The girls headed towards it together, and stopped far enough away that they would not be in the path of any of the workers. They were carrying an immense table, which would have fit right in at a medieval feast. It took four of them to get it into the house, and Himeko marveled that they must have quite a large dining room to accommodate it. Hardly a moment after the workers disappeared into he house, a young man emerged from it. Himeko grabbed he friend’s hand and tried not to run off down the street.

“What’s wrong?” Cerys asked her.

“What if he sees us looking?” Himeko whispered.

Her friend gave her an endearing smile. “So what if he does? Nobody could hide the fact that they’re moving in. Just look at the size of that truck!”

The young man had stopped somewhere on the path from the house to the truck, and was inspecting a bush, his back to the girls. They supposed that he was not one of the movers. He was not wearing the coveralls that the older workers we wearing, and he looked far too lean to do any lifting, anyway. They were left to assume that h would be living in that amazing three-story house.

“We should get going,” Himeko said after another minute. “We’ll be late for class otherwise.”

Cerys checked her watch. “We have time, Himeko.”

As they went on talking, the young man turned around and passed through the gate in the low garden wall surrounding the front yard. The girls were not sure whether he was headed for the truck or themselves, but but they did not have to wait long to fond out.

“Good morning to you,” he said, stepping up to them with a warm smile. “Well, at least one of my questions has been answered.”

“Q-question?” Himeko asked, her voice shaking.

“Yes,” he replied, looking right into her eyes. “I wondered if there were any high school students living nearby.”

“A lot of us live in the neighborhood,” Cerys told him. “Most of us can walk to the high school. Are you going to register there?”

The young man shrugged. “Probably not today. We just pulled in about an hour ago, and that thing,” he pointed to the eighteen-wheeler, “is going to take a long time to empty.”

“It certainly looks like it! My name is Cerys, by the way. Himeko and I are seniors at Oak Hollow High School.” She gestured in the direction of the school as she said its name.

“James,” he said, holding his hand out. “I’m a senior, too. Is your friend terribly shy?”

Cerys shook his hand, smiling up at him. His skin was soft and warm, but not so smooth that she would assume that he was at all pampered. He seemed like he would turn out to me a very nice person, once she got to know him. Still, when Himeko had an uneasy feeling around someone new, there was usually some kind of accuracy to it. Cerys wondered what it might be.

“Sometimes,” was all she would say about it, though.