He informed me that he was my neighbour, that we ought, if for no reason more than convenience, be friends. "Why," he asked me with what was to be a p...pular grin on his face, "would you not?"I wasn't able to find myself opposed to the idea. I'd been shy of friends at my previous school, perhaps a little too focused on my lines and angles to find the time. I thought this was an opportunity to fit myself into the local community.I was correct in the assumption. Jim introduced me to the other folk. Not in intelligence, not in attraction to the boys that circled them, not in obedience to their elders, but in spontaneity. Where Abby often felt crushed by the attention focused on her, it seemed to lift up the extroverted Corina; the blonde couldn't understand how the brunette did it.Abby opened her eyes on the party. She and Corina were eighteen years old, and they were surrounded by friends of both sexes, temporarily freed from the burden -- or support, depending on how one looked at it --. He could speak in whatever language this was? Not just hear?Okay.Jas coughed. "I bled on everything. I was unconscious for ... sometime." A day."Jas nodded.Tree Nose said, "The house wants to grow your hair." She tapped theglass. "Apparently this machine can do that."Hair? He had too much hair, as it was. He giggled.Giggled?Was this ... girl ... the giggly type?Jas sighed.Oh, shit. Hair. On my head."They shaved your head, milady. Have you seen the brands?"She had. But. How to explain that?Tree. It's the neatest thing in the world. Can you think of anything that feels any better?"Chris laughed. "Its been so long I couldn't say..."Sandy turned from her girlfriend and searched through her big leather bag until she found the foil-wrapped packet she had stashed there for emergencies. Actually, it was Roger's idea, but she had to agree it was a good one. "Chris, come on, this will get you in a party mood."Chris looked up, saw that Sandy was holding a lighted cigarette in her hand. She held.