Hey, party people! Well, reader people. It's Friday! And you know what that means! I'm so excited. They're at school. I don't know if I can wait to upload the next chapter, but I'm going to try very, very, hard to wait until Friday. I might make it until Sunday, to be perfectly frank.

Well, here they were, standing in their new home. It was cozy. It was a gingerbread sized townhouse, the third in the row of five. There was a strip of land in the front and back with a little vegetation. Once inside the front door, you entered a small living space that was supposed to be a living room and eating area. Behind a small archway, there was a kitchen with apartment sized appliances. They were lucky they weren't allowed pets, as they probably wouldn't have fit in the apartment. Sam saw there was a small space for flowers in the spring, so she was heartened in that she might bring some of Gram's and Max's cuttings. Turning from the window she knew Max would love to photograph, she looked at the space. It was small, of course, but she knew they would be happy there once she saw the stove.

"Hey, Jake! Look, the stove is avocado!" Sam called from the tiny kitchen.

"And that's a good thing?" He prompted as he entered the room from where he had been vaccuming upstairs. There was a tiny front bedroom, with an attached bathroom. The second even smaller bedroom was attached through the bathroom.

She smiled as he entered. "Yes. It's quirky."

"Quirky?"

"Yep!"

"If you say so. Need help in here?"

"Nope, all done in here. Your mother sent so much stuff. And my Gram sent all that food. We don't have room for it." She looked to the overflowing fridge. While it wasn't avacado, it was tiny and so even normal amounts of food would have looked huge. The amount that had was astronomical. Sam hadn't known they were sending so much.

"I could eat that pie. To help you out." He sounded boyish, hopeful.

"Uh-huh." Sam paused, as if thinking over her words. "I think you need to move the couch."

"Why? You said it was fine."

"I changed my mind."

He sounded put out. "Brat."

"Yeah, yeah." She knew he'd do it.

Not twenty minutes later, Sam was shoving the extra food into the fridge when a voice spoke from the screen door to her left.

"Knock, knock!"

Sam hopped over, to the door and went to open it, but then remembered her arms were laden with a frozen lasagna and a box of frozen bag of peas. "Come in."

"I brought you some cookies, but it doesn't look like you need any more food around here." The words were spoken with a smile emanating from a young woman in a bright and oversized yellow sweater and skirt. Her style was as wild and fun as Sam's new stove. In truth, Sam felt dowdy next to this woman. She glowed with vigor and light.

"I live with a human vacuum cleaner. They'll get eaten." Sam dumped her armful on the table and motioned for her guest to sit.

"You too? I thought it was just me!" She looked at Sam expectantly.

"Oh. Right. I'm Sam Ely. My husband Jake's around here somewhere. Probably went outside to make sure I didn't sratch his truck unloading boxes."

The woman nodded sagely as if she knew just how Sam felt. "I'm Kendra Levy. I live right next door with my husband Eliott. This apartment was the Brockmans. Francie always complained about that stove."

"I think it's cute."

"It's evil, according to the Gospel of Frances Brockman. But enough about the mini-stepford wife you've replaced." She shrug the comment off with a tinkling laugh. Kendra told Sam about herself. She was a sophomore from Florida and she was studying in Biology. She was minoring in French. Her husband, Eliott, was from Georgia. They'd met at some summer camp where they'd worked in late high school, and as Kendra said, "I just knew and I told my family we just had to marry. We fight and I don't understand him at all, but we're happy. Happier now than we've been in a long time." Sam gathered that Kendra was not exactly poor. Sure, her family had land and made enough to keep it going, but that was totally different from liquid assets. Kendra just seemed so...sophisticated and worldly as she mentioned all the things she'd done growing up. "Well, enough about me! Tell me about you..."

Sam filled her in on the details about her and Jake and where they were from. When Kendra asked if Sam was excited to be here, she replied, "Sure. I just don't know what to expect. You know?"

"It'll be hard to adjust but you can call on me anytime. We married students have a thing. We go out sometimes and sometimes we sit in each other's living rooms and complain about our spouses. It helps to talk to people who get the situation. The students here tend to avoid married students socially, especially wives. It's like, what is so offensive about it, sometimes I want to scream, but hey, I'm not them, so what do I know?"

"I'd love to come." Sam grinned. And just like that, Kendra stood and stepped towards the door.

"Great. Well, look. I'm fixing to go out soon. I've got to go." Kendra grinned as she took the giant step to her own door. "Great to have met you, Sam! Don't be a stranger, now!"

Sam wandered up the steps where Jake was putting away their clothes. She flopped on the bed that was finally theirs. "I just...had the strangest experience."

"What?" He threw t-shirts in a drawer.

"I met this girl." Sam stated.

"Going to throw me over, then? You seem dazed."

"Shut up, you jerk." She paused. "I...I am dazed. She was a whirlwind." And Sam repeated what had happened.

"So you're telling me our neighbor brought us cookies and invited you to some girls only thing?'

Sam breathed, "Yes. But. She also warned me about the school. They won't like me."

"I'm sure she didn't say that, Brat." He sat next to her as she sat up on the edge of the bed. "It is an adjustment for anybody."

"Yeah, but what if I can't adjust?" She confided her fear.

"Well, then. 'Spose you'll go on home or something." He grinned.

"Like, shape up or ship out?" Sam asked, all seriousness, missing the glimmer in his mustang eyes.

"Yeah, and if you're not student council president and valedictorian by next month they won't pay for you to get back to Darton."

"This is serious!" She was furious.

"Brat. Relax. It takes time." He paused, "You have chores."

"Oh, what now?" She rolled her eyes, flopping down again.

"Your stuff is all over the bathroom. I don't know where you're gonna put it all."

"Why now?" She whined.

"Because some of us would like to use the shower without your frog scrubber net thing staring us in the face through that mirror."

She was indignant. "It is a lufa." She added indignantly, "And I do not have a lot of stuff. You should see Jen's bathroom, she's got a duck theme."

He did not dignify that with a response.

Tiny little self promo: Read my one shot, please! Also, please review this. I fill my social meter by reading your reviews. My mom calls and asks me if I've gone out with people and I'm like, "Nope, addicted to reading reviews."