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PART ONE

Extraction

1

I really thought my life would be different after my death After all, I had saved the planet from total annihilation, and not a lot of people can say that—well, I can’t think of a single living person who can I’ht I deserved a ticker tape parade or alike that I’ht be a little different

I rong

Of course, nobody knew I had saved the world I wasn’t allowed to tell, and ould believe me if I did? There were rumors about what happened when I disappeared from school, mostly based on the news reports that I was involved in a plot to blow up Stonehenge

One rumor had me as a special operative recruited by the CIA to bust up a terrorist cell Another said that I was a terrorist the CIA had captured, deprogra someone with a mental condition

But the most popular rumor was just that I was crazy “Crazy Kropp,” some people called me Okay, not just some A lot Not a terrorist or a mercenary or a spy Just crazy, off my nut, wacked, loco

And it wasn’t just kids who thought that Dr Peddicott, the school psychologist, ht it, too, because she referred me to a real shrink, a psychiatrist named Dr Maury Benderhall, who interviewed me for three hours

“So, Alfred,” he said “Tell me about school”

“Well, I’ o so”

“ ‘Kropping’?”

I nodded “Kropping Basically, it’s about hu Tormention and humiliation Only I’m not sure if ‘tormention’ is a word”

“It isn’t”

“Well, it should be Anyway, Kropping could be anything froet ie, because it takes a lot of deterie”

“I’ if you told someone”