Chapter 1: THE BUS, AGAIN Three lizards waited for their school bus. If you asked them, it seemed like they were always waiting for the school bus, but that wasn't the case. "It seems like we're always here," Zeke, the peach-throated monitor lizard, said. "Kinda does, doesn't it?" said Daniel, his much smaller clouded monitor lizard friend, in his pink hat which had caused such a commotion recently but everything had calmed down into it just being the hat that Daniel wore, no big deal. Alicia, also smaller, also a clouded monitor lizard, said nothing. "At least it's not raining," Daniel said hopefully. It started to rain. "Of course," said Zeke.
"Why 'of course'?" Daniel asked, genuinely curious. Daniel was genuinely curious about nearly everything. "As soon as someone says something like, 'At least it's not raining,'" Zeke said, "that's exactly when it starts to rain." "Is it?" Daniel stared up into the rain, eyes wide, and shouted, "At least it's not raining doughnuts!" It did not start raining doughnuts. "I'm not sure you're right, Zeke," Daniel said. None of them had umbrellas, but lizards aren't too concerned about rain. It beads on their skin and rolls off. In fact, it's hard to describe a lizard as ever actually getting wet.
They are, at most, brief carriers of water droplets. Their clothes, however. "My hat's getting wet," Daniel said. "And my shirt," said Zeke. Alicia, whose hoodie was also getting wet, still said nothing. "Your hoodie's getting really wet, Alicia," Zeke said. Alicia didn't answer. Which was less surprising than it might have been for most people.
Alicia sometimes wandered off in her head into things that were more interesting than whatever was going on around her. She was only about fifty percent present most of the time, but Zeke thought this morning's absence was a bit more than usual. "Ezekiel?" said a strong French accent from the region of Zeke's knee. "We are getting quite wet!" "Oh, sorry," Zeke said. He took out a plastic parka from his backpack and shrugged it on over his head. It went all the way down to his ankles and was covered with cartoons of Dr. Rex, Dinosaur Hunter, Zeke's favorite book series. "Merci!" said France.
"Though the fashion is not what we would have chosen for ourselves." "I lost my knee umbrella," Zeke said. "Zut alors," France said sadly. "There's the bus!" Daniel said, for there was the school bus, coming down the road to pick them up. Until a few fish had enrolled (and aside from the tiny shrew bus driver's tiny shrew daughters), the lizards had always been the first students to be picked up, living farthest away from the school in the poorest part of town. "I have news," Alicia said, not looking at either one of her friends. Zeke and Daniel waited expectantly. She didn't continue.
"Alicia?" Zeke asked. The bus pulled up and opened its doors. The bus driver waved good morning to them, but Zeke and Daniel were still looking at Alicia. They waited for her to tell them her news. They waited some more. And some more. "You're getting soaked out there!" said the shrew. "Get on board!" "Alicia?" Zeke asked again.
But Alicia just stepped onto the bus, walked to their usual seat, and sat down, getting everything around her quite wet. Zeke and Daniel exchanged a look and went up the little stairs after her, doing the same. As the bus was driving away, none of them noticed the huge, hovering, blimp-shaped ship way up in the clouds, slowly drifting toward town.