The Impossible Stories of the Tea Shop
or
Azula - Just an Average Normal Girl
Karo sat at the Pai Sho table at the back of the tea shop and wrung his hair through his hands.
Azula walked up to the Pai Sho table and looked down at Karo as he banged his head against his book.
"You have met your Sozin's Comet?" Azula pulled out a chair and sat down: "your final and impossible battle?"
Karo banged his head. "I turned to the back of the book and if my answer to Problem 6 is correct, then the core of our Sun would explode."
"Let me have a look." Azula motioned with her hand. "Show me your work."
Karo handed over his book and notepad.
"You had to turn to the back of the book for the solution for this problem?" Azula held his notes in her hand. "You should know the answer from elementary school mathematics. The formula for the volume of a sphere is four thirds pi radius cubed. This problem asks you to find out that formula using calculus which just involves evaluating that equation which is where you screwed up." Azula held up the paper. "You have to quit doing this by force and use that artistic brain to see the problems."
Zuko walked up to Karo and Azula very quietly and saw Azula jump out of her seat when he cleared his throat.
"Do you two want anything?" Zuko asked politely.
"I want to put a cow bell on you." Azula grabbed her chest. "I can imagine some ghosts might be louder than you!"
"I didn't wish to interrupt you two doing your homework." Zuko apologized.
"Are you dressed in the clothes of a Fire Nation merchant or are those your pajamas?" Azula gave Zuko a concerned look. "Mother warned me of your new found humility but I wasn't a true believer until now."
"I came to see Iroh and learn more about how to lead my people and learn humility." Zuko said patiently.
"I'm not yet a true believer."
"I'm sorry." Zuko decided to give up on the argument. Lady Ursa had warned him of Azula's dislike for anything she thought smelled of social insincerity and had warned him of her sarcasm. Zuko looked to Karo who had done nothing but stare at him. "I understand you are Azula's old friend - Karo Zhao."
Azula knew the traditional greeting for Karo should have involved a bow as Karo stood up and recognized Zuko's lofty social position but Azula had not explained this expectation to Karo. Karo had a rather democratic and egalitarian spirit and as a matter of policy recognized hard work not social inheritance as the keys to his respect. She spent a few moments waiting to see whether Karo would spit on Zuko and call him a 'self important brainless member of the effete Fire Nation upper classes' or something even less gracious. She studied the constellation of freckles below Karo's eyes and held her breath Karo shook hands as Zuko clumsily reached over and opened his hand in greeting. Karo leaned over to offer Zuko's hand and Azula feared he might set his arm on fire as he clumsily reached over the small candle on the table. "I'm sorry - uh yes I'm Karo Zhao."
Zuko had not expected the confidence in Karo's handshake and neither had Karo. The Henwa Archipelago had simply walked away from the Fire Nation only days after the end of the War. Avatar Aang had convinced Zuko to let them have their own nation: The Dominion. Karo had the kind of confidence the once humble collection of islands had acquired.
Karo had only a minute before he had to be in homeroom and rummaged his locker looking for his math text and the homework the math teacher had assigned.
Azula tapped him on the back. "You left your math book in the tea shop so you can quit panicking."
Karo closed the gray metal door with a slam and twirled the lock.
"You scored five out of the six problems and on the sixth you made a minor error." Azula handed him the book. "If we have multiple universes, then somewhere out there is a dreary place where your solution to that problem works out."
Karo took the book without a word.
"Come on," Azula patted his shoulder, "you have had a funk ever since you met Zuko and I want to know why."
"He's a manly man and I'm me." Karo said sadly as he trudged off with Azula to homeroom. "I have a week before I have to go to the Solstice Dance with Botan and I've never done anything cool or brave." Azula could feel Karo's shoulder's slump. "He is a year or two older than me and has gone all over the world and the furthest I've gone is the outer wall of this city."
"You have never done anything brave or cool. This is true. He spent much of his time fighting for my father." Azula sat down at their usual table just as the bell announcing homeroom went off. "He had some kind of epiphany and decided to abandon the Fire Nation and join up to train the Avatar and I don't trust epiphanies - they usually imply either a stroke or the onset of some kind of mental illness. I wouldn't take him as the measure of a man."
Karo raised his hand when he heard his name.
Azula did the same.
"His kind of heroism comes at too high a price." Azula whispered as the homeroom teacher read off more names. "I assume he has the same highly developed sense of guilt I have. When I was a little girl, I used to throw rocks at the turtle ducks in the garden. I still feel sorry for that. The sheer force at which a turtle duck bites haunts me today. I can't imagine having to deal with all the things my brother must have had to do under my father."
The bell for first period rang.
"I'm off to calculus bend." Karo held his textbook. "You once said you father said 'some are born lucky and some are lucky to be born'. I fall in that unhappy middle of the masses who are simply born for no reason."
"That is a hypothesis we can reject." Azula walked out the classroom with Karo. "Luck doesn't figure into it; life is a gift so we're all superlatively lucky. In the end, what matters is having lead a good life." Azula walked with Karo. "In the end, you, me, my brother and my father will have to account for how we used the gift, not our luck."
"Thanks." Karo smiled softly. "I'll see you at lunch."
The glass lamp hummed as the current surged through it. Azula minded the entire experimental apparatus as if it were a newborn in swaddling clothes. She had not noticed the knock a the door because the sound of the lamp drowned out almost everything and let off an odd crackling just to let the operator know it was operational. Azula had the problem of keeping the light out while letting the heat out. She had equipped the whole thing with a fan she had 'acquired' from a the school ventilation system but she couldn't satisfy herself that light wasn't leaking into the device by some means to do with the fact the sodium lamp needed air flowing over it or it would die in an enclosed space.
