This chapter's song is Perpetuum Mobile by Penguin Cafe Orchestra. [ /watch?v=6E3znZoFnN8]

"Bev, sweetheart, we're here." came her mother's voice.

Beverly squeezed her eyes shut and grimaced. "What time is it?" she asked groggily.

"Seven forty-five."

"In the morning?" Beverly slowly opened one eye, then the other. She groaned. They had wanted to start out a full day there, so they had left at seven-fifteen in the morning.

"Yes, in the morning. Come on, help me get Jasmine and Oliver."

Beverly sighed, stretched, and stepped out of the car. She leaned backwards and rested her upper body on the seat in the car, stretching out her back. She sighed again and opened the backdoor. She reached over her younger sister and unclasped her safety belt, then lifted up the sleeping four year old girl. "Ooh my goodness, you're getting so heavy." She said. Jasmine didn't stir.

Beverly walked around the car to meet her mother and eight year old brother who had just been woken up and was not happy about it.

Her dad walked up to them; he had been driving the moving van. "Well? Are we ready to see it?"

"I don't see why me and Jazz and Ollie couldn't see it before we moved in. What if we don't like it? Do we at least get to pick our own rooms?"

Her father sighed. "Because, Beverly, it's a new experience. Come on, it'll be fun. I picked the room for you that I know you'll love."

She sighed and trudged along with her family. She shared a look with her brother and they rolled their eyes.

"I had better get my own room." Oliver said. Mr. Katz purposely ignored him.

Their dad unlocked the front door and led them inside, a huge smile on his face. Beverly wasn't impressed yet, but she was excited. The front entrance was a six-by-six foot space and a closet to the left. There was a short set of stairs that led up into another room. The family walked up the steps and into the kitchen.

"Oh, my." Beverly's mom gasped.

The kitchen had black granite countertops, stainless steel appliances, and hanging cabinets. It was a chef's dream, which is probably why her father had chosen the house. He was the head chef at a three-star restaurant which was just awarded its forth star that summer and her dad had gotten a pay raise, which was the reason why they were moving. Beverly's mother was a lawyer, so they would have been able to move at any given time, but they had never thought about it before. They were still in the same area, but in a wealthy neighborhood that was closer to the restaurant.

Beverly gasped when she looked at the far wall. "Oh, my God." She walked over to the ceiling-to-floor glass window that covered the entire wall and wrapped around to the left side of the house, careful not to wake her sister. "This is an amazing view, dad." The view was of a very dense set of woods, filled with so many dead things that Beverly could analyze.

"I thought you might like it. There's a soccer field on the other side and a path through the forest, so it'll be easy to get to for Jazz's soccer games."

"Doesn't she need to try out for the team first?"

"Well, yeah, but assuming that she'll get on it."

Beverly turned back to look at the forest, and her sister began to stir. "Bevvie where are we?" she asked voice still muddled with sleep.

"We're at our new house. Jazz."

"Why?"

Beverly laughed, "Because we live here now, silly."

"Oh." She yawned.

"Jazz, look at this."

Jasmine turned her head and looked out the window. "That's trees."

"Yes, it is trees. We can go out there and play today." Jasmine nodded her head. "Do you want to get down?" she shook her head.

"Do you kids want to see your rooms?"

"Yeah!" the three of them said at once, each with different levels of enthusiasm.

"If you go up the stairs, each of your doors has a sign with your names on them."

Oliver ran upstairs with a burst of newfound energy and Beverly followed after him.

"Do you want to see your new room?" she asked Jasmine.

"Yeah! Show me, show me!"

Beverly walked up to the door that had Jasmine's name on it. "Ready?"

The little one nodded her head enthusiastically and Beverly opened the door.

"Whoah!" Jasmine squirmed and Beverly put her down. She heard her brother shout the same thing when he opened his door. If these two were impressed, she couldn't wait to see her room.

Jasmine's room was small and rectangular and covered in dinosaurs, a perfect fit for her.

"Bevvie, look! Look at all of the things!" she squealed.

