by Katrina Cope
She looked hot and flustered after a long day of working in the kitchen, but she was still getting ready for the preparation of the last meal. She walked past Jayden and spun around to look at him. “Ah! A new student!”
She had the aroma of deodorant spray. It had most likely been applied to mask the stale body odors that built up from the strenuous duties of the kitchen throughout the long day.
“What’ll we give you to do?” she mused. Jayden gave her a blank stare. “Can you peel potatoes?” she asked.
Jayden nodded.
“Right then—come over here and help Robert. It’s about the only job I can give him where he won’t eat the food before we can set it on the table for the others.”
Robert gave a guilty smile.
Jayden sat down on a stool next to Robert and started picking potatoes out of a large crate and peeling them over a bin. When he and Robert had finished, they placed the potatoes in the large, stainless steel sink to be washed.
The kitchen was spacious, clean, and orderly, with stainless steel tables, shelves, and appliances throughout. It looked like a kitchen in a top restaurant.
“Eva.”
“Yes, Ms. Helen?”
“I’ll have you in charge of the pastas, my dear. I’ll leave them in your capable hands as I’m confident that, with your precision and timing, you’ll have them cooked to perfection.”
Eva nodded.
“Aaron.”
“Yes, Ma’am?”
“Your knife skills will be put to good use again tonight. Off to the cutting board with the vegetables, please.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Ms. Helen continued giving out orders for the rest of the class. Jayden watched as they all respectfully followed her instructions. Before long, the kitchen was a hive of activity.
Jayden watched in amazement as each student completed his or her job and then went on to the next task given to them by Ms. Helen. Altogether, the effort of creating a huge number of dishes to be served for dinner and dessert was enormous. He’d never have thought such an enormous task could be accomplished by a moderately sized group of teens. He watched as Ms. Helen whizzed around the kitchen with ease and grace, overseeing all the students’ work and making sure that each dish would end up being perfect.
After an extensive amount of work had been completed, beads of sweat were starting to appear across Ms. Helen’s forehead. Wisps of gray hair curled around her plump face from the steam in the kitchen. However, she still continued to work, obviously caring passionately for the final perfection of each dish for her hungry students.
“Do we do this every day?” Jayden asked Robert.
“Nah. We take turns with the other classes, but we do pretty much end up in the kitchen at least once a day—either for a meal, for a snack, or for washing dishes.” He screwed up his face in disgust when he mentioned washing dishes.
“Robert.”
“Yes, ma’am?” he quickly responded.
“I see you’re on your last potato.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Robert agreed.
“All right. After you’re finished, I need you to get the frozen berries out of the freezer so that we can add them to our dessert,” she told him.
“Yes, ma’am.” He smiled and then turned to Jayden. “Wow,” he said quietly. “She trusts me not to eat the berries.”
Jayden looked at him in disbelief. “Well, they’re frozen.”
“Ooh!” Robert squealed with joy. “That’s when they’re the best.”
“Everything is the best as far as you’re concerned when it’s food,” Aaron commented from his chopping board after listening in on the conversation. “You better bring them out without eating them,” he added warningly, “or you will upset Ms. Helen.”
“Yeah, yeah.” he responded . “When haven’t I brought back enough of what she’s wanted?”
“Yeah exactly. You ate what you thought we didn’t need and, of course, that left us short.” Aaron said.
“No harm done. Everyone ended up with enough to eat,” Robert defended sheepishly. “I’ll be off now.” He placed his last skinned potato in the large sink.
“I’ve warned you,” Aaron said. “Don’t mess with the preparation of the food.”
Robert wandered off to the freezer while Aaron continued his chopping. Jayden watched in amazement as Aaron skillfully chopped the different foods. He was now slicing carrots and was speeding through them at an incredible rate.
“Those are some serious cutting skills you have there,” he told Aaron.
“Thanks,” Aaron said like it was no big deal.