This explained why the oblong shaped sodium lamp lay in a cardboard box on the floor with its ballast and Azula had a loud hum coming out of a red neon bulb as she tinkered with it. She touched a live wire, the hum grew in loudness and died out and then Azula let out a yelp and a series of four letter words.
Azula saw someone standing in the door as she danced and ground her teeth and used everything in her lexicon of swearwords.
'Numb arm getting feeling back' and 'Fire Lord guy' fluttered through her mind.
Zuko cleared his throat.
"Now I see." Azula stopped jumping. "You came to see me blunder."
"No...I came to see what you did in your spare time."
Azula walked up to Zuko and gave him a look of utter disbelief. "Again, you came to see me blunder. Much of the method in science involves surviving the scientific method. How do we know the Law of Gravitation wasn't discovered by some nameless Fire Nation peasant who tested it by dropping anvils on his head?" Azula raised her eyebrow. "I know the sting of 240 volt 50 hertz electrical current very well. You don't have the look of someone interested in the verities of the physical universe."
Zuko stood in the doorway. "Karo said you'd be working here."
"Welcome to Northwoods High School." Azula clenched her left hand. "One of the last things I remember when I left the Fire Nation was my father saying that I couldn't become a proficient fire bender because of my epilepsy."
"My father wasn't a decent man." Zuko said sadly. "I didn't realize that until it was almost too late."
"Your description of his personality makes minimalist art seem positively baroque. I left with mom in the middle of the night on a small Fire Nation destroyer. We landed near Ba Sing Se under the cover of fog after two weeks at sea. A carriage met the two of us and took us to a refugee camp." Azula paced the lab like a mad scientist. "He made sure mom had money but we spent weeks in that camp until the Earth Kingdom let us in as 'political refugees' from what used to be called the Henwanese Islands - now the Dominion of Suihan."
"I thought you and Karo were a couple." Zuko said with concern. "I found him spending time in the gym with girls in skimpy outfits."
"That would be our cheer leading squad." Azula smacked her hand against her forehead. "Karo and their leader are going out; we're just good friends." Azula kept the look of annoyance on her face. "Karo does the banners for our sports teams and he also referees for the basketball and volleyball teams - he's a big sports fan."
Karo shook his head as he picked up a flier from the stack that sat in a stand at the front of the neighborhood S - Mart. "Shop Smart - Shop S - Mart." Karo looked at Zuko. "I got a gift card for my birthday so I want to buy a few things."
"You shop here regularly?" Zuko had never seen the inside of an S - Mart. Shelves of merchandise piled up to beyond his reach and aisle upon aisle of cheap merchandise from books to bolts in bins in the main aisles of the store offered up the promise of Blue Light Specials.
"Most of the upper class of the nobility wouldn't be caught dead in an S Mart but then again where can you buy both the cow and the milking machine to milk it? This store is bigger than most caravan parks." Karo bragged. "The Fire Nation and Omashu have nothing on this temple of retail. The Northern Water Tribe have an S - Mart opening next year. Did I mention you can buy a caravan here but then you have to find some part of the city zoned for a caravan park?"
"You haven't traveled much?" Zuko said impatiently as Karo hovered over a bin of discount books.
"We had a large army parked in divisions around the outer wall of the city." Karo gave up on any hopes of finding anything in the book bin. "We found they made travel a royal pain."
"Sorry." Zuko apologized. Lady Ursa had asked Karo to take Zuko with him to go shopping. Zuko had found the bleak and cold weather of Ba Sing Se a bummer and so Karo took Fire Lord Zuko on a trip to his favorite place to buy cheap junk.
"Shop Smart, Shop S - Mart!" Karo said with some affection as he held up two gift cards. "With all the comings and goings, Azula and my mom didn't have time to have a proper birthday so they gave me gift cards. I have several hundred pounds and a few shillings in cash and fifty pounds in gift cards. My eye glasses broke and I need a new pair anyway so you will get to sit in the S - Mart Eye Doctor's office while I get an eye exam. See Smart Shop S - Mart."
"The pair you have on looks fine."
Karo took his glasses off. This is my spare, emergency pair that I got a few years ago and that gives me migraines because the costly optician bungled my lenses. I'm taking you to the pet department first. My cat passed away this summer. He wasn't my cat, he came with the house but I liked him so I want to find a nice pet."
Zuko looked at the rack of bikes and bike supplies and eyed a nice red model with go fast pin striping.
"Do you have a bike?"
"One doesn't have a bike in Ba Sing Se." Karo turned one of the wheels on a nice green ten speed. "One has a bike between thefts of said bike. I had a bike and a week after my cat died, someone took the bike, the lock and the pole I had it locked to." Karo gave his cousin a confused look. "Why did you come on this little shopping excursion?"
"Mom thought I should get to know you better." Zuko followed Karo past the tanks of fish. "I think she wants me to meet a normal well adjusted teenage boy. I've never had the life of an average normal teenager."
"I have no idea I ranked as normal or any of the other words you piled on after that." Karo stood and watched the fish in a large display tank. "I thought I was the nervous and somewhat dopey sidekick. I have a date with the leader of the cheer leading squad and I have swallowed more of that pink stomach medicine than is wise. I talk too much and your sister nearly blew me up." Karo found himself in front of a trio of flying lemurs.
"How did you survive?" Zuko displayed his mastery of that same sarcasm that had made Azula charm so many.
Karo wasn't paying attention, he was making faces at a cage full of lemurs.
"A flying lemur? Looks like an interesting pet." Karo stood in front of a cage with three lemurs. One happy little creature came up to Karo and Zuko and tried to reach through the bars to shake their hands.
"We have a two for one special on goats." A young man explained. "Of course if you get one of each sex, that could pay off for you."
"I was interested in a lemur." Karo answered. "The one trying to get my attention."
