I had watched Oka leave for her ride to go visit the Kinders before, but Kalei and I had never actually goh her to see her new outside the school home. It felt kind of straanding at the school’s parking lot instead of just watg her longingly from afar. The three of us were a bit dressed up; Oka had her yellow sundress on, Kalei had a tank top with a beam chasers jacket and track pants, and my outfit I only busted out for rare work parties Stel brought me to, a bluish grey sweater and a dark blue skirt. Her adoptive father Berin pulled up in a big SUV.

  “This big car,” I said.

  “Zeta good nguage,” Kalei said.

  “But Kalei, it indeed big car.” Oka said.

  We all got into the back of the car and buckled up. Berin had sungsses on as he turned around to greet us.

  “Howdy Zeta, Kalei,” Berin said. “How are you feeling Oka, pretty proud?”

  “About what?” Oka asked.

  “About...are you serious?” Berin said. “Oh. You’re joking. That’s pretty good.”

  Oka snickered. “gratutions though. Unless you didn’t really want this and are just doing it because Peam is all…Peam-y.”

  “I’d say it’s somewhere betwixt the good and bad there.” Berin said.

  “Betwixt?” Oka asked.

  “Like between, but a stupider version.”

  It was o hear banter betweewo. Oka had told me how annoying the Kinders could be, but at least her dad wasn’t like the others. He seemed to annoy her in a way a guardian normally does.

  “I’ll let you three know now though, you won’t be getting any special treatment from me,” Berin said. “I’m not gonhat kind of co-principal.”

  “Yeah, but you get us on Kinder House?” Kalei asked. “I use an appearao leverage a tract with the BA Street Lights.” She leaned over to us. “Beam chasers team. My favorite team. I said that, right?”

  “Uh huh,” I said. “You have the poster up in our room.”

  “Yeah, but I got the crappy tack that doesn’t keep it up long so it keeps falling over so I thought you might not have noticed.” Kalei said.

  “No do, I’m afraid,” Berin said. “I don’t eve Oka on the show.”

  “Not that I want to be on the show,” Oka said.

  “You did ask once or twice.” Berin said.

  “As like a background character!” Oka said. “I don’t want to be on s or anything.”

  “I don’t want you to either,” Berin said. “It’s enough pressure for me, and I was retly ranked a D-tier Kinder in this year’s Kinder Scorecard.”

  If Oka was going to be famous, I wa to be for being a famous theater star or her i powers or something, not for being on the Kinder show.

  “So do you know who Peam adopted, Mr. Kinder?” I asked.

  “I don’t, actually,” Berin said. “I thought this party was going to be for just the new jobs until he dropped that news on me.”

  “Aw wait, does that mean Soleri is gon this?” Oka asked.

  “Yeah, he is,” Berin said. Oka booed. “Oh e on, he’s not that bad.”

  “Yeah I’m sure, if he’s your coworker,” Oka said. “He made me write twelve pages on literature about clouds. You know how b fi about talking clouds is?”

  Berin took us on a highway road for a bit. I zoned out as I imagined myself running on the horizon as I stared out the window. After a half hour or so, Berin took a that lead into a very rich looking district with lots of gated properties.

  “Wait, I thought we were going to the airport.” Kalei said.

  “Why?” Oka asked.

  “Aren’t we going to the Kinder house? The one in Coast Nova?” Kalei asked.

  “This isn’t the Kinder house.” Oka said. “Did you think I was flying across the try every time I had to go to a Kihing?”

  “…yes?” Kalei asked.

  “The house is just a set too, by the way.” Oka said. “Not all of the Kinders live with each other all the time like the show says.”

  “Aren’t you mad she’s spoiling all the Kinder show secrets?” Kalei asked. “Because I kinda am.”

  “Nah, it’s fine,” Berin said. “Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, I ’t think of ay TV show that’s actually…real.”

  “I don’t know why that’s so disappointing to me,” Kalei said.

  As Kalei came to grips with the realness of a show she wasn’t even particurly ied in, we arrived at the Kinder house. Well, not the Kinder house, but a Kinder house. It was the biggest house I had ever been this close to in person, and I even had gone on aar house tour bus trip oime when Stel wanted me out of the house. Berin had to s a card for a security guard at the gates before driving in. There were a lot of cars parked already.

  “Is it usually this crowded for parties here?” I asked.

  Oka nodded. “I feel like there’s always some kind of event going on whenever I’m here. I haven’t seen this wn road not filled with cars and stuff.”

  Berin pulled all the to a ginormous garage and parked his SUV ihe doors opening and our footsteps echoed whe out of the car. It was weird enough for me to just be visiting such a big house; I couldn’t imagine how weird the transition must have been for Oka to go from the crappy awfulness of her old school’s dorms to a pce like this.

  “Right, so I’m going to go che the guests and make sure Peam doesn’t light anything on fire or hasn’t already lit anything on fire,” Berin said. “I assume you’ll be needed in like…twenty minutes? If you want to show your friends around first.”

  “Sure, yeah,” Oka said. “Well, here it is pals, my house. I guess.”

  Kalei and I stared around the garage in awe.

  “This is like…the biggest house I’ve ever been in,” I said.

  “And this is just the garage,” Kalei said, simirly amazed. “It looks like a freaking airpne hangar in here.”

  “Yep,” Oka said. “The Kinders sure are rich, huh. Wanhe rest of the house?”

  “Or as much as we feasibly walk through iy minutes,” Kalei said. “It’s gonna take us twenty minutes just to get inside.”

  Oka showed us around the huge house, starting with the kit and w her ast a ballroom, a living room, a home theater to the upstairs area with all the bedrooms.

  “So we’re gonna go back to that home theater, right?” Kalei said. “ I bring my eGame over some time and hook it up there?”

  “I dunno, maybe. I don’t think anything in there is really plugged in.”

  “What?” Kalei said. “But that’s a whole freakin’ theater! Are you serious?”

  Oka shrugged and we tinued on.

  “Here’s my room,” Oka said.

  Oka’s energy introdug her own room was vastly different than when she wao see mine. When she came with me to visit home in LE, she ractically jumping off the walls.

  “Are you sure this is your room?” Kalei said. “It looks a bit…empty.”

  Kalei wasn’t exaggerating too much; Oka’s room basically just had a bed in it.

  “Yep,” Oka said. “I keep all my good stuff at the dorms at school, really. But I guess I’ll have to get something here for summer.”

  Summer was far away, but I already didn’t want to think about being away from Oka and Kalei for a whole summer break.