The Price of Free Meals

I ran a small diner. Students got twenty percent off, and low-income kids ate for free, so long as they helped bus the tables afterward.

Then someone reported me for violating child labor laws, and the joint enforcement task force slapped me with a four-thousand-dollar fine.

The whistleblower was Ethan. He’d just gotten his acceptance letter to NYU.

When I confronted him, his expression stayed completely flat. "Mr. Cooper, you might have meant well, but what you did was illegal. Everyone has to follow the rules."