Yulia woke up to the smell of something wonderful. She quickly got out of bed and hurried to the kit.

  “Good m!” she stated happily as she hopped onto her stool. “What’s for breakfast? It smells really good.”

  Alex turo her and smiled. “These are called pancakes. But you aren’t getting any until you wash up. Do it quickly or they will get cold.”

  Yulia groaned and slid from her stool. She would have dragged her feet, but her stomach growled, remindihat she was really hungry. So she quickly ed her fad hands. Yulia didn’t know why Alex made her do this before eating every m. She had to shht before csses anyway.

  Wheuro the table, there te with two big tan circles on it and a bottle of some red stuff off to the side along with a yellow stick of something. “What’re those?”

  “Pancakes, artificial butter, and fruit syrup.”

  She grimaced at the artificial butter. That didn’t sound like a food she wao eat. “ I just have the syrup?”

  “It’s your breakfast,” he stated.

  She took the small bottle and poured a generous portiohe pahey didn’t look like any cake she had ever eaten before, then again, the only cake she ever had was at Markus’ st birthday party. Sarah and Cire said it had been a really good cake, so that was the measuring stick she used to judge these pancakes.

  The pancake was warm and fluffy and the fruit syrup was sweet and delicious. It wasn’t as sweet as the cake at Markus’ party, but she decided it was good in a different way. She was about to tell Alex so before she remembered not to talk with her mouth full. Yulia quickly chewed and swallowed the bite she had taken. “It’s really good, Alex!”

  “I’m gd it turned out ok. I wasn’t sure if it would with me having to s some ingredients out.” Yulia nodded along as he spoke. Alex got like this sometimes. He would go on about some subject that she didn’t uand but she didn’t mind. She would listen and nod attentively so he didn’t feel bad.

  It was the least she could do since Alex always listened whealked, and she knew she talked a lot.

  “Anything iing going on in css today?” Alex asked as he ed up the dishes.

  “Umm… Oh, we’re doing arts and crafts today. …What are arts and crafts?”

  Alex chuckled. “Those are like the pictures you drew with the crayons. Or they could be paintings or other things.”

  Yulia smiled at that. She liked drawing. “Did you ask them to do arts and crafts, Alex?”

  “I may have suggested something like it a few months ago. I’m gd to see they are implementing some of my suggestions.” Alex looked at his watch. “You better hurry and finish up your breakfast so you wash a dressed or you could be te.”

  She quickly fihe food and gave Alex a sticky hug. He groa that, which caused her to giggle as she ran into the bathroom.

  ***

  “Sarah, Cire,” Yulia waved as she hurried down the hall.

  Her friends stopped to wave back at her. “Cutting it close today, what kept you?”

  “Alex made me a really tasty breakfast. Something called pancakes. It was really good.”

  Both girls that.

  “Pancakes are really good,” Cire decred.

  The three of them walked into css together.

  Arts and crafts were fun. She liked the watercolors the most, but it was hard to paint with them. She didn’t feel so bad when she saw all the other kids in her age group having simir issues with the paints. At least she hadn’t gotten them all over her like some of the younger kids had. She hoped Alex didn’t have a bunch of angry parents yelling at him for introdug such a messy activity to the children.

  “What are you two doing after css?” Yulia asked.

  “My parents have chores for me. Why? Do you wanna help out?” Sarah smiled sweetly.

  Yulia just snorted. “No way. What about you Cire?”

  “Same. I’ll be free tomorrow though.”

  “Alright, I’ll see you two tomorrow.” She waved to her friends as she rushed home.

  “Alex!” She was surprised to see him home, usually, he didn’t e home until it was time for the evening meal. In those cases, she would either hang out with her friends, explore, or visit him at his workshop.

  “Not with your friends today?”

  She shook her head. “They were busy.”

  “If you’re free, I have something you could help me with.”

  She nodded. “Ok. I bring Dog?”

  “The more the merrier,” he replied happily.

  Yulia followed Alex as he took her to the atrium where most of the people lived. It retty mu the opposite side of the facility from Alex’s workshop. While she liked to explore the hallways, she didn’t often e down this way because there were too many people for her liking. It was fine if Alex was with her though.

  He stopped at a few pces and spoke with a few people, sometimes he reached into his belt and handed out those little metal cards in exge for something like food or other items that would be dropped off at their home or his shop at a ter time.

  It was rather b, but she did her best not to look bored.

  Alex chuckled softly. “Not finding this all that iing, I take it?”

  It seemed she wasn’t doing a very good job. She shrugged, “It’s fine, I guess.”

  “Uh-huh. Well, we’re almost done. How about we go past the pyground on the way back?”

  She would prefer to go there with her friends, but going with Alex was oo. She nodded happily.

