Another chicken leg arced through the air in slow motion, trailing barbecue sauce, before it smacked the inside of the Bookside High cafeteria trash can with a wet thud.
“Another innocent bird slaughtered,” Ms. Kathy Klemper announced, loud enough for half the students in the suburban California school to hear. “Just lovely.”
The cafeteria went quiet for a beat. This was Los Angeles County, not some tiny town; kids here were used to protests and petitions. But watching your teacher toss your drumstick, your turkey sandwich, your pepperoni pizza into the trash in front of everyone still hit different.
“Hey!” Jimmy Robertson stared down at his now-empty tray. “That was my lunch.”
Ms. Klemper didn’t flinch. She was a narrow woman in her late thirties with sharp cheekbones and a bun so tight it looked like it hurt. Today’s cardigan was forest green, matching the stack of “GO GREEN OR GO HOME” flyers tucked under her arm.
“How many lives were snuffed out making this?” she demanded, plucking a half-eaten burger off another kid’s tray and dropping it dead-center into the can. “Pigs are friends, not food. Cows, chickens, turkeys… all of them. Their blood is on the hands of the meat industry. And on the hands of anyone who supports it.”
A few kids snickered. Most just watched warily, trays held closer to their chests.
“Grill and give,” she muttered as she dropped a foil-wrapped rib into the trash. “Monsters.”
Jimmy flinched at that one more than anything else. Grill & Give was his family’s pride and joy: a smoky red food truck with a cartoon pig on the side, parked every weekend at Little League games and farmers markets all over their Southern California town. They served ribs, pulled pork, brisket, grilled chicken plates. They also handed out free meals quietly, no photos, no hashtags—just paper boats slid across the window to people who clearly needed them.
Everyone loved their barbecue. Everyone except Ms. Kathy Klemper.
The bell shrieked, signaling the end of lunch and the start of fifth period. Trays clattered into bins. Conversations restarted in cautious whispers.
Then, as if she hadn’t just declared war on half the cafeteria, Kathy’s smile snapped back into place.
“Oh!” she said, spotting a trio of students huddled around a clipboard by the exit. “Paige, right?”
The girl in the thrift-store denim jacket blinked. “Um, yes?”
“Would you be interested in sponsoring our club this year?” Paige blurted, then winced. “I mean—we were hoping a teacher might—”
“Not now, Paige,” Principal Jerry Barnes said as he strode into the cafeteria, tie loosened, eyes tired. “Settle in, everyone. I’m starving.”
He grabbed a tray and joined the line. Kathy watched in horror as the lunch lady plopped a scoop of mashed potatoes and three chicken tenders onto his plate.
“Jerry,” she hissed under her breath.
He pretended not to hear.
At a table by the window, Jimmy slid into his seat, still staring at the empty space on his tray.
“Yo, Jimmy,” one of his friends called. “You forget your lunch or something?”
“Ms. Klemper threw it away,” he muttered.
“Here,” another friend said, breaking his sandwich in half. “Take some of mine. It’s from your parents’ truck, anyway.”
Jimmy peeled back the bread and froze. The slices of turkey were gone, replaced with a thick smear of something pale green and chunky.
“Who took the turkey out of my sandwich?” he yelped. “Ew! What is this? It’s green!”
Across from him, Kathy folded her arms, triumphant. “You’re welcome,” she said. “I saved you from a slow, painful death. Nobody did that for the poor, innocent creatures crammed into those trucks and slaughterhouses.”
“Ms. K, seriously,” Jimmy said, cheeks burning. “That was my lunch.”
“What’s going on in here?” Principal Barnes demanded, appearing at Kathy’s shoulder. His tray still carried all three chicken tenders.
“Nothing to worry about, Principal Barnes,” Kathy said smoothly.
“She threw all our food in the trash again!” Jimmy blurted. “Mine, too. And she replaced it with… with… avocado or something.”
“I’m trying to help them, Jerry,” Kathy said, turning to the principal with eyes bright and fierce. “I’m their teacher. Isn’t that what I’m supposed to do? Help them make healthier, kinder choices?”
“Out,” he said, jerking his head toward the hallway. “Now.”
They stepped into the corridor beneath a row of college pennants and a faded American flag. The buzz of the cafeteria dulled behind the swinging doors.
“I thought we already talked about this, Kathy,” Jerry said, pinching the bridge of his nose. “You cannot force your views on our students. And you certainly cannot throw away their personal lunches. How am I supposed to explain that to their parents? ‘Hi, Mrs. Robertson, your son hasn’t eaten because his science teacher tossed his food for ideological reasons’?”