Karo adjusted his glasses. "I'll be back. I have an appointment with the S - Mart optician."
"Did you buy a lemur with your gift cards?" Azula had gotten drawn into a staring match with the lemur sitting on Karo's shoulder but the lemur seemed to have the game mastered. "That was a rhetorical question: I suppose they were your gift cards. I hope you had enough money to pay for your glasses." Azula pulled out a chair and sat down. "Why did my brother go shopping with you? Was the S - Mart everything he dreamed of?"
"Next time you want to punish me, send me on an outing with your brother." Karo pined. "He will make some therapist rich. Until then, he has all the quiet charm of a paper cut." Karo waved his hand in front of his new lemurs eyes. "Why did he want to Shop Smart and Shop S - mart?" Karo sat at their tea shop table. "He walked around the store with me, watched me buy a lemur and a book on caring for lemurs and then read magazines while I went to the eye doctor. He said it was because I was normal."
"My mom thinks you're a nice young man and she thinks Zuko needs to have more time talking to normal teenagers." Azula explained as she held her right eye open with her hands. "My mom has a thing for finding decent role models for her kids." Azula held her gaze as she wondered if lemurs had the genes for blinking and began to realize the game was pointless if the lemur didn't blink.
"At present, my best friend and my new pet are have a staring contest." Karo scratched his head. "Two primates separated by seven levels on the primate evolutionary tree actually find staring contests freakishly amusing; this by you is 'normal'?"
"I think your consumption of that pink stomach medicine may have elevated your blood bismuth levels beyond what you'd find in normal people." Azula decided to stare down the lemur. "You have a week until that dance and unlike most guys - you can dance." Azula tapped the table and stared at the eyes of the lemur. "Dancing isn't normal in guys or in your geeky science girls but that's my burden. Have courage."
"Right." Karo nodded to Iroh in order to order tea and a snack. "Does your uncle still sell those stale cookies?"
"Biscotti?" Azula had the beginnings of a headache. "You look so Fire nation I forget that you like Suihan food like stale cookies, pasta and that coffee stuff."
"I haven't read the lemur book yet; I have no idea if they take staring as an act of hostility." Karo had begun to feel his eyes water.
"Your new friend looks like he's hopped up on cocaine. He has huge vacant eyes and it's like staring at a teddy bear." Azula broke off the staring contest. "Have you picked a name."
"I like the name Mitsumi." Karo began to explain. "Suki noticed he has three white rings on his tail." Karo held out Mitsumi's tail for Azula to examine. "Three rings is Mitsumi in Kyoshinese."
Azula rubbed her eyes. "As someone who has less than perfect color perception; is it me or is his eyes a bright green or an off shade of brown?"
Karo smacked his head.
Azula had decided to give Karo something else to worry about, and teaching Zuko the Suihan language provided the right level of frustration to help him cope with the Solstice Dance and his first date coming in two days time.
Zuko had never learned much Suihan except for the kinds of catchphrases tourists and fans of Suihanese popular culture learned. When the War ended, the Henwanese Archipelago had become the independent nation of The Dominion of Suihan. At the very least, this had reduced the number of Suihan speakers from three quarters of the Fire Nation to a third. That Suihan minority living in the southern provinces still required pandering.
Azula stroked Mitsumi's back as she sat at the Pai Sho table. She enjoyed the contrast between Karo who had learned Suihan as a toddler and believed Suihan was 'common sense' and Zuko who had no idea what a declension did.
Karo had begun to realize he had no idea what a declension did and that meant he couldn't explain it but like any native speaker of a complex, sprawling language; he understood fully when someone else cocked up the spoken language. He had modeled the proper grammar and pronunciation only to have Zuko flub it. Karo began to understand what those teaching victims of strokes to the language areas of the brain had to cope with. He knew exactly how Zuko had muffed up each of his sentences and yet could not give a full explanation of his discomfort.
"The lemur is on my head." Azula said as Karo had begun to ready his hand for another forehead smack. Azula pointed at Mitsumi as he chattered away and ate biscotti. "In some languages, like Suihan, the noun takes on an ending to express that kind of relationship. Karo has a feel for this system because he had learned it as a young child."
"Lady Mai has tried to learn this language." Zuko drummed his fingers on the table. "Don't ask how many knifes she threw at the wall trying to learn the anti - passive."
"In the case where the head of a phrase can be understood by context, the speaker can delete it." Azula smiled wickedly knowing the concept gave everyone problems in learning the Suihan language. "You often hear people say 'no big thing' or 'no big deal'. In Suihan, you can say 'no big', if we all understand you mean 'no big deal'. This sums up the anti - passive."
Zuko gave both Azula and Karo a long blank look.
"Doesn't the Fire Nation have a Foreign Office?" Karo felt Mitsumi climb up on his shoulder and look at his head. While flying lemurs had charming personalities; they had bad breath. Karo smelled a hint of banana and spider in Mitsumi's warm breath. "Why not have some young stooge learn the language for you and then he translates when you speak?"
"Do you want a job in the Foreign Office?" Zuko asked Karo.
"I have a dance in two days." Karo replied with a hint of regret that having a new career in diplomacy might actually be a good excuse to dodge the dance. "I couldn't disappoint Botan and I won't work for your country out of principle."
"What principle is that?" Zuko asked carefully.
"The Fire Nation staged a war that nearly destroyed the world." Karo gave Mitsumi a scratch on the back. "Add to that the fact the Dominion pays its Foreign Service personnel much higher wages. A clear conscience and more money is always better than a troubled conscience and a pittance."
Zuko decided against sitting with Karo, Azula and Botan at their lunch table.
He didn't fit in with high school students. He looked through the windows in the orange double doors of the lunchroom and walked down the hallway.
