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desk beside her and waited for him to respond.
    “Mom told me to tell you that there’re
brownies downstairs,” Michael said to her, though he was looking at
me. His gaze lingered a moment longer than my brain calculated to
be normal. I stared back at him until he broke away.
    “Thanks,” Jessica said, her tone urging him
to leave.
    Michael stood there.
    “You can go now.” Jessica waved him from the
room. Then she turned to me, revealing an impish grin and whispered
with a giggle, “He likes you.”
     

Chapter Seven

    “So, what did you observe?” Glen asked me as
I sat in his study across the desk from him. The room was dark. Not
dark as in lack of light, but that the color choices were dull and
uninspiring. The book shelves were a maroon red and the gloomy
portraits seemed to stare down at me as I contemplated my answer.
Glen leaned back in his chair, watching me.
    “Well, they were very pleasant. It seemed
normal for them to welcome a stranger into their home. They were
very ... accepting.” I told him after a brief pause.
    He nodded. “Did they act different than when
you’d seen them at school?”
    “They seemed much more relaxed. They goofed
around more.”
    Glen nodded once again. “And what were the
relations between family members?” He studied me, as if cataloging
my expression. I wasn’t sure that what I was divulging was normal
human behavior or whether what I told him was helpful or not. I
hoped I had done well and that he would highly esteem me for this,
but you could never tell with the creators.
    “They seem very close. They laugh with their
parents and I didn’t see them fighting or even having mild
disagreements. Jessica and her brother, Michael, get along well
also,” I answered.
    Glen nodded. “Okay, Drew. That’s enough for
today. You can go.”
    With one last glance at the pictures on the
walls, and a brief wait for a possible word of praise that didn’t
come, I left the study.
    * * * *
    “Hey Drew, wait up!”
    I turned to see Michael hurrying down the
hallway in my direction, and I couldn’t help but notice the large
amount of students who turned at the sound of his voice to watch
us. I looked at him expectantly, wondering what could be so urgent
to cause him to run.
    He flashed me a smile. “I just wanted to walk
with you to English class.”
    I wondered why he’d want to do this when we
were both going to end up there whether we walked together or not.
It seemed pointless.
    “How was your weekend?” he asked.
    I wondered once again why this would be
important, but pushed the thought away while I tried to find an
answer. “It was fine,” I replied.
    “What’d you do?” he asked, watching me.
    I shrugged, remembering that a majority of it
was spent at his house with Jessica. “Nothing, really.”
    Michael stopped, letting out a small chuckle.
I stopped also and looked at him. “What?”
    He merely shook his head then ran his fingers
through his hair, shifting uncomfortably for a moment before
speaking. “Drew, I just want to know a little bit about you. That’s
what I’ve been trying to do ever since you first came here.”
He laughed nervously. “Now, would you stop giving me the cold
shoulder and just talk to me?” He made a humorous, pleading face.
“Please?”
    I had no idea what the right reaction was. I
stood there for a second, frozen. I hadn’t even realized that I had
been ‘giving him the cold shoulder’ as he had called it. “Sure,” I
said amicably, hoping to fix the situation. What was I supposed to
say? The creators should have installed me with certain programming
or a database or ... something. I felt so unprepared and
inexperienced. They alleged that I was perfect, but I was having a
frustratingly hard time achieving this for someone who was
supposedly flawless.
    Michael beamed, apparently happy that he'd
succeeded in getting me to open up. “Thanks.”
    I smiled back then turned to head towards the
English room. Michael followed and I