The Little Lightning Girl

37-I Go On a Midnight Grocery Supply Run

Kai may have managed to get a driving license, but I had no idea how. The boy was speeding down every back road possible on the way to Haleiwa. And because of course it had to be worse than just that, he was talking the entire time, with no apparent concern for the road or for our lives.

"My mom's been insane," he babbled to me, as I'd taken the passenger seat, "she's convinced that I'm not going to make it into college."

I snorted, clutching the door handle as he took a sharp turn, "Well, do you even want to go to college?"

He shrugged, "Yeah, I guess. If only so that I can study mechanics in an actual educational setting. She's sure that I won't make it into a good school and even if I do, I'll be poor for the rest of my life and raise my children how we were raised."

He'd always been the family mechanic. Cars, heaters, electricity... you name it, his family had him fix it instead of hiring someone. Our family had done the same while we could, not because we couldn't afford to hire someone professional, but because Kai was genuinely good at it. He loved fixing things, even if it had been rather forced on him. I was glad he wanted to do something with his talent.

"Your life isn't miserable," I said, "but she really just wants the best for you."

"What's college?" Rose chimed from the far back seat. She had ended up crammed back there with a few of Kai's surf boards.

"It's basically like graduate's training," Kaley said, mentioning the common practice that wizards went through to become fully qualified for their jobs after Hogwarts. Like Teddy Lupin had needed several years to become a registered professor of magic, and how Aurors had to go through training before tackling a dark wizard in person. Kaley neglected to mention anything wizard-related that might tip Kai off about our cover story.

"In America we go to school until we're eighteen," Maya explained further, "college is where you get a real degree so that you can get hired for jobs."

Kai looked dreadfully confused, "How do you not know what college is?"

Rose froze with wide eyes so I cut in before she could really ruin our image of normality, "She knows what it is, they just call it something different in England. It's called University over there, she just hadn't heard it called that."

Worst cover story ever. I was an idiot if I thought he'd believe that absolute crap. But Kai shrugged and kept driving, his eyes on the road for the first time in ten minutes.

"As much as I'd like to spend the whole week with you guys, I can't afford to take a week off of work. I'll join the fun when I can, though. I'm counting on some surfing competitions. I hear you two can surf."

He aimed this at the middle seat, where Maya and Adrian were nodding with smiles. Adrian, for the first time this entire drive, spoke to Kai, "Yeah, our dad taught us. Even though for the most part we lived in New York, every chance we could we went surfing. Haven't been in a while, but I'm excited to get back on the waves."

"My kind of people," Kai announced.

The drive was quick, and soon enough we were pulling into the house that we had managed to compile enough money to rent. It was a ways from the beach, but none of us were opposed to exercise, and it had actually gotten late enough that we'd probably just settle down and let the fun start tomorrow.

Kai parked on the street and I leaned over to hug him again before hopping out of the car, my duffle bag in tow.

"The other two need some surfing lessons," I said to Kai, ignoring the protests from Rose and Kaley, "and seeing as you're a professional surfing instructor, would you mind lending me a hand in teaching them?"