"Does the Nipponese Emperor Gizboan the Flatulent, er the Third have any real power?" Azula had the newspaper on the table and a bowl of cooling school issue Komodo Chicken ramen noodles on a metal tray to her right side. "He opened the Nipponese parliament yesterday with a long speech about uniting all the Nipponese Islands including Kyoshi Island into a new 'power for all the ages'."
Karo folded his banana into the wax paper, held it up to take a shot at the rubbish bin, then gave up when Lunch Lady Lee gave him 'the look'. "That was close. Lunch Lady Lee likes giving out detentions." He placed the wax paper, banana ball neatly to one side. "Does Kyoshi Island know this?"
Azula kept reading and looked up. "Evidently they have agreed so long as they can retain their ancestral language - Kyoshinese." Azula looked down again. "As a province of the Nipponese Empire, they want to maintain their own cultural identity. I have no idea what that even means - probably because I never learned much about Kyoshi Island and their tradition of making beer out of horse urine. I wish I was making that up but the paper made mention of it."
"Zenbatko veginen iynen edjiven gipfeli - All my best wishes." Botan said. "I learned that as a child from a teacher I had from one of those islands."
"I find that since the War ended, I have to go look up some obscure part of the world in the atlas just to figure out where it is." Karo kept his hand over the wax paper covered banana in the event to make a shot on the rubbish bin presented itself.
"The Kyoshinese I heard sounds much less like - um - choking than what you said just now Botan." Azula muttered.
"They speak different languages from what I know." Botan answered humbly. "I know a half dozen phrases so..."
"I would have thought everyone on those islands spoke pretty much the same language but the Kyoshi Islanders sounded like hicks. Learn something new everyday." She rattled the newspaper. "I wonder how the Avatar plans to deal with all these new ethnic groups emerging into the world after the War. The Suihanese grab for independence has inspired a dozen other groups to make their own countries."
"Three points!" Karo grabbed the rolled up wax paper and banana ball. He had a good arm and sank the shot, but Lunch Lady Lee was the backboard.
"You should have tried out for the basketball team." Azula snickered.
"Karo Roku Zhao!" Lunch Lady Lee roared. "You have detention."
"You're missing basketball practice." Azula wandered into the classroom set aside for detention. Classroom 102 was situated so that the poor teacher in the staff lounge assigned to supervise detention could easily see any illegal activity in the hallway.
A blond haired tall boy sat in the back and sneezed.
"I've had detention before but usually because of your shenanigans." Karo pointed an accusatory finger at Azula. May I remind you of the famous 'she won't see me because I trained at the Royal Fire Academy for Girls?' incident last year?"
"The Royal Fire Academy for Girls didn't cover the proper strategy for stealing enough sugar packets to fill your pockets. Our family became leaders of the Fire Nation through a regimen of kissing up and sleeping around not merit in strategy or warfare. We recently posted a one hundred year loss in the score card for wars." Azula looked at her nails. "I told my mom to apply for a refund of my tuition for that place but my mom in her delicate but to the point humor informed me that my dad paid for the classes. Some people have a wry sense of humor, some people have a delicate sense of humor and Lunch Lady Lee has none whatsoever. Keep that in mind."
Karo turned his copy of 'The Prisoner - Free For All' graphic novel so to keep his page.
"I'm reading those all out of order." Azula announced. "That is the fourth in the series and I've read Checkmate! and Dance of the Dead but not Free for All."
"How did you get in here without getting caught?" Karo whispered.
"The fat woodworking teacher with the three missing fingers has the job of minding the detention hall and he's also minding a box of donuts." Azula leaned over the desk where Karo sat and read the cover of his book. "He didn't see me."
"I thought you had to help your mother at the tea shop." Karo leaned back in his chair. "With all your guests, your brother she must have a huge amount on her plate."
"Suki is waiting for us in the main hall." Azula pointed behind her. "I drew the job of taking her to the mall and teach her how to be a consumer so she can take the holy art of consumerism back down to Kyoshi Island."
"Shouldn't she start learning Nipponese?" Karo asked.
"Follow me...I'll get you out of here." Azula motioned for Karo to follow her.
"I can't leave detention!" Karo had heard a credible threat from the fat woodworking teacher: if anyone violated the rules of detention, he had a new health class film he wanted to screen.
Azula grabbed Karo's collar. "Mister Fat Choy !" She yelled. "I have to take Karo for an important doctor's appointment."
A bald head turned from the coffee machine. "Very well..." he waved dismissively with his three fingered right hand.
"Hi Karo." Suki said politely as she waited in the main hall. "Azula and I are going shopping. I thought you'd invite Botan."
"To come with me to my doctor?" Karo looked confused.
"You don't have a doctor's appointment." Azula scowled at Karo. "You saw him last week - remember the bruise on your left arm?"
"You lied again?" Karo looked over his shoulder.
"A useful skill at times." Azula turned to Suki. "I remind you I have bad color vision and in my tortured mind, red and green and yellow are much the same thing."
"And yet you rag on my fur hat." Karo complained. "You told me that I look like a moldy mushroom. I'll see if Botan wants to come with us."
"Ba Sing Se built the walls to keep the fur hat wearing people of the North out." Azula saw the tram coming down the street.
"An air mattress, a sleeping bag and a travel kit?" Botan queried Azula. "Are you going winter camping?"
"Our house is bursting at the seams with people I never met before." Azula stood next to Botan and waited for the Dears Department Store cashier to wave her forward. "I have decided to hold up in the Zhao's library so I can get some sleep."
"Did you plan to tell me about this?" Karo had his wallet out and forked over the money for something to cheer up his room - a lava lamp.
"I just did." Azula told Karo. "You haven't spent a week with relatives and my mother." She looked down at the lava lamp. "Did you get the right bulb for the lamp?"
