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counselors served them, setting platters of delicious-smelling food down on the table. Steam rose from the chicken and rice, and Lys’s stomach gave a rather vocal growl. Apple salad, beans, and bread were passed around, and Lys took a large portion. She ate with an appetite she hadn’t noticed in weeks, trying not to look like a pig.
    If the committee for good manners needed a new poster boy, the newcomer could be their guy. He ate with ease, grace, and precision, not unlike the people in old Jane Austen movies Lys and her friends watched. He listened politely to the conversation that was going on around him and spoke easily when Mr. Mason asked him to introduce himself.
    “My name is Kamau. My family is from Mozambique,” he said in a smooth, deep voice. “My father is the chief of our tribe. I have been going to university for a few months in Maputo Cidade.”
    “Whoa, you’re in a tribe?” Brady interrupted.
    Nodding once, Kamau said, “Yes, where I am from, the old traditions of our people still run very strong. My father has made it his goal to integrate technology and the outside world into our culture without disrespecting or destroying our traditions.”
    “Do you have to squeeze water from plants to have stuff to drink?” Brady asked, leaning forward.
    Kamau smiled, his face breaking from the polite mask. “Not normally, but I have done so.”
    He must have felt her gaze on him, because Kamau looked right at her, and Lys had to turn her attention to his neck. She cleared her throat. “If your father is the chief of your tribe, does that make you his successor?”
    “Yes.”
    “So you’re like a prince?” Brady asked, drawing Kamau’s attention. “Wow, that’s cool.”
    “More like the next in line to do the hardest job I could ever imagine.”
    “Do you have any brothers and sisters?” Mark asked.
    Kamau’s friendly manner cracked as his lips drew into a thin line. “I had a younger sister, but she is gone.”
    Lys didn’t think gone meant gone away to school or on vacation.
    “I’m sorry, mate,” Mark said.
    “It was a long time ago.”
    Mr. Mason turned the conversation. “Lys, you haven’t told us anything about yourself.”
    Lys hardly heard him. Against her own better judgment, she was watching Kamau’s face, and the moment Mr. Mason turned his attention from him, Kamau’s whole countenance transformed from a polite young man into that of a predator.
    Lys had been little, maybe six or seven years old, the first time she’d seen that expression. She was at the store with her mom, shopping for a present for her dad’s birthday. They’d walked up and down all the aisles, trying to find just the right thing. Lys’s mom hadn’t even noticed the man, but Lys had.
    Tall, with scraggly hair, he followed them like a shadow. Lys was shy, so she looked away every time she saw the man watching her. But after he followed them for three or four aisles, Lys proved too slow and she met his eyes.
    They were horrible. Angry, dark eyes that looked at Lys as if she were dinner, not a little girl. Lys started to cry. When her mother asked her what was wrong, Lys told her about the scary man.
    Naturally, the scary man disappeared, and Lys never saw him again, but she’d seen the look since then. She saw it whenever they showed a cold-blooded killer on the news. Kamau’s eyes were the same, and they watched Mr. Mason with deadly interest. Lys’s idea that he might be the guy who felt the need to sing at the top of his lungs evaporated. What if he was the one who wanted to braid intestines together? What lay under that polite facade? Suddenly, Lys’s budding interest in him faltered.
    “Lys?” Mr. Mason prompted.
    “Oh!” Lys looked around, distracted from Kamau. What had Mr. Mason asked? “I, uh, I’m from California, but because of my dad’s job we’ve moved around a lot. It’s just me and my parents.” She paused. “I, I love art and movies and hanging out with my friends.” It