Skyler was excited. He got to go to Shankar's house today. Shankar lived in an apartment too, but there was no elevator, only stairs. Luckily, he only lived on the second floor or Skyler might have had to use his inhaler after climbing a zillion stairs. Shankar's family seemed happy to see him. There were smiling and they were able to say hello in English. His dad told him he would pick him up in a couple of hours. Shankar's room and house had some neat things in them from India and his family was really nice even though they couldn't talk to him. Shankar translated when necessary. They played with his little brothers, Ajeet and Deo, trying to teach them to catch. Deo was Noel's age, so that didn't work out, but Ajeet, who was 4, was starting to get the hang of it.

At school the next day, Skyler wrote in his journal about his trip to Shankar's house. Mrs. Duncan asked the class to share their journals with the class. He was only supposed to read what he had wrote, but Skyler wanted to tell them everything, especially the things he had seen from India and the food he had ate.

"It sounds like you had fun learning about another culture," Mrs. Duncan said with a smile. "That gives me an idea, class. I think it would be fun to learn about other cultures in other countries. I'm going to put you in groups of 3 to study a certain country and share something about it. We'll make an entire culture day from it."

Some of the class members groaned, others thought it might be fun. The girl that sat across from him whispered, "Thanks a lot, Skyler."

Skyler was assigned Greece along with 2 other kids. Mrs. Duncan gave them 3 things they could be in charge of food, craft, or story. On culture day, they would have food to eat, crafts to make, and stories to read. Skyler was assigned the food part of it. It was a homework project and they were able to have their parents help them with it.

The day before culture day, his dad had a Superman job to do. The food had to be cooked that night. That meant his mom had to help him. Skyler wearily rolled up his sleeves and watched his mom tie on an apron.

"Don't look so worried," she said. "We can do this."

He looked at her disbelievingly. He'd seen his mom cook enough to know that wasn't true.

"Okay, so we'll give it a try." She pulled out the recipe they had printed off the internet. It was to make something called Greek butter cookies. "You want to help read the recipe?" she asked.

Skyler looked where her finger was pointing. "1 cup butter."

"Very good," she said, pulling out a measuring cup and putting butter in it. Then putting that into a bowl. "Next," she said.

"Soft 3 line 4 cup white sugar."

"¾? Got it," she said, "and what does that even mean soft?" she asked, dumping in the sugar. "Sugar is as soft as it's going to get. What's next?"

"1 egg."

His mom cracked open an egg and put it in. He could have sworn he saw some bits of white shell go in with it. "Next."

"1 line 2 teaspoon van—van—"

"Vanilla?" she asked.

"I think so," Skyler said.

"Next."

"1 line 2 teaspoon," he didn't even try the next words. "I can't read this, Mommy."

She took a look, "Almond extract." She added that and then Skyler started reading, "2 1 line 4 cups all-purpose flour."

"Okay?" she said, after she added it.

"I can't read this either."

"1/2 cup confectioners' sugar for rolling." she read. "I'll take over the reading. You can help with the cooking part of it. I don't know what they mean by confectioners' sugar. There's white sugar and there is brown sugar. What other kinds of sugar could there possibly be? Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. I guess we were supposed to have done that first." She went over to the oven and pushed the buttons. "Okay now it says to grease the cookie sheets. I think you can handle that. You washed your hands, right?"

He nodded and she set the tub of butter in front of him and the cookie sheets. "Just take the butter and make it all greasy."

Skyler dipped his fingers in the butter and started spreading. This was always his favorite part to cooking. His dad always let him grease the pans.

"In a medium bowl, cream together the butter, sugar, and egg until smooth. What in the world does cream mean? Oh, well. They're already together anyway. That's the important part. Stir in the vanilla and almond extracts. We did that. Blend in the flour to form a dough. We sort of did that."

Skyler shook his head. He had a feeling the kids in the class weren't getting their cookies. "I think you're supposed to read the recipe before you start cooking."

"It'll turn out fine our way. You may have to knead by hand at the end." She took the bowl and squished it all together. By the time she got done with that. Skyler was done with the greasing. "Take about a teaspoon of dough at a time and roll into balls, logs or 'S' shapes. Let's do S shapes for Superman," she said with a smile.

"Okay," Skyler said.

She made the S's the best she could. They looked more like messy blobs and the dough wasn't evenly mixed. "Place cookies 1 to 2 inches apart onto the prepared cookie sheets. We didn't do that either. Who cares how far apart they are? They're still going to get baked. Bake for 10 minutes in the preheated oven, or until lightly browned and firm. That's not too long," she said, setting the oven timer for 10 minutes. "Allow cookies to cool completely before dusting with confectioners' sugar. The extra sugar is in there already. And we're done. We just have to wait until the timer goes off. See that wasn't so bad, was it?"

Skyler was sure they weren't out of the woods yet. He just hoped that his mom didn't ask him to eat one. He didn't want to hurt her feelings, but he just wasn't that brave. They started watching a show on TV and it was a while before either of them heard the timer going off. "The cookies!" Skyler shouted when he heard it.

His mom ran into the kitchen, but Skyler got there first and pulled the cookies out of the oven with his bare hands.

"Skyler Jonathan Kent, I wish you wouldn't touch hot stuff like that."

"It doesn't burn, Mommy."

She looked at the black cookies. "I wish I could say the same for the cookies. If we dumped a lot of sugar on it, do you think anyone would notice? You could say they're supposed to be that way."

"I don't think so," he said.

"I tried. I'm sure your dad can fix it before he has to go to work in the morning. The important thing is that you've helped. If anything, we can pick something up at a Greek restaurant on the way to school."

The fire detector in the kitchen was beeping steadily because of the burnt cookies. His mom turned it off and then turned on the fan in an attempt to blow some of the smoke away.

Somebody flew in through the window. Skyler thought it was his dad and went running to greet him and tell him about the cookies. It was Kara. She was in the girl version of her dad's costume. It was ripped in place and she was covered in black smudges.

His mom didn't look happy to see her under the conditions, "What's wrong?"

"It's Clark," Kara said.

TBC