“Maybe you could explain to them the horrors of factory farming,” Kathy shot back. “The aftereffects of growth hormones on their kids’ bodies. Pesticides in their beef. The way meat production is wrecking our planet. Would you like me to keep going, Jerry? Because you know I can.”
“Every time you approve another meat order for the cafeteria,” she added, lowering her voice, “the blood of innocent animals is on your hands too.”
“I wouldn’t hurt a fly,” he said, exasperated.
“No,” she said. “You just sign the checks so someone else can do the hurting.”
He took a breath, held it, and exhaled slowly. “You want to save the world, fine. But you don’t get to do it by breaking school policy. Only approved student groups can hang posters, hold events, or campaign for changes. Am I clear?”
Her jaw tightened. “Crystal.”
“Good,” he said. “Because this is your last warning.”
He went back into the cafeteria, leaving her alone in the echoing hall.
A moment later, Paige and her two friends—June with the perfectly straight hair and George with the messy backpack—peeked around the corner.
“So…” Paige began carefully. “Bad time to ask about sponsoring the Environmental Club?”
Kathy blinked. Then a slow smile curled her mouth. “Did you ask for a guardian angel?” she asked. “Because if so, you just got one.”
June actually squealed. “This is going to help me so much with getting into Yale,” she breathed.
“Help you?” Kathy laughed. “Sweetheart, this is going to help all of us. Now, tell me—what environmental issue is this mighty band of little green warriors going to tackle first?”
“We, um, wanted the school to change from gas to electric stoves,” Paige said. “We did the math. It would reduce our carbon footprint by three percent. We already started a petition.” She held up the clipboard. There were exactly two signatures.
“Aren’t there three of you in the club?” Kathy asked pointedly.
George blushed. “Whoops,” he said. “I knew I forgot something.”
“Three percent is… cute,” Kathy said. “But do you know one of the leading causes of pollution?”
“People who don’t pick up after their dogs?” George guessed.
“It’s factory farming, isn’t it?” Paige asked quietly.
Kathy’s eyes lit up. “That’s right. And it’s exactly what we should tackle first.”
A week later, Bookside High looked like a war zone.
Not from actual violence—from posters.
They were everywhere: taped to lockers, stapled to bulletin boards, stuck to the sides of water fountains even though that was definitely against the rules. Photos of baby pigs with big eyes. Close-ups of hamburger patties dripping juice. Captions in block letters:
ANOTHER INNOCENT BIRD SLAUGHTERED. ENJOY YOUR LUNCH.
PIGS ARE FRIENDS, NOT FOOD.
EVERY BURGER HAS A NAME.
“Don’t you feel like these are a little… aggressive?” Paige asked, following Kathy down the hall as she straightened the corners of another flyer.
“Aggressive is what we need,” Kathy said. “How else are we going to wake people up?”
Students streamed past, earbuds in, eyes on their phones, barely glancing up.
“Outrageous,” Kathy muttered, watching a boy in a Chargers hoodie walk by her most dramatic poster without even slowing down. It showed a cartoon cow staring at a cafeteria tray. YOU EAT HER. SHE NEVER HAD A CHOICE. “They see this and then go shovel flesh into their mouths? It’s madness.”
The madness followed her to the food trucks that lined the street outside the school on Fridays. One was a bright green vegan truck called Green Eats, its chalkboard menu full of things like jackfruit tacos and black bean sliders. The other, parked fifty feet away, was Grill & Give, the Robertsons’ truck, its smoker sending up an aroma so rich it seemed to grab people by the nose.
Kathy stepped between them, eyes narrowing at the line snaking away from Grill & Give’s window.
“You should be ashamed of yourselves,” she snapped at Jimmy’s parents as they handed a paper boat of ribs to a construction worker. “You slaughter innocent animals for profit.”
“Good to see you too, Ms. K,” Mr. Robertson said, tired but polite. “Want to try the coleslaw? No animals were harmed in the making.”
“Not even funny,” she said. “Your ‘give’ is just a marketing trick. Grill and give heart disease, maybe.”
“Okay, it’s none of your business,” Jimmy muttered, face hot as his classmates watched.
Kathy whirled on him. “It’s every living thing’s business when lives are being traded for money.”
The line shifted away from her. At the Green Eats truck, a health teacher named Beverly was licking her fingers, eyes wide.
