Prologue: Early Monday Morning

Robin - Monday morning going to school

As my older brother Jason was driving me to school in his electric hybrid van, I started thinking about how my life has changed in the past few weeks. Last May, my biggest concern was how many parties my friends and I could convince our parents to let us have before classes started up again. We would be sophomores, but that really would not affect how we stood in the pecking order at Caultron Public Academy.

True, we would be going to a new building and moving from the top of one totem pole to the bottom of another one. However, well over ninety percent of the Juniors and Seniors there had been in eighth and ninth grades when my classmates and I were in seventh. Even though we were in different buildings there were some activities like PE that we shared with them. Sure, there were a few bullies, but I suspect not as many as in a normal high school.

I didn't expect to get the same amount of harassment as my brother Jason got when he became a sophomore himself. Something about the little detail that my class was expected to have more people than the other two classes combined helped to reinforce that idea.

That all changed in mid June when Dad called my mom, Jason and me for a family meeting. He told us he had been offered a promotion, but in order to accept it he would have to be willing to move to Abilene, Texas. Mom fully supported the idea of moving since she did not like the Gary, Indiana winters.

My brother Jason and I didn't like the idea at all. I made the mistake making a comment "Jason, now you have a whole new group of girls to try to ask out for a date before they realize what a mistake that it is to be seen with you."

He took me seriously for once and said, "Sounds like a win-win situation for me. I admit I made a mistake with Liz a couple of years ago. Since then, most of the girls I have asked for date have 'been busy with schoolwork.' I can understand that, at least most of the time, but Nancy gave me that as a reason just last week. I would not have minded so much except that we have been on summer vacation for two weeks, and I know she is not taking any summer classes."

"Since I had been wanting to watch that movie anyway, I ended up going alone. As I was walking up to the line to get tickets for the movie, I saw her in front of me. That would not have been so bad except I saw her talking to another guy who had his arm around her waist. He also had something red on his cheek that might have been left over from a kiss."

"Even if history repeats itself in Abilene, I will only be there one year before going off to college where no one will know me or the rest of my family for that matter of fact."

"Of course," he continued grinning and pointing at me, "you will be stuck there for three years until you finish high school."

Before I go any further, I think that I should explain that I am not exactly a normal person.