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“I’m jealous,” Kopano replied. “You get to go home and show your family what a tremendous Garde you’ve become. If I was you, I’d be strutting around Nebraska like I owned the place.”
Caleb shook his head. “I’m not really a . . . strutter.”
“You’ll be fine, mate,” Nigel said, sounding as sincere as he ever did. He stood up and awkwardly embraced Caleb, which seemed to surprise both of them. “Don’t let ’em get to you. And don’t bottle anything up. That’s when the trouble starts, eh?”
“Yeah, it’s only a couple of days,” Caleb reminded himself. “Anyway, what’re you guys going to do for the holiday break?”
“Four whole days without classes—ol’ Professor Nine’s so generous,” Nigel replied. “Probably sleep a bunch. Maybe work on my guitar.”
He said that last bit with a wink at Caleb, and the duplicator smiled back conspiratorially. Kopano knew the two of them were working on some music project upstairs in the empty suites, but he hadn’t been asked to join, so he didn’t stick his nose in.
“I am going to cook Christmas rice,” Kopano declared. “And, if I’m lucky, some romance.”
Nigel clapped a hand over Kopano’s face. “Never say that again.”
Caleb swallowed, looking at them. “Oh, you hanging out with, uh, Taylor . . . ?”
Kopano nodded. “If everything goes as plan— Uh, Caleb?”
Caleb’s face had gone literally blurry, like a transparent copy had been placed over him but not quite lined up. It was a duplicate trying to emerge from his body. Caleb squinted and, before the clone could pop fully loose, it evaporated like a ghost. Kopano and Nigel eyed him as he scratched sheepishly at the back of his neck.
“Nerves, I guess,” Caleb explained. He glanced at the wall clock and picked up his bag. “I better get going. You know how security gets when you keep the helicopter waiting.”
“Happy Christmas!” Kopano yelled, and wrapped Caleb up in a hug, slapping his back.
“Yeah,” Caleb replied. “You, too.”
The week before, Kopano had been aghast when he’d first seen the dining hall’s holiday menu. A boring turkey dinner? Basically the same turkey dinner they had served a month ago for American Thanksgiving? That wouldn’t do at all.
“Where is the rice?” Kopano asked anyone who would listen. “How can they not serve Christmas rice?”
Most of the other students looked baffled when he complained about the rice, but Dr. Chen had taken an interest. Kopano was in her cultural relativity seminar that semester—the class was meant to help them understand the wide variety of UN communities they’d be assisting once they were full-fledged Earth Garde. Everyone needed to take it before graduating.
“This might be a good opportunity to learn about each other’s cultures,” she said. “I could probably arrange something with the kitchen staff . . .”
And she had. Over the last week, students were allowed to file ingredient requests and sign up for time in the kitchen, where they could then prepare a traditional dish from their homeland that would be shared by the other students on Christmas. Doing so was good for extra credit in Dr. Chen’s class, assuming they also gave a short presentation on the food’s significance.
“Psh, extra credit.” Isabela had rolled her eyes when Kopano told her about the concept. “What does that matter? Like these silly grades will ever mean anything.”
But not everyone was as cynical as Isabela. A handful of other students signed up for kitchen time, including some who weren’t even in Dr. Chen’s class.
Christmas Eve was Kopano’s turn in the kitchen. He was happy to take one of the later slots, when things would be quiet and peaceful. Conveniently, after her staged altercation with Isabela, Kopano knew that Taylor would be just finishing up her shift cleaning the dining hall not long after he was to begin.
So Kopano worked slowly. In one pot he cooked a whole chicken seasoned with curry, thyme, and onions. Next to that, he fried up two purple slices of beef liver, which would get cubed up and added to the rice. The chewy bits of meat were always Kopano’s favorite part of the dish, but some of the other students in class had made grossed-out faces when he mentioned liver.
“That kind of reaction,” Dr. Chen explained, “is exactly why we have this class.”
Still, Kopano wanted to get the liver part done before Taylor showed up. He didn’t want to gross her out.
Kopano looked over his shoulder to where the gift he’d gotten for Taylor sat on a clean counter, far enough away to avoid catching any grease spatters. He swallowed back his nerves, worried again that she would think it was stupid—his romance adviser Nigel probably would’ve called it lame, which was why Kopano had made a point of not showing him.
