Sorry for the long delay, and I realize that this hasn't been my most exciting story. Hopefully what comes soon will be an improvement.

It wasn't easy keeping mycomposure as I drove Tess back to her house. I thought my head was going to split as I wondered how to break the news to Dad. "Hey Dad, guess what? I made the front cover of the National Enquirer." Yeah, that would be bad news for anybody. For us it was more like Armageddon. What did I think, that I could tell him someone took my picture and he'd just have an easy answer to make it all go away? That he'd be calm about it? Heck, I was having a heart attack over it the whole way. 'Maybe we really will have to move now,' I thought. It didn't seem as bad as it would for most kids, I guess. I'd always kept pretty distant from most of the kids at school, so it wasn't like I would miss that many of them. Just Matt, and a few people at church. 'It'd save me the trouble of breaking up with Tess,' I thought. That was almost a relief under the circumstances. I found myself trying to work up the courage to talk to her about that, but the longer I tried the harder it got. The last thing I wanted was another huge argument, especially while I was driving. More distractions were the last thing I needed.

As if she'd been reading my mind, Tess suddenly poked me hard in the shoulder.

"Hello, earth to Jeremy?"

"Huh?" I looked at her, then remembered what I was doing just in time to avoid wiping out someone's picket fence. "Yow!"

I think we both screamed; I know I did as I jerked the wheel hard to get back on the street and slammed the brake.

"Hey!" she yelled, and although I couldn't see what she was doing I think she grabbed the door. "Watch the road!"

"Sorry, sorry!" I struggled to turn around without hitting the cars parked on either side, and realized we were in Tess's neighborhood just down the street from her house. Once I had caught my breath and assured myself that my heart wasn't going to blast its way out of my chest, I apologized one more time for good measure. "I guess I wasn't thinking."

"I could tell. I didn't think that argument at the store would rattle you like that."

'Argument?' I wondered. 'Oh, right, the underwear place. Like I didn't have enough problems.' "Yeah," I fumbled, trying to go with that cover story (how's that for ironic?) without lying outright. "You, uh, kind of caught me off guard." Close enough; I just wasn't saying that the magazine was what really blindsided me.

She frowned, and I guess it was the sorry look in her eyes that did me in then. "Sorry," she said. "What did you have against going in there anyway?"

Like she even had to ask? I officially did not like where this was going. "It's just too much too soon," I said. "I mean, we just started dating. No offense, but I'd like to be able to look at you without picturing you in your underwear."

She gave me a weird look. "Are you saying I'm fat?"

Suddenly I wished I could go back where it had been heading before. "No, no of course not," I fumbled in a way that really sounded unconvincing. "It's just too soon is all. I mean if we were..." I stopped. I was going to say "if we were married," but bringing up marriage would make me look even weirder than I was – which is definitely saying a lot. If my brain hadn't been so scattered I might have reminded myself that she had hit the fast-forward button already, but considering I was still thinking in the back of my mind that we might have to move out of the country, I definitely wasn't my normal, rational self. "It's just too soon," I finished lamely.

She didn't do anything at first. Then she nodded. "Okay. Next time we go somewhere, you call the shots. When's our next date?"

Like I said, I as stupid right then. "I'll call and let you know," I promised, anxious to get back to my mortal peril. "There's something that came up at home."

"So that's it," I told my folks half an hour later. "I guess the lady in that house had a camera."

Mom groaned. "Did the article say anything else?"

"I don't know," I admitted. "I haven't really read it yet."

Dad opened it to the page indicated and almost instantly shook his head. "This is bad."

"What does it say?" asked Mom, leaning in.

Dad pointed to one of the smaller pictures in the article. "This lady didn't just get Jeremy's picture, she got casts of his tracks."

"Oh no," I groaned. "Anyone who gets a good look at those can match them to my shoes."

Mom's face was so twisted with concern, it looked like she might implode. "They could trace them right back to you if you left a clear enough trail."

I groaned. "You're right."

"Well there's no pint in crying over spilled milk," Dad countered. "We need to figure out where this is going and head it off."

"How?" I asked.

Dad sighed, and I could tell by the look on his face that he wasn't feeling any calmer then the rest of us. He put a hand to his chin and started thinking. "The best we can hope at this point is that no one will take the story seriously."

"It's not just the story," Mom pointed out. "This was someone in our town. What if word gets around?"

Dad's frown deepened. "I hadn't thought of that. We can't afford to do anything rash, but we can't afford to take risks either. I'll get in touch with my sister. If worse comes to worst, we may need to go into hiding somewhere, or at least relocate and change our identities."

"But your writing..." I protested. Dad wasn't famous or anything, but his name did sell. If he took a different name, it could flatten his career.

"It's not as important as keeping you safe," he reasoned. "Besides, if we left sooner rather than later, we could come back when the whole thing blew over."

He had a point there. If I wasn't around, no way there'd be any sightings of the Lizard Kid (nice nickname that rag gave me, by the way). "We'll have to listen to talk around town," I decided. "I just hope this does blow over quietly."

"We all do," Mom agreed. In the meantime, I'm getting you new shoes. We've got to get rid of those old ones and hope that keeps things out of our hair."

I was glad to have a hands-on solution. Call me weak on faith, but I's never liked things being where I couldn't handle them by doing something. Which was probably why I didn't mention the fiasco with Tess. Privately I was hoping that would just blow over.

Naturally, it didn't, any more than new shoes solved my other problems. Did I mention I can be really, really dumb sometimes?

The next update will probably take quite a while (okay, so did this one. Sue me).

In a related note, does anyone else notice a strange similarity between Mom's solution to the problem and an approach similarly adopted in the Bible? Don't feel bad if you don't, I only just made the connection myself.

Belated Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year!