This was their rule, and by following it, he assured himself that his parents would always trust him. That trust provided him a curfew free summer.
At eight PM he left the house. It was late August, the sun was setting earlier now but there was still a fair amount of twilight at that time of the evening. He glanced at the neighbor’s house for any signs of activity. The lights were on in the kitchen, he saw a woman through the window, and she appeared to be washing dishes. “That’s the mother” he thought. There was no sign of the girl, he hadn’t seen her yet and wondered what she looked like. He hoped she was attractive. He briefly fantasized about how nice it would be to have a cute girl next door in his same class to walk to school with…among other things.