Jasmine did have very many things in her room already, like her toys and books. They had already sent a lot of their things to the new house the week before and the real estate agency had an interior decorator set the things up so they weren't in boxes. It was a brilliant idea, really, but it must have been hard work. They did have a few more things that they had brought with them, such as bedding and lamps and toys and kitchen appliances. Those boxes did need to be unpacked, which Beverly was looking forward to. She loved organizing.

Jasmine's bed was right across from the door and had a built-in guard rail. The far wall was lined with shelves that framed a window with white curtains.

"Wow, Jazz! Your room looks so cool!"

"Yeah! But my bed isn't comfy…"

"Not yet it's not. We still need to unpack your blankets and pillows from the car."

"Oh. When?"

"In a little while. Go ask momma or daddy if you want them now."

"Umm. No, I want to play!"

Beverly laughed again. "Then go play. I'm going to go see my room." Jasmine was already preoccupied with looking through all of the shelves and the new toybox.

Beverly left Jasmine's room and made her way to her own. She held her breath as she opened the door, and let it out the second she saw the inside.

Her walls were white and red and had black wall stickers of birds flying on the ceiling. Her bed was in the corner and there was a very detailed painting of a tree that was all different shades of black and grey. There was a desk at the foot of her bed with drawers under it and a grey rolling chair. On the side closest to the door, there was a set of cube shelves with fabric drawers of all different colors. Opposite the door stood a tall bookshelf. The bottom shelf was filled with her own books, knick knacks were on various shelves, and most of the shelves were filled with her science and psychology books. There was a door there, too. She walked over to it and saw that it was a bathroom.

"Cool." She smiled.

The floor was hard wood, just like the hallway, but she had a black carpet in the center that covered a surprisingly good portion of the floor.

The window was covered by a sheer curtain with thick red, black, and white vertical stripes. The curtain was closed, however, and wasn't letting in much light. Beverly walked over to it and pulled it open.

Outside of her window was another window.

On a different house.

What?

Why would her dad buy this house if this was there?

Why would they even build houses this close together in a wealthy neighborhood?

In the window opposite hers, she saw movement. Looking closer, she saw that there was someone in the room. She quickly closed the curtain, but looked through the space between the two halves out of curiosity.

It was a girl. She had long dark hair and was wearing sweatpants and a tank top. She shuffled in from her door and fell onto her bed, laying on top of the covers. She wondered if the girl was the same age as her and if they would end up being friends.

"Hey, Bev." Came her dad's voice from the doorway. Beverly jumped and turned to look at her dad, startled.

"Jeez, dad, you scared me." She said.

"Oh, sorry. I didn't mean to."

"No, no, it's alright. Fine, really. What's up?"

"Do you like your room?"

"Oh! Yeah, I love it. I love that I have my own bathroom. It's a real step up from our old house." She told him.

"I'm glad. I have something for you, come with me."

"A present? For me? I didn't know it was my birthday."

He smirked. I'm sure this could never match up to one of your birthday presents."

"Oh now you've got me excited."

He led her downstairs, through the living room, and down another set of stairs into the basement.

Beverly whistled. "Nice basement. I could get used to it." The main area of their basement had a mini bar, their huge couch form home, and their flat screen TV.

"Your surprise is through that door." Her dad motioned to a door by the entrance to the backyard.

Beverly stepped up to the door and opened it. She gasped.

In the small room, there was a long table that lined two walls, another floor-to-ceiling window being one of these walls, and cabinets and drawers everywhere. Her science tools were arranged across the table.

"Oh my God."

"Do you like it?"

"I…" she was speechless. She had an entire room solely dedicated to her forensic studies. She would have to move all of her books down into this room for sure. "I love it, dad. Thank you so, so much." She hugged him tightly. "This is really the best thing you could have given me."

"You're welcome, Bev. I figured you should have a place all to your own where you could work. You and I both know how much your mother hates it when you being dead things into the house to study, so now you have your own place for it. You don't have to do this in your bedroom anymore."

Beverly beamed.

oOo

That night, after everything had been unpacked (or was almost unpacked – Oliver was way too excited about his new room to care about his old things), Beverly sat in her room on her new bed. It felt strange and foreign to her. She missed her old bedroom. She knew that she would get used to this room, but that wasn't happening yet. It helped that she still had the same bed sheets and mattress pad, but the aura of the room was different. And it smelled weird.

