The Secret Recipe for Moving On by Karen Bischer (ebook reader for manga txt) 📕

an alternating shade of reddish orange or avocado. Also obvious is that some funding must have come in recently, because there are newer stainless steel ovens in the walls of each kitchen, and there are two stainless steel refrigerators along the back wall. The cooktop ranges in the counters, however, still look ancient.

Steve is sitting at a table toward the front, so I take a seat with him. He scans the room and smiles. “I don’t see any kosher salt, Ellie. You’ll have to find another secret ingredient.”

“You’re so funny, Steve,” I say, rolling my eyes.

Steve’s still laughing when Hannah Chow, one of the Ringtones’ groupies and one of Brynn’s friends, takes a seat at our table. “What’s up?” she asks, and I’m further relieved.

That’s when Luke Burke walks in the room.

This can’t end well.

He sees me and smiles. “You again!” he says, and takes a seat at the table next to mine.

“I’m—” But I can’t finish what I want to say because Paul Wilder, the school’s biggest bully, stalks into the room. He’s about six foot five and is built like an eighteen-wheeler, and today he’s wearing a thick chain with a Master Lock around his neck. His face is stony and pulls up a chair across from Luke. “Hey, man,” Luke offers. Paul tilts his chin at Luke in greeting, but doesn’t say anything.

And then Hunter arrives. It’s like instinct right then because I’m suddenly delighted to see him … until I remember he’s angry with me and I have no idea why. He takes the seat next to Steve. Then Brynn walks in and wordlessly sits on the other side of Hunter. She starts digging around her backpack while Hunter looks uncomfortable.

And then it dawns on me: Maybe they’ve had a fight, too. It would explain why Brynn was so weird around me this morning. But I have no idea what Brynn and I could’ve both done to make him so upset.

As the bell rings, a short woman with long, curly black hair and glasses strolls in with a mug of tea. “Hello, all. My name is Mrs. Sanchez,” she says. “And this is Applicable Life Skills for Young Adults.”

She sets her mug down on the counter at the front of the classroom, leaning on the counter as she takes attendance. When that’s done, she starts shuffling some papers. “I started this class a few years ago when it became obvious to me that many in your generation are lacking the skills of self-sufficiency.”

“Whatever,” Paul coughs from the table next to mine.

Mrs. Sanchez fixes him with an amused stare. “I suppose you could run a household effectively, Mr. Wilder?”

Paul leans back in his chair. “Running a household? That’s women’s work.” A.J. Johnson, a senior with close-cropped bleached-blond hair who I’ve seen working at the local deli, starts to laugh from the seat next to Paul.

I expect Mrs. Sanchez to go on a long feminist tirade like I would, but instead she smiles and says, “Well, what does that say about you, then, being in this class?”

“It says I want an easy A,” Paul replies, his face suddenly stony.

Hey! We actually have something in common. Who knew?

“Well, Mr. Wilder,” Mrs. Sanchez says. “I regret to inform you that this class is all about responsibility and is not in any way designed to give its students an automatic A. And while it’s intended to make all of you eventually thrive in independence, you will be working together as a team, or a family in this case, and that may make it harder. Each table will be considered a family, and you will be competing against the other families in class for points every week. You will only be as strong as your weakest link.”

I wonder if I’m considered the weak link at this table, since almost everyone has eaten my failed chocolate chip cookies.

“You earn the points by completing your tasks in a timely fashion, for turning in good work, and for showing teamwork, among other things,” Mrs. Sanchez says. “And this is the one time in life where you can choose your family, so if you’d like to be at a different table, you can move now.”

I glance around at the other tables in the classroom. The hipster/literary journal kids are sitting together to our left, a group of full-time stoner types behind them. Behind us is a snickering group with two football players I recognize, Bryce Pratt and Anthony Ruggio, because they are ridiculously well-built and have overly gelled hair. They’re joined by two girls I’ve seen around—both with perfectly flat-ironed hair, both always with their heads bent together, gossiping, and hissing harsh “ohmygawwwds.”

Then there’s the table to our right, which is all guys; Luke, Paul, A.J., and a short, skinny kid with huge brown eyes, Isaiah Greenlow, who I think is a junior, and whose diminutiveness seems completely out of place among these giants.

Everyone seems content with where they are sitting, so no one moves. But I notice Mrs. Sanchez looking at our group. “Hmm, a group of five,” she says. I see her scanning the room, and I know she’s going to suggest one of us go to another table, but then she says, “Well, everyone else is full, so you’ll have to make do.”

With that, Mrs. Sanchez passes out a syllabus and starts explaining what we’re going to be doing this year: grocery shopping, cooking, laundry, sewing, learning how to make minor household repairs, budgeting, and bill paying.

I try to catch Hunter’s eye while this is going on, but his eyes are fixed to the syllabus. This is getting ridiculous. I’m talking to him when we’re leaving class, and I don’t care if it pisses him off.

The bell rings just as Mrs. Sanchez is explaining that our next class will be learning the basics of budgeting. “Unless dealing with money is also women’s work,” she says, directly to Paul. He doesn’t seem to have any interest in what she’s saying, because he takes off pretty