  It didn’t take Alex long to finish up what he was doing and they took the long way back to the pyground. If she had to walk the whole way, she would have been exhausted. But Alex carried her most of the way there. Every time they walked through a doorway, she tried jumping up to touch the top of the frame. She didn’t worry about falling, Alex caught her every time she came down. And he didn’t even scold her about how dangerous it was after the first few times.

  As they ehe pyground atrium, she found the pce rather quiet. It was always quieter now that the Hawks were gone, but you could usually hear a few kids pying. There was nothing today.

  She tried to get a better look as she stood atop Alex, but he picked her up and pced her ba the ground. She was about to pout when she heard some noises.

  “I wonder what that could be?” Alex said.

  The pair of them approached the park from the opposite side. As they rounded a bend, she was greeted by tons of people.

  “SURPRISE!” they all yelled as one, making her jump slightly. “Happy birthday, Yulia!”

  Alex chuckled o her. “What, did you fet it was your birthday?”

  She actually had fotten. Well, she k was ing up soon, but she didn’t know the exact date.

  Yulia could see her friends Cire, Sarah, and Markus as well as the other kids from the orphanage and the . Even that mean older boy Charlie was here, but he didn’t look very happy to be here. Yulia could feel herself start to cry. They were happy tears, but she didn’t want to cry in front of her friends, so she quickly blihem away.

  Alex gave her a gentle push. “Go py and have fun.” He pointed off to the side where some weirdly colorful thing sat. “That’s a bouncy castle. Just make sure to take your shoes off befoing inside and have fun. Happy birthday, Yulia.”

  Yulia turo Alex and gave him the fiercest hug she could manage before hurrying to join her ughing and giggling friends. Dog gave a happy bark as he chased after her.

  The bouncy castle was iing. But she quickly grew bored of just boung off the floor, so she started trying to see what would happen if she bounced off the walls or fell to the floor. She found she could bounce back to her feet if she did it right. That made it more fun, and soon everyone was trying to copy her.

  Some were better at it than others. The little kids seemed to enjoy it far more than the older ones. Probably because they could bounce much higher when someone else fell dowo them.

  After the bouncy castle, the kids moved on to a very serious game of tag. The tag rules from Petrov Station had taken off on Eden’s End but this game was slightly different. As the birthday girl, she got to start as the tagged. Once she tagged someone, she couldn’t be tagged again until everyone pying had been tagged once. So instead of just tagging the first person you saw, to tag the same person back, you had to pn ahead and try to er your target. You could work together with the person that was it, ainst them.

  She had to admit, the kids from Petrov had the advantage when it came to this version of tag. They had been pying a simir version of it their entire lives, so they were much more experienced. Yulia was a master at the game, preventing the st person from tagging her until they were called over for food. Even if she wasn’t the fastest or tallest kid in the group. Using the stuff she learned from w on Alex’s puzzles to her advantage, she was able to pn out her route in advance, keeping the other kids from ering her.

  The food was awesome. Alex had made something called a chi . Yulia retty sure a chi was a bird of some sort, but there weren’t any birds here as far as she knew. It tasted a bit like the soy patties, but she didn’t mind. In fact, she was having more fun than she could ever remember. Markus’ party had been fun, but Alex had pulled out all the stops for hers.

  After the food came the cake. It was something called angel food cake and it was topped by fresh strawberries and something called whipped cream. Everyone oohed and was awed at that. It was rare to get fresh fruit. Most of it was freeze-dried or powdered so it would st longer. She learhat in css. The cake and fruit were delicious.

  After that came the presents. Yulia hadn’t seen so many presents in her entire life. She thanked and hugged every person who gave her one, even Charlie. The mean boy turned beet red when she hugged him, which was weird but he was a boy. Did that make it normal since boys were weird? She shook her head, that was a question with no answer.

  When everyone had given their gifts, Alex leaned down. “Did you have a good time?”

  She nodded enthusiastically.

  He ughed softly and ruffled her hair. “I’m gd you e. You may be w where my gift for you is. It was a little too big t along, so I had some people set it up at home.”

  “Is that why you made us take the long way?” she asked. Alex only smiled and winked.

  The party was amazing, but by the time it was over, her feet were dragging. Alex had called up all of his remote carts to shuttle people and the other kids home so they wouldn’t have to walk. She was a bit jealous of that. She wao ride on the carts too. But Alex simply carried her siheir home was much closer.

  When they arrived, she pushed open the door to see what Alex got for her. She wasn’t expeg the printer, so she was a bit fused.

  “Now you make anything you want… within reason. Tomorrow is the weekend, so I help you set it up and show you how to work the design program. It’s a simplified version of the one I use.”

  Yulia wasn’t sure what she would make first, she had so many ideas. She gave Alex an hug before running over to look at the printer. Her enthusiasm didn’t st long, mostly because she fell asleep a few mier.