The lady at the till explained helpfully as Karo shrugged: "You need a 25 watt light bulb. You'll find them in housewares."
Karo had a calm nature except when shopping when his cheap thrifty nature surfaced. "Do you price match with S - Mart?"
Azula smacked her forehead.
"I can get a dozen 25 watt light bulbs for a pound and eight shillings at S - Mart." Karo told the cashier.
"Each time we shop at S - Mart; I get to listen to him say 'where the hell are the damn light bulbs in this place' a dozen or so times." Azula complained. "If you wanted to actually save money, why did you buy a lava lamp?"
"It has the cool blue liquid with red globs and will complement the decor of my room." Karo handed the cash overt to the cashier and waited for the receipt.
"I hate S - Mart. Never shop in a retail outlet you can see from space." Azula muttered to Botan and Suki. "I swear they have to build that place to compensate for the curve of the planet." Azula waited for the cashier to ring up her purchases. Azula handed over the requisite cash and took the receipt. "I can also practice my bassoon without bothering anyone."
"Don't count on it." Karo took his bag with the lava lamp and Azula stepped forward. "My mom may not complain but she's threatened to shoot me or do unspeakable things to my back end with the oboe."
Suki had bought a couple of snow globes and a new, warmer green jacket. "I hear you and Karo are going to the Solstice Dance?"
"Most people fear death," Karo complained, "I have to dance with a cheer leader."
Karo's mother made no fuss about Azula staying over. Azula often stayed over for late night study sessions and had almost become a fixture around the house.
She was Karo's problem in any event.
Lady Zhao had anticipated this and had hidden all the delicate china.
Botan showed up to model a dress and had a cloth bag filled with a half dozen recordings in a rather thoughtful attempt to teach Karo to relax while dancing. "I promised Karo I'd come over and teach him a little about dancing after supper."
"The music player is in the library." Lady Zhao said as she answered the door and smiled at Botan. "Azula is staying with us because her house is full of relatives - just as a word of warning."
Botan placed the bag on the floor of the lobby of the house and she took her coat off.
Azula had met the music player before. The machine had a disk player and a device akin to a radio. During the War, the city of Ba Sing Se had developed the emergency public address system into a city wide network of state run news and information stations. Anyone willing to pay the connection fee and a monthly subscription had access to a dozen different stations through a cable. Ba Sing Se found this system useful for disseminating news and propaganda while the public enjoyed access to concerts and programs of variable quality. Many music players including the Zhao's combined the ability to receive wired radio and music player to lower the final price and move more units.
"As a loyal Public Broadcasting Network listener," the radio droned, "if you care to donate ten pounds, you'll receive the..." After the War, the state broadcaster cut funding to half the stations it had operated and while some tried to make money by selling advertising, the Public Broadcasting Network tried to beg people for the funding they needed.
Azula cut the volume when Botan politely knocked on the door.
"Is Karo here?" Botan opened the door and walked into the room and placed the bag of recordings on the wooden floor.
"Karo!?" Azula spoke loudly. "Botan is here and has recordings of dance music."
"Ah!" A cried came from Karo's bedroom. "I haven't finished plucking my eyebrows!"
Karo felt a tugging on his night robe.
"What is it this time?" Karo asked in a dreary way. "I took you out for a walk three hours ago."
"Move over." Azula asked tersely. "Did you know your mom turns down the heat at night?"
"You can talk?" Karo asked in his confusion.
"Last time I checked." Azula countered. "Give me some room - I'm freezing. Shove over!"
"We can't sleep in the same bed - we're not married!" Karo sat up.
"Canada geese are dropping out of the skies frozen solid." Azula admitted. "Come on, the room temperature would make a Martian shiver. The frostbite has begun to set in and carbon dioxide has begun to freeze out of the atmosphere." Azula sat on the edge of Karo's bed. "Do you snore?"
"Not that I ever noticed. Grab some covers." Karo resigned himself to the situation. "I've never had a girl in my bed before. I have a deep moral foreboding about this."
"You have a lemur sleeping on your head." Azula lay down and pulled the blankets over her head. "Go to sleep. Your 'glow in the dark' clock says it's one in the morning. That clock uses the decay of radium to make the green light and so you may lack the ability to do anything inappropriate."
Azula had long known she had restless leg syndrome - a rather unremarkable syndrome except to Karo. She kept kicking him and as the green dial of his clock pointed at the twelve and the four, he finally fell out of bed.
Azula heard the thump.
Mitsumi the Lemur snorted.
"My new lava lamp casts a hideous and useless glow over my room." Karo yawned. "You know you snore - loudly."
"Has Kim Probable found a date to the dance?" A voice spoke from the door of the physics lab that had become Azula's home base.
"Kim Probable?" Azula raised an eyebrow at Botan standing in the door.
"You play in the realm of the very, very small," Botan smiled, "and aren't things that small, very hard to measure? One might say improbable?" Botan wasn't a stupid woman. Azula's work had quietly gained attention and some notice among physicists at Ba Sing Se. Botan knew Azula as a smartass, but one with a meek and self deprecating side. The appearance of a few white bearded professors at the school seeking Azula had hinted at something important. Karo had explained that Azula had ended up with a totally improbable result for her science project but he claimed he wasn't up to the maths to fully explain it. The student body had taken her last name 'Kai' and played with it until Azula had become nicknamed 'Kim Probable' because of this.
Azula cracked her back and inhaled: "'My experiment has been performed before. I merely brought it up to date. I have filters that allow only one or two photons to pass through the device at one time. The previous experiments measured the behavior of masses of photons. I found a way of detecting which slit the single photon passed through and I have a heap of slides and data. I have no idea how to make sense of them." Azula wondered if Botan or Karo understood the real shock horror of her findings if they held up: if she hadn't made a mistake, bungled the experiment or simply had a defect in the construction of the whole thing.
