Something happened the night the aliens attacked Cashes Dade that Cade doesn’t talk about. He saw something that he refuses to tell others. Can you figure it out? Cade’s parents left him to join the aliens. His parents were ranked as WhiteStar by the aliens which meant they had the privilege to live in the alien City of Arapreshday and hold a high position. They would get a great home with many other benefits and rewards, but they didn’t take Cade with him. They didn’t even tell him they were leaving. Cade’s best friend Blake’s parents also left him behind several years before, but not to join the aliens. Blake began living with another couple from Cashes Dade and when they found out what happened to Cade, they invited him to live with them as well. Cade is a great guest to have in your home, but it can get pretty interesting…
Cade is really energetic in the mornings. He’s a morning person even though he swears he isn’t. In fact, he gets upset if you call him a morning person and no one really knows why. He tends to wake up pretty early, but he’s really quiet, strangely quiet in fact. There are many times Blake has woken up early, gotten breakfast thinking Cade must still be asleep, only to get a rude shock turning around to suddenly see Cade just standing there, usually with a wry smile on his face.
It’s not just how quiet Cade is in the morning that’s mysterious, but how energetic he is, well, that is until you find out what he does for breakfast. He drinks coffee, and pours sugar, a lot of sugar, into his coffee. He also pours sugar on whatever he’s having for breakfast as well. You would think this means he’d be pretty early to school every morning, but he isn’t. Blake isn’t because usually he rolls out of bed at the last minute and barely has time to get ready, but Cade just seems to space off a lot and suddenly realizes it’s time to go. Then he and Blake race to school, trying different crazy routes to see who could find the craziest routes to school.
Cade does the same bizarre routine every night. When the four of them are hanging out in the living room in the late evening, reading different books, Cade starts to drift off. Then he’ll stand up and say, “I can’t stay awake. I’m off to sleep. See you all tomorrow.” But it doesn’t end there. Moments later you will hear sounds coming from his room, those sounds would be him kicking a mini soccer ball into his mini soccer goal in his room; trying crazy trick shots, or trying to beat his previous records of how many goals he can score in a row. Then he comes back out to re-join them. He does the same thing every time; he walks in shaking his head acting shocked that he couldn’t fall asleep. Then he starts to drift off again. Then he says he’s going to sleep, again, but he doesn’t leave. He stays and suddenly starts asking them about some random topic, talking fast and usually branching off into different things they really need to talk about like what they’re doing for dinner tomorrow, what they’re doing for the weekend, and do ghosts sleep? Eventually Cade does go back to his room to go to sleep, but he usually gets up about five more times for some random reason. Some people wonder if he ever does in fact go to sleep…
Cade seems to wander a lot, and stare, a lot, especially when he’s supposed to be studying. He’ll just stop and start thinking about something, sometimes getting this crazy intense look in his face while closing his eyes and whispering rapidly to himself. He might “study” for several hours but only have read a few lines in his notes. Then he’ll go through the rest of them crazy fast. He has a way of re-writing his notes in a way that makes sense to him so he can look at for a long time and visualize it. It seems to work pretty well for him, but many wonder why he doesn’t just do that from the beginning instead of wasting so many hours staring out the window. It’s a mystery that may never be solved…
On the final morning Cade saw his parents, he did his usual routine. He was on his third cup of sugar with coffee when his dad quietly left to go to their Furniture Store. He’ll never forget the last thing his mom ever said to him. He thinks maybe it means something, but he can’t figure out how, because it seemed like a routine statement about how he should get to school that day. His mom looked out the window at the sleek blue clouds slowly streaming across the hazy morning sky over the dazzling blue towers of Dayces Cameron arranged in a massive stadium shape. Then she told him, “You should take the bridge…”