She had put Jasmine to bed a few hours ago – her mom was busy helping Oliver unpack and her dad was setting things up downstairs – and was trying to make herself feel tired enough to go to sleep.

Beverly sighed. It was only nine o'clock. She knew she wouldn't get to sleep any time soon.

She reached over to her nightstand and turned on her iPod speakers. She scrolled through her iPod – it was the iPod Video that she had gotten for her tenth birthday that still miraculously worked and outlived two iPod touches – and set it to her favorite songs playlist.

She shuffled over to her window and pulled the curtains open. The girl's bedroom across from her was dark, so Beverly knew it was safe to have the window open.

Just then, she noticed something about the windows. There had almost-conjoining roofs. Again, why. She wondered if the roof was stable enough for her to sit on. She didn't know why it wouldn't be, so she tried it out. She opened up the window – there was no screen, she noted, which meant that she would need to check Jasmine's window to make sure it had one – and stepped one foot out onto the roof, stomping on it a few times to check if it was sturdy. When it was, she stepped out onto it, holding onto the window frame for support.

Beverly looked around her. It was quiet, save for the music playing in her room. She could see the forest at the back of the house and the road on the other side. The moon was out and the stars were shining, and she suddenly became very calm.

So this was why her dad knew that she would love the bedroom.

She sat down and rested her feet on the roof of the other house. Examining the window frame of the house, she saw carvings of words that she couldn't make out in the dim light. She also saw that there were a few brass chess pieces and two dice in the corner of the windowsill. She wondered what they were doing there.

She sighed and leaned back, looking up at the stars. She couldn't make out any constellations, so she decided to come up with some of her own. Her mom was always telling her and her siblings to keep their creative gears running, anyway.

She spent a half hour connecting the dots and ended up forming a simple heart with four stars. She was proud of herself. She would have to tell her dad about it.

The shingles of the roof were beginning to hurt her back after a while, so she decided that she would go grab a blanket and a pillow, not wanting to go back inside for the night yet. So she climbed back into her bedroom and realized that she didn't have a blanket that she wanted to put on the roof – her good blanket was too nice to get dirty. So she left her room and went down the stairs to the living room, where she knew she would find her parents.

"Mom?"

Beverly's parents were sitting on the couch that was facing the forest outside.

"Yes, Bev?"

"Where are the spare blankets?"

She thought for a moment. "There's a closet upstairs they I think I put them in. Why do you need it?"

"I just need another one. Thanks."

Beverly took the stairs two at a time and looked around for a door that didn't have a name on it. She opened one door, saw that it was a bathroom, and closed it. She opened the one next to it, saw that it was the closet, and pulled out a green sweatshirt-fabric blanket. Then she walked back into her bedroom, tossed the blanket towards the window, pulled up her hair into a messy bun, and grabbed a pillow from her bed. She picked up the blanket off the floor and crawled out onto the roof –

The same time the other girl stepped out onto her own roof.

The two stared at each other for a moment, not knowing how to react, if they should just pull themselves back inside or say hi.

Beverly chose the latter.

"Hey."

The girl blinked at her. "Hey."

"I'm Beverly."

"I'm Alana Bloom."

They stared at each other again, not moving.

"Are you just gonna stand there or what?" Beverly asked, breaking the tension and stepping out onto her roof.

"I was going to ask you the same thing." Alana responded, also stepping out of her bedroom and onto her own roof. She was also holding a pillow and blanket.

They each laid their blankets on their roofs and Alana sat down with her pillow in her lap and Beverly propped hers up to lean against.

"So, hey. Beverly Katz. We just moved in today." She extended her hand and Alana shook it.

"Then I guess yesterday was my last night to enjoy having my curtain open." She laughed.

"Nah, you can keep it open if you want. I won't watch you while you sleep." A smile twitched at her lips.

Alana laughed again. "Good to hear it. So do you like the house?"

"Oh, yeah, I love it. My dad set up a room in the basement for me to use as my science lab." She beamed.

"You're into science? What kind?"

"Mostly forensic. Why? Are you into science?"

"No, I'm interested in psychology. I've been doing an internship in D.C, this summer and I got back a few hours ago."