“Oh my goodness,” Beverly said. “This is incredible. I had no idea vegan food could taste this good. There should be a line around the block.”
“The vegan community around here is still small,” the woman at the window said. “We’re actually losing money running this truck. But our owner keeps funding it. They believe in the mission.”
“If only every food truck owner was like that,” Kathy sighed loudly, just as Jimmy walked by.
Later that afternoon, outside a local grocery store, Kathy dropped coins into the cup of a man sitting on the sidewalk, his back against the building.
“So long as you use this for vegan food, I’ll give you more next time,” she said.
He frowned, then smiled politely. “I don’t pay for food,” he said, holding up a crumpled paper wrapper. “The folks from Grill & Give bring us boxes every Sunday. Tell them thanks for me.”
Kathy’s mouth snapped shut.
That night, she lay awake in her small apartment, staring at the glow-in-the-dark stars she’d stuck to the ceiling years ago. On her nightstand, a photo of her and her brother Robert smiled up at her: two kids at a Fourth of July barbecue in some long-ago Midwestern backyard, him stealing her hot dog bun.
He’d been gone for three years now. Heart attack. Forty-two. The doctors had said “family history” and “stress” and “cholesterol,” and all Kathy had heard was bacon bacon bacon.
She’d cut meat out of her life that same week.
She hadn’t been able to cut out regret.
“I promised Mom I’d look out for him,” she whispered, tracing Robert’s laughing face. “I should have tried harder.”
Instead, she tried harder with everyone else.
The day everything blew up started with free food.
The Grill & Give truck had a big banner strung across the top: GRILL & GIVE THANKSGIVING—FREE MEAL WITH EVERY DONATION TO BOOKSIDE HIGH.
The smell of smoke and brown sugar hung over the parking lot like a cloud. Kids swarmed the truck, waving five-dollar bills, dropping change into a clear plastic tub marked FALL BALL FUND.
Next to them, Green Eats had a handwritten sign: PAY WHAT YOU CAN. NO ONE TURNED AWAY.
“We’re donating any unsold food to the school,” the Green Eats owner told Kathy when she came by. “Maybe if the cafeteria staff serve plant-based chicken for a day, the kids will realize they like it.”
Lightning flickered behind Kathy’s eyes. “Educational,” she said. “I like the sound of that.”
She convinced the cafeteria manager to accept the donation—“It’s just a taste test,” she said sweetly—and the next day, Bookside High unknowingly became ground zero for what the internet would later call Veggie-Gate.
At first, it seemed like a hit.
“Hey, this chicken tastes different,” a boy named George said, licking barbecue sauce off his fingers. “But, like… good different.”
“Yeah,” another kid agreed. “Not as greasy. I kind of like it.”
From his spot near the milk coolers, Jimmy watched the smiles, his own tray full of nuggets. “Maybe Ms. K was right about some things,” he admitted under his breath.
Kathy floated around the room like a proud general.
“Take a look around,” she whispered to June and Paige. “Everybody loves the food, don’t you think?”
“I mean, yeah,” Paige said. “It’s fine.”
“Fine?” Kathy whispered back. “It’s plant-based. No blood. No suffering. No cholesterol bomb. Different is good, George,” she called out as he passed. “What’s different is you don’t have blood on your breath.”
“This isn’t meat?” one girl asked, her fork halfway to her mouth. “It’s, like, fake?”
“A plant-based substitute,” Kathy corrected. “Isn’t it amazing? Imagine their faces when we tell them. Their minds will be blown. We’ll gain allies. We’ll be folk heroes.”
There were a couple of problems with the plan.
First, no one had told the kids what they were eating.
Second, no one had checked every ingredient.
A thin, freckled boy at the end of the table paused, fork in midair. His name was Ryan, and he wore a medic-alert bracelet for a reason.
“Uh, Ms. K?” he said faintly. “Is there soy in this?”
“Just plants,” she said, waving a hand. “You’re saving lives.”
“My stomach doesn’t feel so good,” another girl moaned.
Thirty seconds later, the first chair scraped back as a student bolted for the bathroom.
“This isn’t real meat?” someone shouted, staring at the burger in horror. “They gave me a vegan patty? They lied to us!”
“What is wrong with you?!” another voice screamed.
A carton of almond milk flew. A spoonful of mashed potatoes followed. In less than a minute, the Bookside cafeteria devolved into a full-scale food fight: nuggets, faux chicken, fries, salad, all of it sailing through the air.
