"I thought maybe I was the only teenager around," Jenny said, after they'd chatted for a few minutes. 'We've been here two weeks, and you're the first one I've even seen. I was starting to feel like an endangered species."

"Don't worry, you're not alone," Sally told her. "It's just that in the summer everyone sort of scatters. Vacations and jobs and stuff. When school starts, it'll be different. We get together all the time then."

Jenny knew about Evergreen High, of course; it was supposedly one of the best high schools in this

part of the country, and her parents were constantly telling her she was lucky to be going there. Going to it was one thing, Jenny thought, staying at it was another. If her parents managed to stay put long enough for her to get through her junior and senior years in one place, then she didn*t really care if it was an award-winning school or not.

"I guess all the kids are pretty close, huh?" she said, hoping they weren't so close that she'd feel shut out. "I mean, the whole school's only got about two hundred and fifty kids, doesn't it? You must kind of stick together."

"Yeah, most of us do." Sally tilted her head and wrinkled her up-turned nose, as if thinking of someone she'd rather not be stuck together with. "But don't worry. Everybody's pretty friendly. You'll get along fine. As long as you pass the test," she added.

Jenny stared at her.

Sally grinned. "I'm kidding. Really. Believe me," she said, "there's not enough of us for there to be an in crowd and an out crowd. There's just the crowd. Except for airheads and deadheads, of course, and I can tell you don't belong in those categories, so you're safe."

Jenny laughed, liking her.

"And," Sally went on, "tomorrow night, you'll get to see for yourself how great most of us are. If you're free, that is."

"My datebook's not exactly filled up," Jenny said, laughing again. "What's going on tomorrow night?"

"The scavenger hunt. We have it every summer, and tomorrow's the only time when abnost everyone will be around," Sally said. "I would have come up to your house and invited you if I hadn't run into you here."

"Thanks, Sally, I'll definitely come," Jenny said. "It sounds like fun."

"Oh, it's great," Sally agreed. 'We get one of the teachers to make up the hst, and it's getting wilder every time. Last year we had to find a Mountain Lion."

Jenny tried not to look panicked. A scavenger hunt was a game, not really a hunt, wasn't it?

"No, no," Sally said, seeing the look. "The Mountain Lions are the team from Mount Harris High. Nobody could talk one into coming over here, though, so nobody got everything on the Ust."

Jenny was reheved. At least she hadn't joined a bunch of rifle-toters.

"Anyway," Sally went on, patting her horse's neck, "I've got to get Emma home before she does something I'll have to clean up. Do you ride?"