Alex walked down the road with her friends, her bag hung on one shoulder, her other was still quite sore. The four teenagers walked home in silence, each appreciating the unseasonably warm weather that they were having of late.

"Three days 'til Halloween." Alex stated with a sigh.

"Yup. What're we doing this year anyway?" Aaron asked curiously.

"Uh… no idea. Haven't really planned anything have we?" Alex sighed, suddenly her face cracked up as she burst out with laughter, "Oh god, remember when we were kids and we got onto Mr Lancer's roof and-" Alex giggled uncontrollably, Aaron also was in fits of laughter.

"And… the custard! Oh man, I've never seen ANYONE look so pissed, until our dad's showed up that is!" Aaron agreed laughing.

"What happened?" Max asked interested by the combination of Mr Lancer's roof and custard.

"Oh, you had to be there." Aaron laughed gently as he wiped the tears of laughter from his eyes.

"Ah, so. Any ideas for this year?" Alex went continued.

"Why don't we go round to Max's house?" Josh suggested slyly, Max froze at this and shook his head.

"Ah, no bad idea." Max answered quickly.

"Aww, c'mon Max. You've met all of our weird families. Well, my weird family; everyone else's is fairly normal. Why can't we come round?" Alex pleaded.

"No no, really, they'd… my parents are…" Max struggled.

"Pwease?" Alex whimpered fluttering her eyelashes in an exaggerated manner.

"No. I'm sorry, I can't have any of you over." Max said coldly.

"Why not?" Aaron asked more seriously.

"I… they're… incredibly embarrassing." Max finished lamely.

"Duh, they're parents. Parents have been embarrassing since people first walked the earth, cavemen were embarrassing to their teenage kids. Always have been always will be, you've seen Alex's grandparents running around in jumpsuits, can you honestly top that?" Aaron smirked.

"Urgh, the shame." Alex moaned at the thought of those horrible jumpsuits.

"I… I can in fact. And I don't want you to meet them." Max shot back and walked ahead.

"Hey! We didn't mean to…" Aaron trailed off.

"Yeah, what've you got to hide?" Josh asked knowing that he was winning, Max stopped in the middle of the road and resisted the urge to turn around and punch Josh, instead he slowly turned and faced Alex and Aaron.

"They're… REALLY racist okay? They'd completely freak out if they knew I had friends who weren't… y'know… black." Max said quietly as he looked away from them.

"Really?" Aaron asked surprised.

"Why else would I say it?" Max snapped angrily as his face flushed in both anger and embarrassment.

"Hey, it's okay. We won't do the Halloween thing at yours then, do you still want to come out with us though?" Alex asked gently.

"I can't really do the Halloween thing, according to my parents it's evil and satanic and all that jazz." Max sighed.

"Do they really say the all that jazz part?" Aaron teased, Max laughed at this.

"Heh, no. But I guess we could meet up the day before Halloween and do stuff, if you guys want to that is." Max asked hopefully.

"I've got a football game that night, and Josh has some art thing, but you two can still go." Aaron prompted.

"But, I can cancel my art thing!" Josh piped up desperately.

"Ah, no you can't, hey isn't this our turn off? Bye!" Aaron said quickly as he very forcibly dragged Josh off protesting.

"Aaron is strange." Max said after a moment of stunned silence.

"Agreed." Alex nodded as they walked on past the road that she knew was definitely not Aaron or Josh's turn off.

"So… there's that pre-Halloween carnival on in the park right? I could go, that should pass my parent's not evil or satanic test, if I, y'know, lie." Max smiled hopefully.

"That'd be nice, it opens at seven right? How about you meet me at my house and we'll go do that. Then the next night I'm completely free to join in mine and Aaron's yearly tradition of terrorising Principal Lancer in cruel and unusual ways." Alex sighed happily.

"It sounds like a good tradition, let me know how it goes. I'll be locked indoors pretending to pray for your immortal soul with my parents. Joy." Max groaned rolling his eyes.

"Sounds fun." Alex laughed gently.

"You know, I've never really told people about them before, not honestly I mean. We move around too much really, my parents think every town is too 'sinful' for them, so I normally just lie to the people at school about them." He murmured and watched a golden leaf fall off a nearby tree.

"Well, I'm glad you trust me enough for that." Alex blushed slightly.

"Yeah, I do." Max smiled and stopped by the steps to Alex's front door.

"Well… I'd better go, I'm meant to be cooking tonight." She smiled brushing a strand of white hair out of her eyes. Max smiled at her, he did indeed like her and she was very pretty even with her unusual hair colours and strange but lovely eyes. His own eyes fell to the sparkle of silver on her collarbone, the blue sun pendant laid sparkling on her skin almost hypnotizingly.

"Yeah, oh… you're still wearing my necklace." he said somewhat surprised.

"Yes, I like it. I haven't actually taken it off yet." Alex admitted.

"I thought you would have changed your mind about it now, or had only accepted it out of politeness and secretly thrown it away by now." Max explained, Alex's fingers bushed the pendant and lifted it so she could see it herself.

"No, I do like it. I love it actually." She murmured turning red.

"I'd… better go before your dad wonders where you are." Max said without making any move to leave.

"Yeah, I should probably go indoors." Alex agreed also not leaving. Max stepped forward and bit his lip before leaning towards Alex, just at that moment some college kids drove past whistling and wooing obnoxiously and snapping both teenagers from their moment.

"I'll just go now." Max said hurriedly as he turned away.

"Bye." Alex murmured softly as she watched him go, with a sigh and a curse to all obnoxious college kids and their stupid cars she let herself into her house.