"What's got into you? You look like you've seen a ghost."

Dinner was Chinese takeout that Charlie’s parents had ordered from a place called Moon Sung, down the street. They ate it at the table in their new kitchen, in an alcove amongst the towering boxes. The food  was in little cartons upon the table, alongside his father's assorted computer junk. There was a carton of egg-fried rice and then there was a tray of semi-conductors. Beside that sat a carton of chicken chow mein aside a tub of memory chips.

"Where did you go?" Charlie’s dad asked him as he sat down.

Charlie thought about the answer for a moment and decided that he'd better not tell his dad about the afternoon encounter. "Just up to the old folk's houses over the hill," he said. "Not far."

His father glanced at him warily. Gesturing with a chopstick, he said, "Be careful of strangers, Charlie. There are a lot of wierdos about."

You can say that again... thought Charlie, looking disconcerted.

Katie Goodfellow rolled her eyes. "Oh, Bill, stop..." she said, "you'll make the boy paranoid."

Emily, Charlie's little sister, began to cry. She had just dropped her milk on the floor, so it wasn't a real cry. It only lasted as long as it took for Charlie's mom to give her some more. Then she looked at them with teary eyes, and smiled.

"Well, I'll tell you one thing," said Mr. Goodfellow, gesturing with his chopstick. "There are a lot of crows in this neighborhood."

As one, they looked concernedly toward the window, just beyond which a murder of black, glossy crows, sat amongst the branches of a tree, watching them intently.

"Dirty creatures..." said Katie Goodfellow, making a face. 

Charlie regarded the crows with baited breath. They were exactly the same birds that he had seen during the encounter with the old man that afternoon. But how had they got there? They couldn't have followed him. Could they?

"Maybe we should close the blinds," he said, looking concerned. But his dad wasn't listening, as usual.

"So," said Mr. Goodfellow, rubbing his hands together with self satisfaction. "Here we are in our new house. Do you like it? Eh?"

Charlie’s mother positively bristled with delight.

"Another few months and we'll be able to get that hot tub for the back yard that you've been wanting, Katie."

Charlie's mom sat up in her chair and clapped like a performing seal.

"Just think, Charlie," said Mr. Goodfellow, gesturing with his chopstick at the surrounding stack of boxes, "one day this will all be yours."

Great, thought Charlie. Credit card bills by the bucket-load and a gigantic mortgage... He sat back a moment and thought about how it had all come to pass. It all happened because Mr. Goodfellow had got a promotion. He worked for a computer chip manufacturer in town. It was a good job, and paid, as Charlie's father often said, good money. At least now it did because Mr.