"Oh, psychology? Do you go to the NOVA School for Forensic Psychology, by any chance?"

"Yeah! Do you?"

"I'm starting there in the fall!"

"Oh, awesome! It's such a great school. You've already seen the school, right? So you know about the uniforms?"

Beverly groaned. "Yes, I heard about the stupid uniforms. I haven't seen them, though. Are they really as awful as I think they are?"

"Oh, no. They're actually great. It saves me from having to choose an outfit to wear every day. The girls wear these red and blue plaid skirts when it's warm out and can either wear tights when it gets cold or wear navy blue slacks. The guys just wear pants all the time, but some guys like to wear skirts because there are no rules against it and no one really cares. They say that they feel good to wear, too, so." She shrugged.

"They only wear things on their legs?"

Alana rolled her eyes. "No, you weirdo. We wear white blouses and ties."

"Ties?"

"Yeah? Don't schools with uniforms usually wear ties?"

"The guys, yeah. I've never heard of a school that has ties as part of the uniform for everyone."

"Well you don't have to wear the ties, but it's recommended. I like to wear them."

Beverly shrugged. "Doesn't sound as bad as I would have thought."

"It's really not."

The two sat there in a semi-awkward silence for a few moments.

"So do you have any siblings?" Alana asked.

"Yeah. I've got an eight year old brother named Oliver and a four year old sister named Jasmine."

"Oh, how cute! I love little kids."

"Yeah, Jazz is pretty cute. Because I'm the oldest, I have to take care of them a lot. But I don't mind. It's actually pretty fun."

"That's good, then. It would suck if you hated them."

"Yeah, really. But I could never hate them. They're too… good. What about you? Any siblings?"

"Nope, it's just me."

"It must get lonely."

"Yeah, I guess. But I don't know what it's like to have siblings, so I like it."

"Any pets?"

"I've got a pet bird."

"What kind?"

"A cockatoo. Her name is Pink."

Beverly smirked. "How'd you come up with that name?"

Alana sighed. "I was really obsessed with Pink – the singer – when I got her. So I named her Pink."

"And are you still obsessed with Pink?"

"Not as much as I was before, but I still have all of her albums."

"Nice. Nice." Beverly sighed and leaned back against her pillow.

They sat there in a comfortable silence for a few minutes.

"My room smells weird." Beverly told her.

"Why?"

"It was just painted so it smells like paint and new plastic. I don't like it. That's one of the reasons why I came out here."

"Oh, I have the perfect thing." Alana crawled back into her room and emerged a moment later, holding a small bottle. "Here." She handed Beverly the bottle. "It's a great scent. Smell it. If you like it, you can spray it in your room to help mask the scent."

Beverly sniffed it. "Damn, this smells nice. What is it?"

"It's called Bvlgari Pour Homme Extrême." She said in a perfect French accent. "My mom got it for me in France."

Beverly raised her eyebrows. "Well excuse me while I go cover my room with this." It was her turn to crawl into her room. She pulled off the cap and sprayed seven squirts of it. She was excited for her room to smell good. She crawled back outside and handed Alana the cologne. "Thanks."

"No problem." Alana set the cologne just inside her window and picked up one of the chess pieces to fiddle with.

"What's with the chess pieces and dice?" Beverly asked.

"I found them out in the forest a few years back. I didn't know what to do with them, but they looked pretty cool. So I put them on my windowsill."

"Ah. Gotcha."

After twenty minutes of learning about each other, Beverly decided that it was time to get to bed.

"Alright, goodnight, Beverly. It was nice meeting you."

"Yeah, you too. We should do this again sometime."

"Totally. I've got my internship for the next few weeks, so I'll only be around after seven until the week before school starts. We should get together, though. I can introduce you to my friends from school that I think you'll like."

"That sounds great. We'll talk." Beverly crawled into her room and pulled her pillow and blanket inside.

"Will do." Alana did the same.

"Goodnight, Alana." Beverly said before closing her window.

"Night." Alana said, and closed her own window.

A/N: Reviews are always appreciated.

I don't really know where I'm going with this story, so if anyone has any ideas, please don't hesitate to throw them out there! I always take each review into consideration.