"Does that mean you don't have a date to the dance?" Botan pointed her finger at Azula. "I think Karo's nervous. He doesn't know this is my first date and I'm nervous."
Azula held up a slide to the light of the window. "In science as in life, honesty has value. Tell him how you feel and that will put him at ease." Azula placed the slide on a pile. "In my case, as a teenage girl, if I tell the upper echelon of physics what I discovered: they won't believe me. If I believe my results, then I have to be honest." She turned to talk with Botan. "If I have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains however improbable must be the truth." She smiled at Botan. "I read a lot of detective novels."
"Thanks." Botan said warmly. "I have to head home and get ready for the dance."
Twenty minutes later as Azula had her eyes on another exposed glass plate; she heard someone at the lab door.
"It's supposed to do that when you're dancing - I think." Azula said dismissively. "I don't qualify as a guidance counselor or your mom. Go to them for the trivial facts of life."
"I wanted your opinion of my dress." Botan's voice answered firmly back.
"I wear boxers so don't take my opinions on fashion as authoritative." Azula turned around. "I will tell you that dress does show off your um - assets very nicely."
"Do you think my dress is nice, flatters me and will impress men?" Botan had an olive green silk dress with gold trim which did flatter her. "Will Karo find it pleasing?"
"He can be oblivious to those kinds of details.." Azula answered back smartly.
"I bought this dress last year but never had a chance to wear it because I didn't have a date." Botan walked nervously around the lab. "So you think it looks good on me?"
"If I were a cute cheerleader, I'd wear that to a dance." Azula pointed a finger at Botan. "I have a question: I thought cheerleaders had no problem getting a date. Why did you pick Karo. Not to say he's not a stud with his reddish hair, freckles, glasses and the manly way he freaks out when he sees mice. He wouldn't be the horse I would choose as breeding stock although I'd keep him around because he'd be good with kids."
"Not every guy is as sweet as Karo." Botan cupped her hands. "He's cute and smart and he treats me like a person not like a cheerleader or a dingbat."
Azula held a small jewelers magnifier to her eye and looked at one of her photographic plates. "You are a cheerleader."
"Guys see me as all body and no mind." Botan protested. "I love cheer-leading but I could do without senior football players hitting on me or telling me I have a gorgeous butt." Botan looked up at Azula. "Have you ever felt the humiliation of having your rear end smacked?"
Azula held the magnifier in her hand. "Guys don't pay attention to me."
"I wouldn't say that." Botan smiled coyly. "I have heard a few guys call you cute but scary."
Karo came by the lab twenty minutes after Botan left.
"Did you know your uncle gave me this to wear in case I go too far?" Karo held up a paper envelope.
"Something to do with postal fraud?" Azula looked at the yellow envelope.
"He gave me two condoms so I don't get Botan pregnant." Karo opened the yellow envelope.
Azula coughed and steadied herself on the lab table. "Good old Uncle Iroh wants you to get lucky?"
"I'm a gentleman!" Karo said emphatically. "I've never even kissed a woman except for my mother." Karo's voice grew quiet. "If she finds out I have one testicle she'll think I'm a freak!"
Azula scratched the back of her neck. "Beats having more than two or having my boy chest with the peach fuzz. My uncle has odd ways of showing how he cares including giving me advice on dealing with menstrual cramps. I got the 'beauty of nature and the wonders of entering my child bearing years' lecture."
"Not helping." Karo tossed the envelope on the lab table. "I can barely keep my knees from knocking. I have such a bad case of nerves I'm not capable of coherent thought let alone hanky panky."
Azula held up her hand. "I have the sense you really need to talk about your feelings. I need a coffee so why not follow me on a stroll to the vending machine and give me the change I need to get a vending machine coffee."
"I had a dream last night that during the spotlight dance, I had no clothes on." Karo followed Azula out of hte lab. "Do you know I had to check this morning to make sure I worn had pants. I even wore my lucky 'Don't Panic' boxers."
"You have 'Don't Panic' boxers?" Azula strolled down the hall. "I like the idea of having wise words on my underwear instead of the itchy tag."
"In large friendly letters." Karo added, "When you're all alone in the Universe, you need to have boxers that have crucial advice written on them."
"I have my red boxers with the little white cupids on them." Azula stomped down the stairs. "I think you'll win the prize for turning yourself into knots over the small stuff. You have a date with a not so bad, cute cheer leader who came to talk to me a half hour ago because she was nervous. Have fun and enjoy the company of a nice person."
Katara found Azula in the lab with two helium inflated gray condoms. Azula had the blackboard pointer and had the inflated condoms moving in a clockwise circle around the central light fixture.
Katara rapped on the door frame.
"I came to meet you." Katara said politely. "Your brother told me you'd be here working on your science fair project."
"I have to have a word with my uncle." Azula prodded one of the inflated condoms out of the corner of the room. "You don't look like our janitor. Who are you."
"Katara of the..."
One of the condoms exploded into gray debris and fell to the ground.
"Southern Water Tribe."
"Azula - Zuko's little sister." Azula pointed the wooden pointer at her forehead. "You came to see me?"
"I met all of Zuko's family but we haven't had a chance to get to know each other." Katara smiled sweetly. "Did I come by at an awkward time? You look busy."
"Sarcasm," Azula pointed the wooden pointer at Katara, "a good trait in a person."
"If I fail to achieve my goal of becoming a physicist; I'll turn to aerospace engineering."
The second condom blew up.
"And latex condoms do not make a good material for dirigibles." Azula stared at the floor at the destroyed latex condoms. "As a layperson; you don't yet realize the importance of goofing off in the scientific process. I have some results from an experiment that make no sense to me."
