It was there, sitting in the lunchroom, trying to make conversation with seven curious strangers, that I first saw them.
They were sitting in the corner of the cafeteria, as far away from where I sat as possible in the long room. There were five of them. They weren't talking, and they weren't eating, though they each had a tray of untouched food in front of them. It seemed strange to me that they weren't eating, but even stranger that they weren't gawking at me, unlike most of the other students, so it was safe to stare at them without fear of meeting an excessively interested pair of eyes. But it was none of these things that caught, and held, my attention.
They didn't look anything alike. Of the three boys, one was big—muscled like a seriously muscled weight lifter, a bear with dark, curly hair. Another was taller, leaner, but still muscular, a blond honey of a buck. The last was lanky, less bulky, with untidy, bronze-colored hair. He was more boyish than the others, who looked like they could be in college, or even teachers here rather than students.
The girls were opposites. The tall one was tall. She had a beautiful figure, the kind you saw on the cover of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue, the kind that made every girl around her take a hit on her self-esteem just by being in the same room. Her hair was golden, gently waving to me from the middle of her back. The short girl was pixielike, short, thin in the extreme, with small features that I have no idea how to describe. Her hair was a deep black, cropped short and pointing in every direction. And yet, they were all exactly alike. Every one of them was chalky pale, each paler than the last, the palest of all the students living in this pale, sunless town. Paler than me, the pretend-albino. They all had very

19

Chapter 1

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