drabble of the day

From the still percolating story with the working title "St. Jude's School for the Gifted...

"It doesn't look very... hygienic," Michael said disapprovingly from the back seat of the rented BMW. He had ridden with his face pressed to the glass for most of the trip from the Denver airport, watching with unabashed awe as the land slipped away from the edge of the highway into deep narrow valleys studded with aspen and granite and pine. He had been eagerly awaiting his first glimpse of St. Jude's School for the Gifted where he would be going -- no, living -- for the next nine months; now that he'd seen it, however, he really rather wished that he could stay in the back seat when his mother and father turned the car around and headed back to Denver, and from there, back home.

"Nonsense," his father said with a chortle. "You're just saying that because it doesn't look exactly like that monolith of steel and concrete you called a junior high school. This place has got history..."

Michael wrinkled his nose. History should be stored carefully under glass and artfully back lit or distilled for consumption into book form. History, to his mind, did not include rambling ramshackle buildings, faded banners, or peeling coats of paint. He physically shuddered as he wondered which of the drafty looking tenements the dormitories were.