"Thanks."
We ate in silence for a few minutes. It wasn't uncomfortable. Neither of us was bothered by the quiet. In some ways, we were well suited for living together.
"So, how did you like school? Have you made any friends?" he asked as he was taking seconds, if not minutes.
"Well, I have a few classes with a girl named Jessica. I sit with her friends at lunch. And there's this boy, Mike, who's very friendly. Everybody seems pretty friendly." With one outstanding exception, I thought to myself.
"That must be Mike Newton. Nice kid—great eyes, nice family. His dad owns the sporting goods store just outside of town. He makes a good living off all the backpackers who come through here."
Backpackers? "Backpackers?"
"Yeah, most of the town's tourism is in... backpackers."
"Do any of them ever get lost?"
"Lost?" Chuck looked at me with a raised eyebrow.
"Yeah," I was getting ramped up. "Do you ever have to go on rescue missions into the woods to find backpackers who get lost and never come back?"
"Hmm." Charlie set his fork down for a moment and looked at one of the yellow cabinets. He thought for a moment and then said, "Nope, not that I can remember," and resumed eating.
Man, nothing ever happens here. I sighed and suddenly remembered Fredward. "Do you know the Cullen family?" I asked hesitantly.
"Dr. Cullen's family? Sure. Dr. Cullen's a great man."
"They... the kids... are a little different. They don't seem to fit in very well at school."
Charlie surprised me by looking angry.
"People in this damn town," he muttered. "Dr. Cullen is a brilliant surgeon who could probably work in any hospital in the world and make ten times the salary he gets here," he continued, getting louder. "We're lucky to have him—lucky that his wife wanted to live in a small town. He's an asset to the community, and all of those kids are well behaved and polite. I had my doubts, when they first moved in, with all those adopted teenagers that are almost as old as they are. I thought we might have some problems with them, some weird polygamy shit, but they're all very mature—I haven't had a speck of trouble from any of them. That's more than I can say for the children of some

37

Chapter 2

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