Unknown

The junkyard family

PART ONE

Keri giggled into her palm, unsuccessfully hiding her reaction to Lauren Henderson's dilemma. She wasn't alone of course. Brenda and Amy were giggling too. The three of them stood a little apart from their friend as she tried to find a way of turning down Lorne Cunningham's invitation to a movie without hurting his feelings too much.

The four of them, along with two dozen other teenagers, were waiting for the bus home, the number eight, which wound its way through Kemmingham's less prosperous suburbs on its way to and from downtown and the airport.

Keri went to St. Patrick High, a reasonably good school, surrounded on one side by private and semi-detached homes and on the other by townhouse projects populated by the lower middle class and a sprinkling of welfare recipients.

Keri didn't live in either area, which marked her as something of an oddball. She'd had to fight that since she'd started here a few years ago, and had largely succeeded in becoming "in" with the right people. That was a major accomplishment, considering she lived in a garbage dump and had a jockette suspected of lesbianism for a sister.

Lauren returned to the little group, rolling her eyes in the air as the others broke out in open giggling.

"What did you tell him?" Amy demanded.

"I told him my grandparents were visiting this week and I had to stay around the house."

"Brilliant."

"Not really. He asked me about next week."

"What'd you say then?" Brenda asked.