The Maplethorn Initiative (Book 1, The Maplethorn Series)

The Shark

Unlike any self-respecting school lunch lady, Sheila Finn was nothing but skin and bones. Her black hair was twisted into a knot and flattened by a too-tight hairnet. She thrust a small box filled with identical hairnets toward Cam. "Take one and only one."

Feigning disappointment, Cam almost told her that a bottomless supply of hairnets was every guy's dream, but figured he was in enough trouble these days. So instead, he grabbed a single hairnet for himself and passed the box on to Liam in silence.

"Your shifts start at four—that's sixteen-hundred—and run two hours," she explained tersely. "You'll eat as soon as you get here, then prep, then serve. The next crew comes in at eighteen-hundred to do clean-up, so everyone needs to be fed by then. You'll want to strip to your undershirts at the start of your shift unless you don't mind scrubbing gravy out of those fancy jackets every night."

"Uh, ma'am?" Cam asked hesitantly.

Cords appeared in Sheila Finn's thin neck. "What?"

"Our last class gets out at fifteen-fifty. That only gives us ten minutes before our shift starts."

"Then you better hurry or you won't eat."

Tober raised a hand.

"You realize this is your chow time, right?"

"I know, ma'am." Tober bowed his head. "Sorry, ma'am. Just one question."

She glared at Tober as though daring him to ask it.

"Do we have to come here every day, or—?"

The lines in her forehead deepened. "Do you expect to be fed every day?"

Tober correctly assumed the question was rhetorical.

"Yes," she hissed. "You come here. And you work. Every day. What is so hard to understand about that?"

"Nothing, ma'am," Tober said. "It's just that Captain McGuire didn't tell us anything at all and—"

Miss Finn made a show of looking at her watch—using her free hand to keep the face from sliding under her boney wrist. "There are three minutes left till your shift starts," she said. "You can either eat or starve. I don't care which."

•  •  •

"I didn't know we'd lose our jobs," Tober whispered as Cam and Liam shoveled food into their mouths. "And have to go work for The Shark."

Cam swallowed loudly. "The Shark?"

"Miss Finn," Liam explained, spitting potatoes as he talked. "Like shark fin. Get with the program, Drexler."

Tober pressed his hands together, creating the image of a shark in the water. "They call her that because when you see the Finn coming, you know you're going to get eaten!"

"She doesn't look like she eats anything," Cam observed, stealing a glance toward the kitchen.

Liam skewered a piece of gray meat with his fork. "Would you eat this if you didn't have too? We have officially landed in Suck Town."

"Kinsler once told me they give the Reds the worst jobs at school." Cam picked up a roll from his tray and shoved the entire thing into his mouth. "Gss we shd hv sn ths cming."

"But don't the Reds get to be CP's and CI's and whatever?" Tober asked.

Cam chugged the rest of his milk before answering. "Kinsler said all of the CP's and CI's start out in here. I guess that's why they're so gung-ho. 'Cause if not, it's back to the kitchen."