“Ms. Helen wasn’t exaggerating about your knife skills. How on earth did you learn to cut like that?”
“I’ve added a few knife techniques to my Tae Kwon Do practice to make it a little more fierce.”
“What gave you the idea?” asked Jayden.
“I just love martial arts and being able to protect myself when needed. Also, I may someday need the cutting skills when I am in the surrogate position.”
Jayden couldn’t believe that Aaron was acting like his skills were nothing special. “Do they really think it may come to that? I thought the surrogate work was more like spying than anything else.”
“It might come to having to fight someone to stop them from doing something bad—and a martial art is the best way to stop them most of the time.”
They continued talking together for a few minutes until they heard a loud cry. “Oh, Robert!” someone screeched. “What’ve you done?”
All the students looked toward the loud cry to see Eva with her hand latched around Robert’s elbow and pulling him toward the sink. There was a look of terror and embarrassment on Robert’s face as he was being dragged. His mouth was open, with what looked like a lot of red and black balls covered with white in his mouth.
To see what the commotion was all about, Ms. Helen hurried over to the two students. “What have you gone and done, Robert?” Taking one look at his mouth, she soon had it figured out. “Are you serious? Are those really frozen berries in your mouth?”
Robert had a very guilty expression on his face.
“I can’t even send you to get frozen food without you eating it” she reprimanded him. Looking again at his overloaded mouth, she went on, “And it looks like you were playing ‘chubby bunny’ with them as well.” She shook her head.
The rest of the class had gathered around for a closer look.
“How many did you manage to stuff in there?” She reached into his mouth and tried to scoop out the berries, but with no success. The berries weren’t only stuck together—they were frozen and attached to the sides of his mouth and tongue. “Well, I never—” she gasped in astonishment. “How did you ever manage that?”
The other students giggled at Robert’s predicament. He had a look of horror both because of the position he was in and because of the scene he’d created.
“Right,” Ms. Helen said. “We’re going to need some bottles of water at room temperature.” A couple of students went off quickly to grab some bottles.
“We’ll also need a chair.” Another student also quickly went to get one.
She pushed Robert onto the chair and tilted his head back. “All right, Robert. You’re going to have to hold your nose and try not to breathe. To melt the ice faster, I’m going to have to pour this into your mouth. Ready?"
Robert nodded.
She started pouring. The water ran all over his face, down his blue shirt and brown pants, and spilled onto the floor. One by one, the berries started to soften and come away with the warm water. She continued this until Robert started spluttering, lifted his head up, and stood in his soaking wet clothes.
At the same time, Ms. Helen began to scold him with her hands on her hips, “You’re not ever going to do that again, are you? What on earth got into you to stuff so many into your mouth at once? Even for you, that’s ridiculous.”
Looking very pale, he began to scan the faces circ
led around him in the room.
Seeing that Robert was all fixed up again and back to normal, Ryan called out, “Congrats to Robert! He’s the first person who is imaginative enough to try to play ‘chubby bunny’ with frozen fruit. Very inventive thinking,” he added with a sneer.
The group in the room burst out laughing and started clapping. Robert looked slightly embarrassed as he smiled sheepishly, but took a mocking bow to the class.
“Okay! That’s enough!” Ms. Helen barked. She turned to Robert and said, “Robert, go get cleaned up. And as for the rest of you,” she glared at them, “you need to buckle down now and work even faster. There are mouths to feed and, due to this ridiculous drama, we’re now running behind. Get cracking!” She clapped her hands together a couple of times. The students jumped back to attention, and no one else dared to step out of line.
- Chapter Eleven -
Eva’s Shifty Subversion
Jayden lay flat on his back, with his legs straight out and his arms by his side. Thoughts and memories were slowly flooding back into his consciousness while he lay on his bed. He became aware that his sheets and blanket were covering his body and the perfect firmness of his mattress was beneath him. The light and the warmth of the sun shone on his closed eyelids. This could mean only one thing: it was the start of another action-packed day of his new life.
