Max let the kitchen door close behind him turned to give his dad a hug to welcome him home.

“Evening Max” he said “have you seen that we have new neighbours?”.

“Yes Dad, has the big removals van gone yet?”

“No they still seem to be unloading, maybe we can go round and offer to give them a hand after dinner” he replied with a smile

“Of Course Dad” Max said with the obligatory roll of the eyes, “I can do the settees while you do the wardrobes!”

“Excellent” his Dad said, “I can let the movers know that we can finish off and they can go home”.

“Sure Dad”

With that Max and his parents sat down to dinner, Chris who had yet to return from Football would have to eat later. As they tucked into Chicken and veg, Max turned his attention to his parents, Sue and David, who always sat on the opposite side of the table, whilst they were eating dinner, they chatted away about their days events. To Max his parents were as good as they could possibly be, they were strict but fair, after all Chris and he rarely got into trouble but when it happened he knew that a long talk followed by a period of enforced “thinking time” at the kitchen table was what they could usually expect, he couldn’t remember ever getting spanked, not that he would ever consider doing something to justify that.

Max knew, from the stories his parents had told him and his brother, that his parents had first met in secondary school and had fallen in love almost at first sight. They had gone through the usual rounds of parties and discos together and before school was finished everyone could see how close they were. When school finished however, they separated as his mum wanted to go to University to study to be a doctor, his dad who was not quite the scholastic star his mother was, had started out working on a building site, beginning as a simple gopher. After 4 years at university Sue had acquired her degree and had headed to medical school, after another 4 years of study she returned to her home town to discover that David was now running a successful group of builders, his skills in man management brought to the fore as he moved up through the ranks, mastering none of the specific skills but identifying areas in which they could improve the business of building houses. In the end he had made himself indespensible on a number of projects and had gathered a group of skilled labourers from those he worked with. They had setup on their own and had made a name for themselves working on a large number of spectacular houses and offices in the local area. With the projects coming in on budget and generally ahead of schedule, they were now the sought after names for any developments.

It was only a few short hours after they met once again at a Sue’s home coming party that all the old feelings came flooding back and they were living together with a month, married within 6 months and Sue was pregnant with Chris within the year.

Sue’s hope of running her own doctors practice were put on hold as the baby would not allow her to dedicate the amount of time required, however she was now quite happily working as a part time doctor within a large practice, which gave her the time to spend with her boys, making a point to always be there when they returned home from school. David’s business had gone from strength to strength and he was now running a large agency supplying highly skilled workers for any building site within a large part of the country and with the skills vetting processes that David had created and the passion that he had spreading throughout his staff, they were quickly becoming a national name. David was also attempting to take a Business Management Degree part time to give him the recognized qualifications that would allow him to take his business to the next level and bid for government contracts which was where the big money could be made.

Today the topic of conversation seemed to be about the new plan that David had been asked to look at for a Research Center on the outskirts of their town. Lots of laboratories and special requirements were specified in the plan and David was trying to decide if the potential profits were worth the risk of having to train up some of his staff to cope with the required regulations or hire in new staff. By the time dinner had finished his mum and dad had pretty much decided that whilst they needed to ask more questions the profit was just too big to pass up. That was generally how all decisions were made in their family, everyone who wanted a say could speak their piece before a more informed decision was made. Max though had never really felt the confidence to speak up, but then again he never really disagreed with any of the discussions.

After the dishes had been cleared away and Max and his dad had washed up, his mum asked if Max wanted to come with her when she popped next door to meet the new neighbours. With Chris still not home yet and with nothing else particularly coming to mind, Max nodded in the affirmative and followed his mother out of the front door.

It was a surprisingly warm evening for the middle of March, so neither Max or his mother bothered to grab coats and they wandered up their driveway to the pavement and walked down the road to where the two removals men were just packing up. Standing by the gate, the woman Max had seen earlier was just shaking hands with what was probably the senior of the 2 men.

“Hi I’m Sue and this is my youngest son Max, we live next door”.

“Hi, I’m Lilly” she responded, “my daughter Sarah is around here somewhere, it’s nice to meet you”

“My husband is currently in the house and my eldest son is not yet back from school, he plays for the football team”.

At this point a voice drifted out from the front door, “Mum were did the box go with my radio in it?”.

“Sarah” Lilly called “come out here a moment”.

Max glanced towards the house and was greated by, what he would in later years describe as, a vision of beauty the likes of which he had never seen. However at this time, what he saw was a girl, slightly younger than him, come racing out of the house in a pair of jeans and pale blue t-shirt, both of which had obviously seen better days and hair that hung down to her shoulders although currently caked in dust. However for now Max was captivated by her face and especially her eyes, they appeared to have an iridescent quality to the blue that was now sparkling in the setting sun and Max had to blink to stop himself staring at her. Sarah looked back at Max briefly obviously wondering what he was staring at and then turned to her Mother.

“Sarah, this is Mrs…” Lilly paused, suddenly unsure.

“Harris” Sue supplied.

“Sarah, this is Mrs Harris and her son Max.”

“Nice to meet you Sarah” Lilly replied.

“Hi” Sarah said, somewhat shyly and turned towards Max.

Max licked his lips, his mouth suddenly dry and stood there as Sarah regarded him. He suddenly became aware of the fact that his t-shirt was crumpled and probably not particularly clean after the time spent in the treehouse. He unconciously ran a hand through his hair and then quickly dropped it back to his sides as he realised what he was doing. To him the time between Sarah saying “Hi” and looking at him was dragging along and it could have conceivably been hours since those blue eyes had focused on him and he felt foolish because of how it made him look. The more that thought ran through his head the worse it made him feel and it was with an almost in-human effort of will that he finally managed to get words out of his mouth. “Hi I’m Max” he said and then felt embarrased as he realised that Sarah’s mother had already told her that.

“Hi” responded Sarah with an ease that made Max feel even more self concious about the trouble he had experienced with his simple statement.

He was eventually broken out of his daze as he realised that Sarah had asked her mother a question and was heading back towards the house and his mother was inviting Sue around for tea the next day. All the while Max was now staring at the open front door through which Sarah had vanished, not understanding exactly why he felt that his life had just been turned on it’s head.