Dreary

It was a dreary day when young Bradley Grippot, 6 years old, returned home from his first day at school. Dreary not because of the weather so much (it WAS kind of cloudy) but because of his classmates. He sulked about it on the bus, even though he was still new to the whole riding-the-bus experience. Most of the other children went to the same preschool the year before so they talked to each other. What did you do this summer? they would ask. We went to camp, or we went to Disneyland, they crooned. Bradley had sat around and waited for someone to ask him or to invite him to play with them. Really, he didn't want to intrude, just as his mother had taught him, but tomorrow, toMORrow, he'll have to take things into his own hands. He'll start by asking THEM first, and when they asked him right back, well, he'll just say he went to Hawaii. Of course that's a lie, because who would really believe that he returned from training to be an interstellar spy for the Afwellian aliens?