Beginnings

Alexei has a secret—a secret that makes him different from every other boy in his class. Very different, in fact, from any child he has ever seen—boy or girl. So far, nobody else knows his secret. Not even his foster parents or his sisters.While he has managed to keep it that way for more than a year, it is starting to get more and more difficult to keep his secret with each passing day. More especially now that he is into a new school year at a new and very strict school, a school where he has already been subject to some nasty bullying, because of his slightly “quirky” behaviour and the peculiar way he looks in his rather too large school uniform.Today is Monday—the first day of the third week of the school term—and once again, Alexei has a P.E. class, which means swimming lessons. So far, he has managed to avoid all of them; but there is no way that he can keep doing so without getting punished, quite severely. Going swimming, however, will also reveal his secret, and he is not sure if his classmates, his teachers, his school, or even the world, is quite ready for that!Alexei has wings!