“Stop! Stop!” Kathy yelled, ducking as a roll whizzed past her ear. “This isn’t helping anyone!”
“Ms. Klemper!” Principal Barnes roared from the doorway, speckled with gravy. “In my office. Now.”
By the time the first student’s TikTok hit For You pages across the country, the caption was already decided:
our whole school just got VEGAN CATFISHED 💀
The video reached a million views before last period.
Parents called. Local news stations emailed. The district office left three increasingly worried voicemails on Jerry Barnes’ phone.
He spent his entire evening answering questions about consent, allergens, and why students at a public high school in the United States of America had been tricked into eating tofu.
The next morning, Kathy stood in his office, hands clasped so tightly her knuckles were white.
“You know how many calls I’ve gotten about Veggie-Gate?” he asked, sliding his glasses off and setting them on the desk. “From parents. From the district. From strangers with very strong opinions about burgers.”
“I was just trying to—”
“Save the animals,” he finished. “I know. I’ve heard you from down the hall at least once a day for the last three years. I respect that you care. I do. But you are out of line, Kathy. Throwing away student lunches? Swapping meat for vegan food without telling anyone? Putting kids with allergies at risk? You can’t do that. Not here. Not anywhere.”
She stared at a spot above his shoulder, jaw tight.
“This is your final warning,” he said. “I can’t keep sticking my neck out for you. The next thing, the next complaint, and I won’t be able to save your job.”
As if on cue, his secretary knocked and poked her head in. “A student from the Environmental Club wants to know if they can change the music for the Fall Ball,” she said.
“If they want to change anything big like that, they need to run a poll,” Jerry said, rubbing his temples. “If they get two-thirds of the students to vote yes, I’ll sign off.”
Kathy’s eyes flickered.
“Would that apply to… food changes?” she asked.
“I suppose,” he said slowly. “In theory. But after yesterday, I’d prefer if we left the menu alone for a while.”
She smiled thinly. “Of course.”
The Environmental Club’s table in the quad looked hopeful and small: a posterboard with a polar bear painted on it, a stack of petitions, Paige’s carefully lettered ENVIRONMENTAL CLUB banner drooping in the heat.
“No one’s going to sign this after yesterday,” George muttered, staring at the subject line: SHOULD BOOKSIDE HIGH GO FULLY VEGAN?
“If we could get them past the packaging,” Paige said, “if they could see the animals, see the impact—”
“We need this,” June groaned, slumping onto the bench. “If I don’t have something big for my Yale application, I’m done.”
Kathy set down a box of pamphlets. “Who says no one’s going to sign?” she asked. “We just need to be… persuasive.”
The next morning, when students filed into homeroom, a ballot awaited each of them: SHOULD BOOKSIDE HIGH GO FULLY VEGAN NEXT SEMESTER? YES / NO.
By lunchtime, the box in the office was full.
By that afternoon, there were more ballots in the box than there were students enrolled at Bookside.
The Environmental Club did not know that. They only knew that, when the morning announcements crackled on the next day, Principal Barnes sounded shocked.
“Based on your votes,” he said, clearing his throat, “the cafeteria will be going fully vegan beginning next month. Believe me, I’m just as surprised as you are. But we’re here to listen to the voice of the people. Special thanks to the Environmental Club for all their hard work.”
In the cafeteria, June leapt from her seat.
“We did it!” she cried. “I’m not a failure after all!”
Across town, in a rented warehouse where the Grill & Give truck was parked, Jimmy’s mom stared at an invoice for the school’s Thanksgiving Fall Ball.
They had already bought the meat. Briskets, turkeys, ribs, all of it stacked in industrial freezers.
“We already spent money,” she whispered. “We were counting on this.”
An hour later, Jerry met them in front of their truck, hands spread in an apologetic gesture.
“I’m so sorry,” he said. “The students voted to go fully vegan. We can’t serve barbecue at the Fall Ball anymore.”
“But this is our most important event of the year,” Mr. Robertson said, trying to keep his voice level. “We plan around it.”
“I know,” Jerry said. “If it were up to me—”
“It was up to you,” Kathy said behind him, arms folded. “And you chose murder over mercy.”
Jerry stared at her. “Kathy,” he said slowly, “not now.”
She smiled, but there was no warmth in it. “Justice is served,” she murmured as the Robertsons walked back to their truck.
It didn’t feel like justice later that week when she saw Green Eats being chained to a tow truck.
