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Nicole who had been listening in fascinated horror, shook herself, “Ah, right. My Dad had a chance to retire early, and my parents wanted to settle down somewhere quiet. My Mom’s a Doctor and this is one of the places she applied for that made her a decent offer.” She shrugged.

"We only got into town a few days ago and our stuff is still catching up with us, we live just down the road and around the bent from you, which I think puts us closer to town than you.

I talked about the house my parents had built with the insurance money for our old house, while Nicole talked about the big old house her family had bought with a plan to work on it while they were already living there.

“My Dad really wants to get forced air in before winter, but we’re probably going to get stuck with the steam pipes, I kind of like them though, you can heat things on them."

Nicole’s family had lived all over the world, following her Mom’s career in the military, and then her Dad's work in the Embassy service.

Which I would have loved to hear some more details about, but then we arrived at Merrick Hurn High.

My new school was old and looked its age. It was mostly red brink with weather stained decorative cement molding, but it did have newer energy efficient windows set in plastic covered walls to fill in the old wider windows from the days when natural light and air circulation were more of an issue.

Parts of the school in the middle went up three stories, and some fairly tall basement windows looked like the lower floor was more of a storage and utility level.

Some tall trees were close enough to jump to from the windows, which would be better than dropping down on top of the severely trimmed old bushes standing between the basement windows.

Not that I was going to need to jump out of a window, it was just the training I had gotten from my Mom since I was old enough to walk to figure out escape routes from any building I ever headed into.

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“Got to go Nicole, I want to walk my little brother and sister over to the Elementary school.”

I gave her a wave and heard her give me a cheerful “See you.” as I tapped Milinda on the head before she managed to sneak off with my brother by the hand. “No kidnapping my brother Milinda. You can walk over with him, but Ami will drop him off at kindergarten.”

She gave me a hurt look, but couldn’t hold it as she smiled.

Outside the bus, she and Ami took each of my brother's hands and headed off to a one story twin building to the high school. Mary Hern Elementary. Kevin, his redheaded friend, and some other kids headed off as well. The redhead turned to look at me along with Kevin who jerked his thumb at his friend. "He's Skip by the way, and he was delighted to be threatened by you. See ya."

Kevin took off running with his friend, who after giving a quick head shake, began running after him. “Shut up Kevin!” Some other children repeated the shout.

Kevin seemed to have established himself pretty well for only being in town for a few days.

According to the email my parents had CCed to me I had homeroom with Ms Clair first, which was weird since Homeroom seemed like something out of a manga, but Grandpa and his brothers had confirmed that it was something their schools had done when they were young.

Heading up the stairs I made it up to the third floor and from there it was easy to find room 302, which to my surprise had an assortment of students who looked all the way up to senior age. By the fact I had at least seen if not met all of them from the solstice party, I could guess that this was all the werewolves in the school.

At least the students.

I could see Del and two of the girls who had hung around her most of the party chatting, and Neal sitting in the back of the room looking half asleep.

Anita looked up and frowned “What’s she doing here?”

Del looked over at me and gave me a wave with a grin, tilting her head at Neal she called across the room, "There's no point sitting with him, he won't wake up until lunch. Come sit with us."

Both of Del’s friends looked surprised while I headed over, with some heads turning to watch me as I walked across the room causing Del to sigh and stand up. “Could everyone go ahead and openly stare at her and get over it.”

She started counting off on her fingers. "Yes, she's rich. She's not a werewolf, but she is stronger than me, so don't start anything with her, because you all know I'm stronger than any of you. I don't have a problem with her, or her family, so none of you should either."

Freezing in place, halfway across the room, I slowly turned my head to see several people looking embarrassed, or deliberately indifferent. Two people gave me steady stares.

One, a red headed girl who looked seventeen, was leaning forward with an evil smirk as she tapped her fingers on each hand together and did an evil laugh, before straightening up and grinning. "That's it Caine, go get in good with the mean girls, they needed a fourth anyways."

Del glared at the redhead. "We're not the mean girls, we're just popular"

The other one who opening looked at me was a heavyset boy who looked like he was still recovering his weight from a growth spurt. The look he gave me was almost hostile like he was measuring me up before a fight.

I tried to slunk the rest of the way across the room, then slipped into a seat behind Anita across from Del. “So whats with all of us in the same Homeroom.”

The bell rang before Del could answer and a thirty something blond woman with a pageboy haircut slipped into the door. “Good Morning class. Welcome to Werewolf 101.”