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"You mean you've been ordering food at intervals so that--"
"So that whenever you came out, there'd be something hot and/or fresh."
"And/or?"
He shrugged. "If you don't like it, that's fine. Of course, I'm on a budget because what I live on is whatever they pay me for custodial work in the physical sciences building, so this is half my week's wages down the toilet if you don't like it."
"You really are a liar," she said. "I know what they pay part-time custodians and it would take you two weeks to pay for all this."
"So I guess pity won't get you to sit down and eat with me."
"Yes it will," she said. "But not pity for you."
"For whom, then?" he asked.
"For myself, of course," she said, sitting down. "I wouldn't touch the mushrooms--I'm allergic to shiitake and Oeuf seems to think they're the only true mushroom. And the satay is bound to be cold because they never serve it hot even in the restaurant."
He wafted a paper napkin over her crossed legs and handed her a knife and fork. "So do you want to know which part of my records are a lie?" he asked.
"I don't care," she said, "and I didn't look up your records."
He pointed to his own desk. "I long since installed my own monitoring software in the database. I know whenever my stuff gets accessed, and by whom."
"That's absurd," she said. "They sweep for viruses on the school system twice a day."
"They sweep for known viruses and detectable anomalies," he said.
"But you tell your secret to me?"
"Only because you lied to me," said the Wiggin boy. "Habitual liars don't rat each other out."
"All right," she said. Meaning, all right, what's the lie? But then she tasted her spring roll and said, "All right," again, this time meaning, Good food, just right.
"Glad you liked them. I have them cut down on the ginger, which allows the taste of the vegetables to come through. Though of course I dip them in this incredibly robust soy-and-chili-and-mustard sauce, so I have no idea what they actually taste like."
"Let me try the sauce," she said. He was right, it was so good she contemplated pouring some on her salad as dressing. Or just drinking it from the little plastic cup.
"And in case you wanted to know what part of my records is a lie, I can give you the whole list: Everything. The only true statement in my records is 'the.'"
"That's absurd. Who would do that? What's the point? Are you some protected witness to a hideous crime?"
"I wasn't born in Wisconsin, I was born in Poland. I lived there till I was six. I was only in Racine for two weeks prior to coming here, so if I met anybody from there, I could talk about landmarks and convince them I'd really lived there."
"Poland," she said. And, because of her father's crusade against the population laws, she couldn't help but register the fact that it was a noncompliant country.
"Yep, we're illegal emigrants from Poland. Slipped past the web of Hegemony guards. Or maybe we should say, sub-legal."
To people like that, Hinckley Brown was a hero. "Oh," she said, disappointed. "I see. This picnic isn't about me, it's about my father."
"Why, who's your father?" asked John Paul.
"Oh, come on, Wiggin, you heard the girl in class this morning. My father is Hinckley Brown."
John Paul shrugged as if he'd never heard of him.
"Come on," she said. "It was all over the vids last year. My father resigns from the I.F. because of the populations laws, and your family is from Poland. Coincidence? I don't think so."
He laughed. "You really are suspicious."