He opened his eyes and turned his head. From here, he could look at the most magnificent view he’d ever seen—and it was his to gaze at every day. The view of the majestic waterfall on the opposite mountain started every morning with the greatest of pleasure. He began to make movements toward the end of his bed.
It was now about two weeks since he’d arrived. He was starting to relax into the daily routine and pleasant atmosphere of the Sanctum and felt more confident about what he’d be able to achieve in the future. It wasn’t total confidence yet, although he was starting to get into the flow of the unique life that he and the others had come to enjoy.
He climbed slowly down his bunk, as every muscle in his body ached from all the intensive exercise he’d been doing at the Tae Kwon Do class. The students participated in the sport six days a week. It had seemed a little excessive to him at first, but he soon realized how much he was learning to love it. He felt so much more skilled when it came to self-defense.
After climbing down, he looked around at the other students who shared his room and saw that they were all still asleep under their bed covers. In order not to wake them, he went quietly to the dresser to retrieve his clothes. Once he had gathered them in his arms, he headed to the bathroom.
When he got there, he was a little surprised to see a group of three older boys hovering around the door to the girls’ bathroom. They were fiddling with the fingers of the tallest of the boys while crowding around him. When they spotted Jayden, the tallest one put his finger up to his lips in a gesture to be quiet.
Not being sure exactly what they were doing, he just smiled in their direction. He continued watching them when the tall boy placed his hand on the recognition pad for the girls’ bathroom. Jayden remembered the warning Avando had given him about Scarlet guarding the bathrooms, so he decided to wait and see what would happen next.
They waited, but nothing happened. After a moment, the tall teenager put on his sweetest girl voice and spoke into the speaker next to the recognition pad. “Scarlet, open the door, please.”
Nothing happened.
“Scarlet, please open the door. I need to use the bathroom,” the boy said again in a sweet, feminine voice.
This time, the computerized screen near the door lit up, showing Scarlet’s unperturbed face. “Hello, David. Did you really think that fake fingerprints and a sweet, girlish-sounding voice was going to fool me? For starters, I scan the whole hand.”
Water then started to squirt out of the wall below waist height and onto the front of David’s pants.
David gave out a yell and backed away from the wall. He had a wet patch right in his groin area. The other boys burst out laughing.
“Ha. Ha. Ha,” said David. His voice was sarcastic and edgy.
It was then that the Sanctum’s siren started to sound, loudly enough to wake everyone. It paused for a moment so that an announcement could be made. It was Scarlet’s voice, being loudly broadcast throughout the building. “David Schatzville thinks he’s a girl. David Schatzville thinks he’s a girl.” Then the siren and the announcement were replayed a few times over and over.
David had a look of horror on his face and turned to hurry back to his room. Meanwhile, his two companions were laughing so hard that they were bent over double.
Jayden laughed, too. Well, that makes for an interesting start to the day, he thought. Still smiling, he entered the boys’ bathroom to find Aaron freshly dressed. He was standing in front of a mirror, drying his hair with a towel.
“Hey, Aaron. You’re up early.”
“This is normal for me. I don’t sleep much, so I love to go and do my own personal practice of Tae Kwon Do.”
“So that’s why you’re so good? ’Cause you practice so often?”
“I do practice a lot. What can I say? I love it!” He finished drying his hair with the towel and then threw the towel into the laundry chute. “I can’t wait for breakfast though; I’m starving. Come on. Hurry up and get changed and we’ll go to breakfast together.”
Jayden hurried to a cubicle to get changed.
“I hear that David was being his usual naughty self this morning,” Aaron said through the cubicle door. He sounded amused.
Jayden laughed. “Yeah. I don’t think Scarlet was too impressed.”
“It’s not the first time he’s tried to get past her. She seems to come back with a different retaliation every time.”
