Tess walked up to Taylor's house, stopping to watch the sunset over the roof. Sunsets were a beautiful part of Earth--Nasedo had taught her that the sun didn't set as magnificently on their home planet.

When they'd finished shopping, Taylor had invited her to her girls' night sleepover. As it turned out, they only lived a few blocks away from each other.

She knocked on the door, and Tish Okabe opened it a few secods later. "Hi, Tess! Come in!"

Tess stepped inside and looked around. Wow. Apparently, Taylor's parents were loaded. The house was enormous, and the hall she'd just stepped into was almost the size of her whole house. The floor was wood, with an oriental rug roughly the size of Manhattan, and there were beautiful framed pictures hung on the pale yellow walls. The railing on the spiral staircase was brass, and the second floor looked somewhat like a fancy hotel.

Taylor appeared at the doorway of a room. "Hey, Tess!" she called. The distance between them was so enormous that Tess could barely hear her. "Come upstairs! Manicures!"

Tess and Tish walked upstairs together. The stairs went on forever--it felt like she was climbing to heaven. In fact, when she reached the second floor, it looked like heaven. They walked into the room where Taylor had been standing, and Tess dropped her bag on the floor in a corner with the others. Then she straightened up and looked around the room.

The walls were blue, with black beaded drapes covering every inch of the place. The ceiling was black, covered with glow-in-the-dark stars. The carpet was blue and thick. Tess slipped out of her platform sandals and the soft carpet enthralled her tired feet.

"Wow." she turned to Taylor. "Cool room."

"Thanks," Taylor replied, almost automatically. Tess suspected that the trait of saying 'thank you' as a reflex must be bred into rich kids when they are born. There were so many cases to prove that...but not now, there's a story to tell. "You know everyone?"

Tess nodded. On the floor on the oppostie side of the room, doing their nails, where Alexandra Potter, Corrine Williams, Amanda Larsen, Angel Morgan, and Nikki Johnson. On Taylor's bed, Keana Dawns and Alicia Reeve were reading a magazine.

"So what, she just decided that Liz Parker was cooler than we are over the summer?" Amanda was saying.

"No, if you remember right, all last year it was going downhill," Angel reminded them. By this time, Tess had figured out that they were talking about Isabel and she sat down by them in order to hear more.

"Oh, hi, Tess," Corrine said, and turned back to the others. "But quitting cheerleading--I mean, much as she always hated to admit it, Izzy LOVED cheerleading. She lived to cheer. So the question is, what happened to her sometime last year and intensified over the summer that would make her stop thinking of popularity as a priority?"

"Maybe she fell in love with Liz," Alexandra cracked, and they all burst out laughing. "What? Liz is pretty."

"Not pretty enough for Isabel, probably--considering she's a narcissist," Angel replied. Everyone laughed again, but Tess' was sort of half-hearted. Just because Isabel didn't want to be her friend didn't mean that they weren't still practically family.

Tess took a bottle of nail polish remover and started cleaning her nails. "Okay, enough Izzy-ripping. Next topic."

"Guys," Keana called instantaneously from the bed.

"Guys suck," Alexandra responded just as quickly. "Chris does, anyway."

"What'd he do THIS time?" Amanda asked.

"Only dumped me for Stacey Scheinin," Alexandra complained.

Angel made a gagging face. "You mean dumped you for her or dumped you in her pursuit?"

"Well, we all know Stacey will have any guy who'll be with her." Alicia took her eyes off the magazine and looked over at them, mouthing, "Slut."

"Yeah, don't worry, 'Xandra, any guy who'd want her is so not worth you," Tish assured her. "Who are you going for now?"

"I'm not sure," Alexandra replied. "Craig Capacho, maybe?"

"He is SO hot," Nikki raved. "And what about Zach Wilson?"

"Isn't he taken?" Amanda asked.

"No, Jenn dumped him last week," Nikki answered.

"You know who I think is hot?" Taylor cut in.

"Uh, let me guess--Max Evans?" Alexandra took the magazine that Keana and Alicia had just finished and started flipping through it. "It's always: Hey Izzy-Max this, Max that, what about Max? Not that I blame you. He is pretty hot. Too bad he has a girlfriend."

"Liz Parker," Corrine mocked the name, very appropriately. "I saw them making out in the middle of the hall today. Who does she think she is? And WHY does she get the hottest guy in the school?"

"No, he's not as hot as his friend--you know, Michael Guerin?" Keana retorted. "Too bad he's taken, too. Hey, Tess, I heard you and Michael are getting pretty tight."

"We're friends," Tess said, hoping her face wasn't as bright as she wasn't feeling. "By the way, he's not going out with Maria anymore. He dumped her before the summer."

"Poor chick," Tish commented. Yeah, if she'd known Maria like Tess did... "How come?"

"Who knows?" Well SHE certainly did, and six certain other people did to, but she wasn't about to tell anyone, especially when the girls who owned the gossip mill. "He's Michael."

There was a long silence, finally broken by Alexandra's quiet singing.

"Iz, Liz, Iz, Liz," she chanted in a faint tune. "It rhymes! Iz, Liz, Iz-"

Keana threw a pillow at her. "Shut up, Xan. You're a freak."

"You suck," Alexandra shot back, returning the pillow into Keana's face.

"Pillow fight!" Angel shrieked, grabbing another pillow and tossing it at Alicia.

"Don't hit me," Corrine warned. "My nails are still wet." She delicately put the paint brush back into the bottle of dark wine polish, which Tess took and started using to paint her toes.

"Where's Taylor?" Nikki suddenly asked.

"Who knows?" Alicia shrugged. "Maybe she'd got a guy in the next room or something." She laughed.

"She's probably making popcorn or something," Tess offered. She knew, in fact, that Taylor WAS making popcorn, because she'd smelled it. Being a half-alien gave her extra-perceptive senses. They wouldn't figure out her secret from a lucky guess, but they WOULD be impressed.

Some minutes later, after she finished using her powers to dry her toenails, Taylor walked in with a huge bowl un unbuttered popcorn and put it down on her bed.

"Nice, Tess!" Keana commented. "How'd you do that?"

"An alien told me," Tess joked. Alien jokes seemed to be the way to go so that no one suspected her in Roswell. Not that too many humans were suspicious, but Dark Angels (the enemy species) could almost totally shapeshift. They always had a few distinct characteristics, but they were hard to tell.

"Right," Taylor said, giving her a weird look that Tess grinned innocently at.

"Someone blow dry my nails," Corrine whined. "I want popcorn!"

Alexandra laughed. "You finished painting them ten minutes ago. I'm sure they're dry."

"No, they're not!" Corrine protested. "My nails dry really slowly."

"Or maybe you're just obsessive-compulsive?" Tess offered. She moved over to where Corrine was sitting and reached her hand out. Corrine pulled back. "I'll be very careful," Tess promised. She touched a nail and used her powers to dry them. Hey, nobody would suspect. "They're completely dry, and you're completely obsessive-compulsive. Have some popcorn." She passed the bowl.

"Thanks." Corrine touched her nails to make sure they were dry. "That's weird, though. I could've sworn..."

"Get over it," Alexandra said, taking a handful of popcorn and throwing one at her.

Five popcorn fights and one chick flick later, everyone was getting ready to go to bed. Taylor turned the lamp near her bed off, and Tess fell fast asleep.