It took a week, but Derek finally made up his mind what he had to do. So, late one night when the Whites were asleep and the house was silent, he packed up his few belongings. Most of them were new, or at least secondhand new, since Janet had insisted he could have some of the clothes that had belonged to her younger son, Tom. For the most part, they fit just fine once she had hemmed the jeans up an inch, Tom having been that much taller than Derek.
He looked around the bedroom he had almost come to think of as his own. Then he sat down at the desk and wrote a note to them, explaining that he really, really liked them and the town, but he had to find out who he was and where he came from. When he finished it, he crept on tiptoe from the bedroom downstairs, avoiding the two squeaky steps o
