Free The Bloodwater Mysteries: Doppelganger by Mary Logue, Pete Hautman Page B

ollie kickflip, which looked easy but turned out to be—as near as Brian could tell—impossible. Instead of learning a cool new maneuver, he learned that repeated falls on a concrete surface could result in some truly spectacular bruises. He limped home defeated.
    The next morning, he came downstairs with his skateboard ready to try again, but his mother intercepted him.
    “Brian! Is that what you’re wearing?”
    “Uh…yeah?”
    “You have to leave for Korean class in ten minutes!”
    “I was just there!”
    “That was three days ago. The class meets twice a week.”
    “But I—”
    “Brian, this is not up for negotiation. Besides, your father has a surprise for you on the way home.”
    “What surprise?”
    “If we told you, it wouldn’t be a surprise.”
    Brian groaned and trudged upstairs to change his clothes.
    Once again, Gee Jang was dressed like an exclamation point, right down to the white socks. Brian wondered if there was a way to tell him he looked like a punctuation mark without offending him. Probably not.
    “Today,” he said, “we talk about Korean family, and social customs of the street. At end of class we be a Korean lunch table.”
    Brian thought of asking him exactly what a Korean lunch table was and why he would want to be one, but he knew he needed to work on his attitude.
    Gee Jang went on about Korean familial relationships, and which side of the street to walk on in Seoul, and how to order
bulgogi
or
bibimbop
in a Korean restaurant. All of which Brian found supremely uninteresting, since he never planned to go to Korea. Why should he? His mother had dumped him on the steps at a police station. There was no way he could ever find her, not even if he wanted to. Not even if he put Roni Delicata on the case.
    Brian looked around at the other students to see if they were as bored as he was. Most of them were taking notes. The blond girl, Molly, listened intently to every word from Gee Jang’s mouth. What was
her
deal?
    They took a break after the first hour. One of the womenwho worked at the center had laid out a spread of Korean snacks in the lunchroom. All the food was weird. He selected something called
ojinx-o teegim
because it looked almost normal—sort of like thick rectangular potato chips. Seeing Molly sitting alone at one of the tables, Brian walked over to her, trying unsuccessfully to remember how to say, “May I join you?” in Korean.
    Resorting to English, he said, “Can I sit here?”
    “Sure!” Molly smiled at him. She had a mischievous, troublemaking smile that appealed to him.
    “What have you got there?” she asked.
    “Ojinx-o teegim,”
said Brian, mangling the pronunciation.
    “I got the
p’ajon,
” she said. “Onion pancake squares.”
    Brian made a face.
    “They’re good,” she said.
    “I guess, if you like onion.” Brian watched her take a bite, then asked, “So what part of Korea are
you
from?”
    Molly laughed. “I’m here for my brother,” she said. “My family just adopted a two-year-old boy from Seoul. I decided to learn everything I could about Korea so when he gets older I can teach him about where he came from. How about you?”
    “I got dumped on the steps of the police station in Taegu City.”
    “Really? I was a foundling, too! My parents adopted me from Romania.”
    “Cool,” said Brian, although there wasn’t anything coolabout being dumped. He picked up one of his chips and started to put it in his mouth.
    “I didn’t think I’d ever see you again,” Molly said.
    Brian lowered the chip and stared at her.
    “I like you with the shorter hair,” she said.
    “Um…I think maybe you think I’m somebody else,” he said.
    She peered at him closely. “Really?”
    “Seriously, where do you think you know me from?”
    “The Korean Cultural Center? In St. Paul?”
    Brian shook his head. “I’ve never been there.”
    “Wow,” Molly said. “You look just like him. Except for the hair. And he had an earring.”
    Brian felt