Page 2 of My Family

Then Jack leans in, his breath warm against my ear, and whispers three words that make me immediately more stupid than usual.

"Snow cones. Come."

Oh, hell yes. I grin. Jack's smile widens too. I can't let Ethan notice, or he'll say no because he's a killjoy. So we get up, pretending to be very interested in making more snowmen. Ethan seems distracted. Some kids nearby started throwing snowballs like us, but now one shoves the other, and things can get bad quickly. If they land us all on lockdown, I'll be pissed. But for now, it serves as a good distraction.

Jack and I hurry around the tree, pretending to build snowmen, but really we're filling our hot cocoa cups with snow. When we run out of space, Jack starts shoving fistfuls into his jacket pockets, into every available pocket, and it's the stupidest idea I've ever seen, but I do the same. Maybe I am a little stupid too. The snow immediately starts melting against my body in cold, seeping patches. The cold is shocking against my skin, but I don't care. Fucking best stupidest idea ever.

We slip through the cafeteria door. I peek at Ethan. He really is distracted; the boys are fighting for real now, and the guards are already heading over, so we hurry inside. Usually we'd stay in the courtyard until snack time is over, but today they graciously let us use the cafeteria because of the cold. A couple of kids sit inside eating their snacks. We move fast. The snow is shifting in my pockets, getting wetter.

"Go, go, go," Jack hisses, pulling trays from the stack near the serving line.

We dump our snow in heaps onto the beige plastic, sad little mountains already turning translucent at the edges, the building's warmth working against us. Jack vaults over the serving counter and disappears into the kitchen, something that would get him a month's detention if anyone saw it. I should stop him. I volunteer in that kitchen. Lu will murder me if she finds out I let this happen.

He comes back with two plastic squeeze bottles, one red, one orange.

"Raspberry and orange," he announces.

I squeeze a line of red across my snow mound and watch it sink in, staining the white with a pink that reminds me of cough syrup. I scoop some with my fingers. It tastes like sugar and ice, and it's fucking divine.

"This is disgustingly amazing," I tell Jack.

"This is genius," he says, squeezing more on his mountain.

Other students filter in from outside. A kid with a shaved head and a dragon tattoo wrapping his scalp drifts closer. Santana. I know almost everybody's name by now and at least a little of their reputation. Santana was in a street gang, but he's alright.

"Can I have some?" he asks in a much more polite way than I'd have imagined.

"Help yourself," Jack says, like a fucking French chef presenting a five-star Michelin dish. Santana grabs a handful of snow with syrup, shoves it in his mouth, and grins.

"Yo! Marsal and Perry got snow cones!" he screams at nearby kids.

Within seconds, there are six, seven, eight kids crowded around us, everyone reaching, pouring, and the snow is getting more watery, now more slush than ice, more sugar than flavor, dripping through fingers and onto the serving line and the floor in sticky rivers of color. Someone tips a tray and snow slides across the counter. A kid steps in a puddle and slides three feet, catching himself on the counter with a yelp that only makes everyone laugh harder. The cafeteria is a fucking wreck.

I don't hear Griff approach. No one ever does. He's that good, that scary motherfucker. One moment the cafeteria is a riot of laughter and dripping syrup, and the next there's complete silence, something that never happens when you live with sixty delinquents.

Gray hair in that military-precise cut. Green eyes looking at every spill, every overturned tray, every guilty face. His jaw is set in the way that means someone is about to wish they'd made better choices or had never been born. Most of the kids bolt or step back, leaving Jack and me alone. Uh oh.

His gaze lands on me. Slides to Jack. Returns to me. He’s really fucking scary, and if I didn’t see him as a father figure, I’d find him attractive.

"Marsal. Perry." He looks like he's about to snap. "I'd ask for an explanation, but I think the state of this cafeteria speaks for itself."

He doesn't yell. He hardly ever needs to. But what he does is much worse: he starts a scolding about respect. For the facilities that other people clean. For the staff who prepare food on these counters. For ourselves, because boys who want to be treated with dignity need to extend it to their surroundings.

"Why on Earth did you think this would be a good idea?"

Jack and I stare at our feet, trying to look very sorry.

"You will clean this. All of it. Right now. While your peers go to free time." He turns to the room. "I don't want to see anybody else here." Every lunatic who was brave enough to be still there gets up and leaves. He steps back, crosses his arms, and watches us with a frown.

Jack grabs a mop from the supply closet, accepting his sentence. I grab a rag. The mop water turns pink immediately. Jack dunks, wrings, and pushes the mop across the floor in wide arcs. I'm on my knees with the rag, scrubbing syrup from the serving line. We don't talk for a minute. Then Jack catches my eye and his mouth twitches, and I have to look away before the laughter comes back, because Griff hasn't left, and it's so fucking hard not to laugh that my chest hurts with the effort. He’d literally murder us. Ask us what’s so funny, and start the scolding all over again. But my eyes are watering with the effort of staying cool.

My rag turns orange. My knees are wet. I'm stupidly fucking embarrassed and happy at the same time, which is a common combination for me.

The cafeteria looks almost normal when we finish. It still smells like raspberry syrup mixed with cleaner. My knees ache. My hands are pruned and sticky despite the washing.

Griff gives us a final nod before leaving. Still not amused, but he looks like he wants to murder us slightly less now.

"Phew," Jack exhales. "I'll put these back." He gathers the bucket and rags and kicks the supply closet door open with his foot.