“What are you doing?” she cried, running toward the scene. “You can’t shut this down. This is the only vegan truck around. I need your help to save Thanksgiving!”
“You’ll have to talk to the owners,” the driver said. “Orders are orders.”
The Green Eats owners—an older couple in matching T-shirts—stood off to the side, shoulders slumped.
“Why?” Kathy demanded. “Why are you closing? Your food is fantastic. This is exactly what this community needs.”
“We don’t want to,” the woman said gently. “We can’t afford to keep it open. We were using profits from Grill & Give to cover this truck, hoping it would catch on. The Fall Ball would have helped a lot. But now…” She spread her hands helplessly. “We can’t pay for both.”
Kathy stared at them, the words not computing. “You… own both?”
“My husband was vegan for almost ten years,” the woman said. “Still would be if his doctor hadn’t recommended a change. A vegan diet works for a lot of people. Just not him. We figured we’d cook both kinds of food. Let people taste and decide.” She shrugged. “We feed the homeless from both trucks. We call that one Grill & Give. Kind of our thing.”
Kathy thought of the man with the cup outside the grocery store. Of the way she’d assumed one thing and been wrong.
“Even something good becomes sour when you try to shove it down people’s throats,” Beverly had told her once, wiping vegan barbecue sauce off her chin.
Kathy hadn’t listened.
Now, watching the chain tighten around the green truck’s wheels, listening to the engine of the tow truck rumble to life, she finally heard the words.
“Wait,” she blurted. “It’s not too late. I think I know how to save both trucks. And maybe my job. But I need a favor.”
Fall Ball at Bookside High was supposed to be a picture-perfect American school event: paper leaves taped to the gym walls, a DJ playing Top 40 hits, kids in semi-formal outfits taking selfies under a banner that said THANKFUL FOR FRIENDS.
Instead, it smelled like undercooked tofu and panic.
“This tastes weird,” one boy muttered, poking his mushroom-based roast.
“This isn’t like that other vegan stuff,” a girl complained. “The truck food was good. This tastes like socks.”
In the kitchen, the cafeteria cook looked ready to cry. “I’m trying my best,” he told Kathy. “But I’ve never attempted half these recipes before, and we don’t even have all the right ingredients.”
“You’re not cooking,” she told him, forcing a smile. “You’re saving lives. Now stir with purpose.”
By nine o’clock, the complaints had turned into a chorus.
“Way to go,” someone shouted. “You ruined Thanksgiving!”
“Why is everyone blaming us?” June demanded, hovering near the punch table with Paige and George. “They’re the ones who voted for it.”
Except they weren’t. Not really.
On Monday morning, a copy of the ballot box contents appeared on Jerry Barnes’ desk. Next to it was a class roster. The numbers did not add up.
“There are more votes than students,” he said slowly, looking up at Kathy. “Do you want to explain that?”
She opened her mouth, closed it again, and sat down.
By lunchtime, the entire student body had gathered in the auditorium, murmurs bouncing off the rafters. The stage was decorated with cardboard pumpkins from the Fall Ball. The smell of failed vegan gravy still lingered in the air.
Kathy stepped up to the microphone.
She’d never looked smaller.
“I know a lot of you hate me right now,” she began. “Honestly, I don’t blame you.”
A wave of boos rolled across the room. She lifted a hand.
“Please,” she said. “Just… hear me out.”
Silence settled in, uneasy and thin.
“As some of you know, I was very close with my brother,” she said. “His name was Robert. He was my best friend. We spent almost every day together growing up in the Midwest, arguing over video games, stealing each other’s fries. He loved barbecue. Loved it. Even after his doctor told him he needed to cut back.”
Her throat tightened. She swallowed.
“Three years ago, he had a heart attack. He died two days before his birthday. I was there in the hospital when they tried to bring him back. The doctors told me it was our genes. Our family history. Stress. They said meat was a factor, but not the only one.” She took a shaky breath. “I didn’t care. I was angry. I wanted something simple to hate. So I picked meat.”
She scanned the rows. Even the kids in the back row had stopped whispering.
“I couldn’t save my brother,” she said. “So I decided I was going to save everyone else instead. I went vegan overnight. I read every article, watched every documentary. I started seeing burgers as murder weapons. Steaks as loaded guns. Every time I saw someone eat meat, it felt like watching Robert smoke a cigarette in front of me. Like betrayal.”
She looked down at her hands. They weren’t shaking now. They were steady.
