the Academy was here? Was that safe? If it was supposed to be so secret, how could they be so open like this?
Was the Academy such a secret, or only as secret as they led people to believe?
As we drew closer, I started to study faces. Some were older, around the age of Dr. Roberts, some our age, and a few a little younger but with an older adult around, directing them. The majority were in-between, adult men and women standing together. I wondered which ones belonged to what teams. They all seemed friendly and talkative.
It worried me that they were so exposed, when Volto or Mr. Hendricks could be nearby. But what did it really look like? Anyone coming by who perhaps didn’t know about the Academy for what it really was would just assume it was just a busy diner, or even if they approached and asked, it would look like an organized charity event. The fact that it was run by the Academy didn’t seem to matter. It wasn’t like they were doing anything illegal.
I stayed close to the boys as we headed toward the fray. I was nervous about bumping into these Academy people when I was still an outsider. I brushed my hand down over the material of the skirt, wondering if I should have worn something more formal, or should have done my hair better than the usual twist in a clip.
It was Nathan who drew my hand away from my body and held it in his. After a quiet, serious look at me, he squeezed my hand.
When Kota pulled away to open the back door of the diner, Nathan leaned in, and whispered, “You’re beautiful. Don’t worry.”
My cheeks warmed. I wanted to enjoy the compliment, but my nerves were rattling hard. I breathed in some courage, but squeezed his hand back in thanks.