“Really? After this morning’s payback, you’d think he’d have the sense to stop.”
“Nah. I guess some people are slow learners—or they want to do it the hard way every time.” Aaron chuckled.
Jayden left the cubicle, threw his dirty pajamas down the laundry chute, and they headed down to breakfast. When they arrived, Eva was already seated and was starting to eat. After filling their plates, they joined her at the table.
“Good morning,” the boys greeted her.
“Hmmm,” she grumbled, cradling her cup of tea. “Nearly started drinking coffee this morning.”
“Did you have Get a nice sleep-in this morning, cheerful?” Aaron lifted an eyebrow. “Just think how David feels.”
She gave a wry smile.
The dining room was slowly filling with half-asleep students. “Seems to be more students than normal in here for this time of morning. I guess an all-school alarm didn’t help,” she said.
They laughed together, thinking of David’s embarrassment.
“I wonder where Robert is?” Aaron asked. “If there’s food to be had, he’s usually the first one here.”
“Oh. He’s been here all right. Ms. Helen has already kicked him out for stuffing his face over everyone else’s food again,” Eva told them. “From what I saw, he should’ve eaten enough to stop himself getting hungry.”
“Doesn’t he ever learn?” Jayden asked.
“Let’s put it this way…no,” she said, pretending it was a difficult question.
“Really?” Jayden asked.
“He’s been here with us for three years now, and he’s gone from a skinny little homeless kid to a fat, blobby tween. I think it has something to do with the fear of not ever being able to get enough food again,” Eva informed him. “Robert’s a slob, but he’s a good guy underneath it all. Don’t tell him I said that, though.”
Aaron stopped in his tracks and looked to the entrance of the dining room. “Whoa. Who’s that?”
Eva and Jayden turned and looked.
“How are we supposed to know?” Eva asked. “It’s a new girl—just some blonde chick.”
“Actually, that’s Jessica,” Jayden answered. He stood up and waved to her, and she smiled.
>
“You know her?” Aaron sounded shocked.
“Well, yeah. She’s one of the street kids who arrived with me. I must admit, she didn’t look like that when we first got here. Looks like being clean and off drugs is good for her.”
Jessica started making her way over to where Jayden and his friends were.
“Hi, Jayden,” she said sweetly.
“Hi, Jessica! You look great!”
“Thanks. I feel great. I haven’t felt this good for a very long time.”
“Where are the others?” Jayden asked. “Why aren’t they with you?”
“Nope. Apparently, we all recover at different rates. I was just the lucky one who cleaned up quicker” She looked toward Aaron, who seemed unaware that he was still staring at her with his mouth slightly open. “Who’s your handsome friend?”
Aaron’s cheeks turned red.
“This’s one of my new friends, Aaron,” Jayden said, amused by what he was seeing.
“Hi, Aaron. Nice to meet ya.” She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek.
He just managed to get out, “Hello, Jessica.”
She gave him a brilliant smile, which made her blue eyes shine more brightly. “Call me Jess.”
“Hi, Jess. I’m Eva. Please excuse my gaping friend. Apparently, he’s never seen a pretty blonde before.” Eva reached over and closed Aaron’s jaw with her hand.
“That’s perfectly all right!” Jessica said. “It’s nice to get some good attention—an’ besides, he’s kinda cute himself.”
Aaron blushed even more deeply while Eva rolled her eyes.
“I’m famished. I’m gonna get some breakfast.” Jessica left them and wandered off to where the food was laid out.
“Are you all right there, Aaron?” Jayden asked.
“Huh?” Aaron responded, still looking at Jessica’s back. “Oh, yes. Of course I am.” He sounded vague.
“Uh, huh. You’re so smitten, it’s embarrassing,” Eva told him.
“I know that she’s attractive, but you’re going to have to play it cool,” Jayden added.
“I know, I know. Of course, you’re both right! I don’t know what got into me.” He shook his head, as if to dispel a fog.