“So I pushed,” she said. “I pushed my students. I pushed the cafeteria. I pushed the administration. I threw away lunches. I forced food on you without asking. I rigged a vote. I told myself the ends would justify the means. That savings lives was worth bending the rules. That what I was doing was noble.”
She looked up again. “But I wasn’t saving anyone. I was just building walls between me and the very people I wanted to help.”
The auditorium was so quiet you could hear the hum of the air conditioner.
“I realize now that meat didn’t kill my brother,” she said quietly. “His choices did. Our choices did. And even if I got every meat option banned from this school, it wouldn’t bring him back. I used my grief as an excuse to control people. To judge them. To hurt them.” She took a breath. “I’m sorry.”
The doors at the back of the auditorium opened. The Robertsons slipped in, still in their Grill & Give shirts. The Green Eats owners stood beside them, hands clasped.
“I’m sorry I pushed my values on you,” Kathy continued. “I’m sorry I rigged the poll. I’m sorry I ruined your lunch, and your Fall Ball, and your trust. And if my actions cost me my job, that’s something I’ll have to live with.”
Jerry shifted in his chair on the side of the stage, expression unreadable.
“I know it doesn’t make up for what I did,” Kathy said, “but I’ve been thinking a lot about what my brother would have wanted. He wouldn’t have wanted a war. He would have wanted options.”
She gestured toward the wings.
“The Robertsons have both of their food trucks parked outside right now,” she said. “Serving what I’m pretty sure is the best barbecue and the best vegan food in this city. And it’s all on me. I used the stipend from the Fall Ball to pay for it. You can eat ribs, you can eat jackfruit, you can eat salad, you can eat nothing. You can try something new. Or not. That’s your choice. This time, I’m actually going to respect that.”
For a second, no one moved.
Then George, of all people, jumped to his feet and started clapping.
It spread, row by row, until the sound of applause filled the room.
Outside, the lines at Grill & Give and Green Eats were equally long. Kids who’d sworn off tofu were biting into vegan brisket and blinking in shock. Football players who’d made fun of “rabbit food” were loading their plates with roasted vegetables.
“This tastes just like real meat,” one girl said, chewing. “If no one told me, I’d have no idea.”
“That’s the idea,” the Green Eats owner said, laughing. “Welcome to options.”
By the time the last kid had licked the last bit of sauce off their fingers, the sun was sinking behind the palm trees and the American flag in front of Bookside High fluttered in the warm November breeze.
That evening, Jerry found Kathy sitting alone in her classroom, stacking the last of her protest posters into a box.
“I’m guessing you’re here to fire me,” she said without looking up.
“Your actions were unacceptable,” he said. “If you do anything like that again, I won’t be able to protect you. You know that.”
“I know,” she said. “And I’ll pack my things.”
“But,” he added, “you also took responsibility. Publicly. You found a way to fix what you broke—well, most of it. And whether I agree with your methods or not, this school needs teachers who care as much as you do.” He leaned against the doorframe. “So I’m willing to give you another chance.”
She stared at him. “You are?”
“On one condition,” he said. “You stop calling me a mass murderer in the staff room.”
A reluctant smile tugged at her mouth. “Deal.”
“Oh, and one more thing,” he said, holding up a sheet of paper. “We ran a new poll. A real one this time. No extra ballots. Thirty percent of the students said they’d be open to trying a limited vegan menu. Not a full change. Just options. Enough to justify adding a new line in the cafeteria.”
He handed her the paper. At the bottom, under a list of menu items, someone had scrawled a name.
THE ROBERT SPECIAL.
“We thought it would be a good way to honor your brother,” Jerry said. “And to honor what you’re actually fighting for, when you’re not throwing people’s hot dogs away.”
Kathy blinked fast.
“Two trucks,” she whispered. “Two menus. One choice.”
“Welcome to America,” he said. “We kind of like choices around here.”
Outside, the Grill & Give truck and the Green Eats truck sat side by side in the fading California light, smoke and spice and roasted vegetables drifting over the parking lot. Jimmy handed a plate across one window; a vegan taco crossed the other.
Between them, kids in Bookside High hoodies laughed, ate, and argued about which truck was better.
For the first time in a long time, Kathy felt something loosen in her chest.
She couldn’t change the past. She couldn’t save her brother.
But maybe, just maybe, she could learn how to save something else:
Her passion.
Her students’ trust.
And a place at the table—for everyone.