"Maybe we could go for tea?" Katara smoothed out the fur ruff of her blue jacket. "Your uncle owns the tea shop down the street."
"I've heard about it." Azula wore a sly look on her face. "I don't want to leave Karo alone at the dance. Botan and Karo have never gone on a date before and I should be around in case either of them has a sudden attack of nerves. I can imagine Karo pelting across the football field at a sizable fraction of the speed of light. I also blew up the last condom he had in case he got lucky."
"I understand."
"That makes one of us. We can still have tea." Azula checked her vest for change. "The vending machines in the cafeteria serve up what they euphemistically call tea."
Azula kicked the vending machine that normally dispensed tea as Katara stood quietly by and looked out over the half lit cafeteria. A dozen students sat at three of the wooden tables and rested their feet from the evening of dancing.
"You dispense the cup first and then the tea!" Azula complained uselessly to the machine as she stared at the dispenser which had dispensed the tea without a cup to hold it. Azula kicked the machine and then pelted it with blows from her delicate fists. "I swear to God that this machine hates me."
"Maybe I can help." Katara made a few delicate gestures and Azula heard the machine click and cycle. The paper cut fell into the wire holder and then the tea began to pour into it. Azula knew every working part of that machine from the overly flattering pictures of the beverages the machine served behind the glass panel on the front to the motors, gears and screws. She knew a press of the red button below the window made a relay open, a cup dropped and hoses squirted dried powder in a cup as hot water poured into it. She had sworn at it, tampered with it, fed it metal washers and never made progress in taming it. Katara's prowess with machinery made a deep impression on her.
"I have had that machine eat more of my loose change..." Azula complained as Katara passed her a cup of steaming, hot almost tea. "It seeks to anger me. Either it dispenses the tea but no cup or it dispenses the cup and no tea or just eats my change and then lords it over me."
Katara took her paper cup and Azula led her to a wooden table.
"Thanks for the tea." Azula sat down on a wooden cafeteria chair. "I had plans for that machine that included an arc welder or explosives." She sipped from the cup. "Thanks for whatever this might be."
Katara looked at the wax paper cup. "Some kind of instant coffee, I think."
"I should finish my coffee and check on Karo." Azula sipped nervously. "Of course that would be bad wouldn't it?"
"Are you worried about him?" Katara had not expected the princess of the Fire Nation to be an ordinary teenager. Katara had come to expect hubris, pride and derision for all things not of the Fire Nation. Azula had none of these qualities and she even spoke with a slight accent in her Chinese that betrayed her as Suihanese.
"I've never gone on a date and so I hope he's having a good time." Azula swirled her cup. "This is his first date so you could say it matters to him."
Botan's mother had explained most men couldn't dance. The refined and cultured Karo with his artistic and musical talents could dance and lead and act genuinely politely, show respect and best of all - speak fluent Suihan. Suihan gave her fellow high school students fits because the language defied every rule of 'common sense' that made Chinese 'Chinese'. She could speak with Karo and they shared a beautiful sounding language and a unique cultural heritage.
No one saw Azula's head peeking in through the fire exit door. Azula wondered if sitting on the concrete landing of the outside steps of the fire escape was the best idea given the bone chilling cold.
"Can you see him?" Katara asked urgently.
Azula fell back: "I just got the spotlight in my eyes." She closed the door. "Vision is vastly overrated - I hope."
Karo felt a bit uneasy. He had expected Azula to do her duty as his 'observer' and find some way of not so delicately keeping an eye on him for his minders.
"They have the spotlight on us." Botan whispered in his ear.
Karo felt a surge of self awareness pulse through him as the light shone on him and Botan. "Well, I'll try hard not to step on your foot." Karo whispered back with a hint of irony and good humor.
"I've known you for maybe the better part of an hour," Azula followed Katara among the snowdrifts that had formed around the vents and machinery on the roof of the gym. "None of it has made much sense. You conquered the Vend - o - Matic drink machine. I respected that feat - almost rank it as a miracle. Now if I asked you why you water bended me onto the roof, would I like your answer?"
"The gym has skylights and we can watch the dance up here through one of them." Katara threw open her arms and the snow flew away like a prophet clearing away the sea for his people. The snow drifted down off the roof in a gently falling white cascade.
Azula held open the palm of her hand and it gave off a soft blue glow. "I never said anything about skylights but I just found several footballs up here." Azula kicked at one and it flopped off the roof. "I wonder how many hours in detention this stunt will cost?"
"I thought I saw skylights when I looked in the roof."
"We don't have skylights." Azula felt the cold wind bite into her. "When did you get the idea we had skylights in the gym? It's a public school not a church."
"Do you have any suggestions?" Katara deferred to Azula as she looked around the roof.
"Our archery team blows, as you can tell by the number of arrows sticking out of the roof." Azula pulled out an old arrow whit faded yellow fletching.
"Don't you want to see how your friend is doing?" Katara stopped in front of a huge metal box.
Katara made another bending move and the snow drifted off the large shuttered steel box.
"I thought they flew south for the winter." Azula spoke of the hiss of an enraged Canada Goose.
Botan sat down in the cafeteria to take a break. As the spotlight dance had caused them both a case of the nerves; they decided to rest and talk with whatever the vending machine had dispensed for free.
"I have enjoyed the dance with you." Karo sat down at the same table Azula and Katara had just left. It didn't occur to him to question why the chair was warm and the table had two paper cups on it. He had begun to wonder why the machine had dispensed free 'sort of' coffee.
"I've had a great time." Botan sat down, placed her cup on the table and smiled. "I half expected Azula to be in here, kind of spying on us."