While the liver cooked, Kopano let his eyes wander to the dishes his classmates had made. Most of them had gone with desserts. Simon, the French guy who could transfer his knowledge through objects, apparently had some secret pastry-chef skills. He’d made something called la bûche de Noël—it looked to Kopano like a giant Ho Ho surrounded by little mushrooms made of frosting. He started to pick a piece of frosting loose from the top but turned his hand transparent at the last second, resisting the urge. What would it look like if Taylor came in and found him scarfing down all these desserts?
Well, maybe they could just turn it into her latest act of rebellion.
Ever since this plan to infiltrate the Foundation kicked off, Kopano had been seeing less of Taylor. He knew that she needed to seem isolated, even from the other Fugitive Six, if they were going to convince the Foundation to approach her again. The shady organization had to think it was their idea, like they were rescuing Taylor from a life she hated. But that didn’t make it easier for Kopano. He and Taylor had arrived at the Academy together, had always relied on each other—it was easy to forget that Taylor was just acting and to start to feel like they’d really drifted apart.
And what would happen if this plan actually worked? The Foundation would take Taylor and then . . . what? Kopano would be stuck back at the Academy, with nothing to do but hope things turned out okay. Professor Nine insisted they had agents in the field who could watch over Taylor, people he trusted, but that didn’t make Kopano feel much better. It was a dangerous idea, one he probably wouldn’t have gone along with if it hadn’t been Taylor’s plan to begin with.
Kopano was deep in thought, chopping onions and occasionally wiping his runny eyes on his shoulder sleeve, when a voice startled him.
“I always knew you were a big softie, but those are a lot of tears . . .”
Taylor stood in the doorway, watching him with a tired smile. She wore a plaid shirt with the sleeves rolled up and a tank top along with a formfitting pair of jeans. Her blond hair was held back by a bandanna. Even though she was pushing a bucket of dirty water with a mop, the sight of Taylor made Kopano’s mouth go dry. She looked beautiful even when she’d spent the last few hours cleaning up spilled food.
“It’s the onions,” he insisted with a defiant sniffle. “The onions. I swear.”
“Uh-huh,” Taylor replied. She used her telekinesis to send her mop and bucket into the adjacent supply closet, then wandered over to Kopano. “What kind of weird cookies are you making that have onions in them?”
“I’m not making cookies,” Kopano answered with a dismissive wave of his knife. “I’m making Christmas rice.”
“Oh. Everybody else made desserts.” Taylor poked around one of the nearby shelves, stuck her hand under a piece of wax paper, and pulled out a chunk of baklava.
> “You think just because now you’re the Academy’s resident bad girl you can raid the kitchen whenever you want and devour the hard work of your classmates, eh?”
Taylor chewed thoughtfully. “Yep. You want one?”
“Obviously.”
Taylor reached back to the tray and pulled out another cookie, then floated it out in front of Kopano’s face.
“You know,” Taylor began with a crafty smile, “Isabela says you’re one of my stalkers.”
About to bite into the cookie, Kopano let out a sharp cough and had to turn his head away. He took a moment to compose himself while Taylor tried to stifle laughter. Whenever he was embarrassed, it was Kopano’s strategy to bull forward with humor and bluster—he’d picked that up from his dad.
“Why would she say such a thing?” Kopano asked with hammed-up offense. He plucked the cookie out of the air and popped it into his mouth.
Taylor shrugged playfully. “I don’t know. Because you have a habit of popping up? Like, after I made that scene in chemistry class and had to help Professor Burroughs inventory the supplies, you just happened to develop a sudden interest in obscure chemical compounds.”
“That was for practice!” Kopano exclaimed. He waved his hand back and forth to demonstrate. “I wanted to see if there were any substances I couldn’t pass through. Serious science stuff.”
“Uh-huh,” Taylor replied. “A likely story.”
Kopano pretended to be sullen and went back to chopping his onions. That Isabela always had a way of saying whatever was on her mind . . . which was usually gossip, or else her many theories about what the other students were secretly feeling or thinking. Most of the time, though, she was right. She had certainly nailed Kopano. He had been arranging ways to bump into Taylor around campus.
He didn’t care that Isabela had called him out. On the contrary. This was good news—it meant she and Taylor were talking about him. Taylor had noticed.
“We used to be able to hang out more,” Kopano said. He brushed his chopped onions into a frying pan, where they began to sizzle. “I know why we can’t as much these days. Because you are supposed to be a cynical and angry young lady. Chilling with me would be bad for your reputation. All you would do is laugh and smile all the time and say things like ‘Oh, Kopano, you are so funny and handsome.’ This would of course blow your cover.”
