Career DayOn Career Day Lily visited her dad's work with him and discovered he worked for a mad scientist who wanted to rule the earth through destruction and desolation.Up until then life hadn't been very interesting for Lily. There had not been very many mad scientists. She lived in a small town called Pelt. There was a supermarket and a library, and several minimalls with discount clothing outlets. The highway went through, and people were pulled over by the police if they drove more than five miles above the speed limit. It was that kind of town.Most people didn't know that Lily herself was interesting. She watched things a lot, and thought about them a lot, but she didn't say much, except to her closest friends. She hid behind her bangs. When she needed to see something particularly important, she blew on her bangs diagonally upward, either from the left or the right side of her mouth. Her bangs parted like a curtain showing a nose-and-chin matinee.Lily believed that the world was a wonderful and magical place. She believed that if you watched carefully enough, you could find miracles anywhere. The town's baseball team had a secret handshake that went back to the time of the settlers. A professor down the street had a skeleton hanging in his vestibule. Behind the dry cleaner, some ladies held newt races. There were interesting things like this everywhere, waiting to be noticed. Though Lily thought that she herself was too quiet and too boring to ever do anything interesting, she believed that if she just was watchful enough and silent enough-so silent that no one could even tell she existed-she would eventually see marvels.Of course, she didn't expect that she would see any marvels at her dad's work on Career Day. She didn't know what he did at his job, but it didn't sound unusually exciting or flabbergasting. She thought it would be nice to know what her father did-that way she could understand a little bit more of what her father and mother talked about at dinner-but she certainly didn't suspect that the visit to her dad's work would eventually lead to daring escapes, desperate schemes, brilliant disguises, and goons with handguns.No, frankly, it would have been hard to figure that out, based on what she'd heard about her dad's work from little things he said. For example:o"I'll stop and get those shirts from the cleaner. It's on the way home from work."o"A guy at work had his wisdom teeth removed as an adult."o"I spilled it on my pants at work."o"I'm going to be home late from work."There was not much that suggested hidden lairs. Terrifying invasions. High-tech weaponry. That also goes for statements like:o"I spent the whole day at work circling number threes for the Dorsey account."o"I'll take the day off work for the Annual Invertebrates Festival."o"At work we could really do with some air-conditioning."Or even:o"The vending machines at work just got these little packages of muffins. Eighty-five cent

---

Excerpted from Whales on Stilts!: Thrilling Tales by M. T. Anderson, Stephen Moore
All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.