"Wait!" Azula shouted at the same moment. "I never said I knew where the heating ducts went. I remember you grabbing me after the goose attacked us and now we're here. I know the three meter wide fan wasn't a good call!" Azula could feel the chain driven blades drive warm air past her face. A dull hum revealed a high power electric motor nearby. Azula could see the dim outline of the copper fins of the heat exchangers behind the fan. "I had never expected to see this site during my lifetime. I bet it's really beautiful when the dust's in bloom. I heard rumors of a race of elves in the heating ducts."
"I heard a clunk." Katara pointed behind her as she squatted next to Azula.
"I prefer not to think of that as a rat." Azula said to Katara. "If were lucky that will be the steam pipes creaking."
"We're two powerful benders, we can deal with rats."
Azula squirmed around and held up her palm and let a small blue flame grow from it. "I feel safe. Of course if we're unlucky, then..."
Botan jumped with the skill and speed of a well trained gymnast as she saw the huge fan crashing to the cafeteria floor. She vaulted across the table and grabbed Karo by the back of his vest just as the fan smashed the table to fragments of worn wood.
"The engineers didn't design this duct to support the fan and two girls." Azula peered into the cafeteria and the dust and mayhem and splintered fragmented wood and destroyed fan. "Boy we made them look like idiots."
Katara sat at the edge of the hole and looked around in case someone was injured.
"Anyone down there!?" Katara shouted. "Anyone hurt?"
"I hit my head when we jumped back." Azula complained. "All I need to make this moment complete is to have an inflatable rubber boat go off."
"Do not take more than six doses of Bismuth Stomach Medication in twenty four hours." Azula sat outside of the principle's office at seven thirty the next morning. "Well...maybe they mean that as a crude guideline."
"You swallowed six of those pink pills just sitting here." Katara fumbled with a detailed police report and fidgeted nervously.
"Karo hates me; Botan hates me and now the principle will kick me out of this school and I'll end up having to learn physics on the streets." Azula shook the small bottle of stomach medicine and felt like curling up in a ball on the hard wooden chair. "Azula Kai could have changed the world but she got involved with a Water Tribe delinquent and wound up in a small town high school making bottle rockets for the grade eight punks."
"I've been through worse." Katara assured Azula calmly..
"So said the mill worker before he took the bet and jumped into the industrial wood chipper.." Azula morbidly answered.
"Come in ladies." The principal rubbed his bald head as he held the door open.
Katara and Azula walked inside prepared to receive a tongue lashing.
He slowly sat down in his tan leather chair, faced the two girls and tented his fingers. "Please take a seat."
"How shall I deal with this?" He leaned back in his chair with a sheaf of papers and spoke like a police officer. "We have damage to the heading system and the contractor has to give me an estimate on the damage. The cafeteria table and the mess will cost time and money to fix and my job is to deal with the situation."
He leaned forward and swiveled his chair to face Katara.
Katara imagined the bald headed man with a fringe of graying hair around his ears as a family man but he wore the look of a stern disciplinarian.
"Young Water Tribe Miss...the choice of pressing charges rests with me." He said deliberately. "If you come up against charges of vandalism and public mischief; the judge could revoke your visa and expel you from the city for a year or more."
Katara sat back with a start.
"You do know what you did was wrong?" The principal asked.
"Yes...sir." Katara gulped.
"You are a war hero and held in high regard by many in the city." The principal leaned back. "I know you're a woman of good moral credentials."
"Our science fair hero...Azula." The principle swiveled his chair to Azula. "I know you as a dedicated student. I've seen the big wigs at the physics department of the university visiting our school. You're the most brilliant student I've ever met. I don't wish to expel you but if you faced charges of vandalism and public mischief; it could hurt your academic career because I'd be forced to make a public example of you.
Uh..." Azula began to speak.
"Please save your words. I've made up my mind." The principle leaned back in his chair and held up his hand. "We have two young women of good character who could become leading citizens. I have decided not to press charges but both of you have to agree to find some way to pay off the damages to the school."
"Uh...Karo?" Azula held her Literature books against her belly.
Karo had his back to Azula and was reaching through his locker for his math book.
"I never have enough room in my locker; can I have yours now that you won't be needing it?" Karo turned around.
"As a princess, I can never truly apologize because then I would lose face." Azula said in a nearly hushed whisper. "If I told you I'm sorry, then all of my vast legions of followers in the Fire Nation would protest that I had disgraced the family name."
"So falling out of a heating duct doesn't quite do it?" Karo closed his locker and turned the lock. "I don't understand this concept of 'face'."
"I didn't get suspended. I don't have detention until the sun explodes. Katara and I have to pay for the repairs to the school. I have no idea how much that will cost." Azula grasped her books like a scared girl. "Katara and I have to find a way to pay for the damages but the principal let me stay in school." She looked at the back of Karo's black Fire Nation vest. "If I said I was sorry for last night and put up with all the protests that I had gone against the traditions of the proud Fire Nation; could we still be friends?"
"I never understood Fire Nation honor, the Agni Kai and this concept of saving face." Karo turned around, leaned against his locker and sighed. "Dignity and an empty wallet is worth the empty wallet. This time was less painful than the time you removed my eyebrows chemically and we stayed friends. We're still friends. I talked to Botan last night after the police took both of you in for questioning. We both think that the pressure from all the family issues has begun to get to you." Karo said simply. "My mom said you could stay with us until all of the visitors have left. Our house is quiet and more relaxing."
Azula hugged Karo and accidentally hit the back of his head with her text book.
"I'm sorry." Azula blushed as she let go. "I didn't mean to hit you."
Karo rubbed his head as the homeroom bell rang out. "I love you as a sister Azula. Evidently that involves some pain."
Botan strangled Azula in a grand hug. "I love you as the smart and cool girl. I have a kind of girl crush on you. I'd miss you if you left - for what its worth."