Rising Shards

I had watched Oka leave for her ride to go visit the Kilanders before, but Kalei and I had never actually gone with her to see her new outside the school home. It felt kind of strange standing at the school’s parking lot instead of just watching 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 Stella 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 language,” Kalei said.

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

We all got into the back of the car and buckled up. Berin had sunglasses 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. “Congratulations though. Unless you didn’t really want this and are just doing it because Penteldtam is all…Penteldtam-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 nice to hear banter between the two. Oka had told me how annoying the Kilanders 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 gonna be that kind of co-principal.”

“Yeah, but can you get us on Kilander House?” Kalei asked. “I can use an appearance to leverage a contract 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 can do, I’m afraid,” Berin said. “I don’t even let 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 screen or anything.”

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

If Oka was going to be famous, I wanted it to be for being a famous theater star or her Cani powers or something, not for being on the Kilander show.

“So do you know who Penteldtam adopted, Mr. Kilander?” 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 gonna be at this?” Oka asked.

“Yeah, he is,” Berin said. Oka booed. “Oh come 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 boring fiction 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 an exit 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 Kilander house? The one in Coast Nova?” Kalei asked.

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

“…yes?” Kalei asked.

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

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

“Nah, it’s fine,” Berin said. “Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, I can’t think of any reality 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 particularly interested in, we arrived at the Kilander house. Well, not the Kilander house, but a Kilander house. It was the biggest house I had ever been this close to in person, and I even had gone on an LE star house tour bus trip one time when Stella wanted me out of the house. Berin had to scan 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 lawn road not filled with cars and stuff.”

Berin pulled all the way up to a ginormous garage and parked his SUV inside. The doors opening and our footsteps echoed when we got 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 place like this.

“Right, so I’m going to go check on the guests and make sure Penteldtam 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, similarly amazed. “It looks like a freaking airplane hangar in here.”

“Yep,” Oka said. “The Kilanders sure are rich, huh. Wanna see the rest of the house?”

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

Oka showed us around the huge house, starting with the kitchen and working her way past 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. “Can 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 continued on.

“Here’s my room,” Oka said.

Oka’s energy introducing her own room was vastly different than when she wanted to see mine. When she came with me to visit home in LE, she was practically 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.