The home ec classroom was reasonably well decked out, Eliot was pleased to find. He'd sworn off the Danger Shop for at least the semester, and had been a little worried that this would mean trying to teach the kids how to cook pasta on a hot plate using buckets of water. But the room was lined in little kitchenettes, complete with small fridges, stoves, ovens, and sinks, each with its own set of cabinets full of dishes and cleaning supplies. The center of the room was dominated by long wooden tables, each with ample storage and several electrical outlets set into the floor beneath them, so he wouldn't have to worry about snaking extension cords all over when they got to using sewing machines and the like.

Not half damn bad, if you asked Eliot.

The front of the front of the room had a big friendly white board on it, on which was written "HOME EC" in foot-tall letters, with "Eliot Spencer" in more standard sized letters beneath it. Eliot himself sat behind the teacher's desk with his feet up, reading a book. There was a sheet of instructions at every seat.

"Following instructions is important," said the board. "Please read all instructions on the worksheet before beginning. You have ten minutes."

At the end of the ten minute period for instruction-following, Eliot sat up and put his book aside. "Right. So there's a nice lesson in how schools like to catch you out and make you look silly if you don't do what you're told." He shrugged. "My home ec teacher pulled that on me when I was your age. I think maybe one kid in the class actually did it 'right'. And about five of us smart asses had explanations as to why the 'right way' to do it was wrong." He shrugged. "Welcome to Home Ec. Instructions are gonna be important a lot of the time in here, if nothin' else to keep you from accidentally mixing together poison gas trying to clean your kitchen. But I promise that's the last trick I'm gonna pull on you in here." He walked around to the front of the desk and leaned against it. "It's the first week, so I'm guessin' you all know what that means around here: introductions. Tell me your name, what kind of livin' arrangements you have at home, and what you're hopin' to learn about in this class, please. I'll start us off: I'm Eliot Spencer. You can call me 'Eliot' or 'Mr. Spencer,' whichever you're comfortable with. I live in a four story house on the other side of town with my partners, but I've lived alone most of my adult life, so most of all this stuff was up to me. And I'm apparently gonna end up learnin' to knit with y'all, so I guess that might be fun." He pointed to one of the students. "Now, how 'bout you?"