"Grandpa, how did you lose your eye?" The boy clambered onto his grandfather's lap and reached out to touch the black silk eyepatch — but not quite, afraid it might hurt the old man. Grandpa chuckled. "That story? Okay, then. So I was under the White House. I'd managed to disarm the bomb, but the detonation charge still went off right in my face. Took the surgeons eleven hours to patch me up. Heh, patch me up."

"That can't be true, Grandpa!"

"No? Then it was probably my secret mission into space. We stopped the aliens from destroying the Earth, but not before one of them disintegrated my eye." The boy shook his head again, grinning.

"Not that either? Hmmm. Maybe I sacrificed it in a mystic ritual, like one of the old gods, in exchange for wisdom and secret magics." The boy just laughed.

"In that case," the old man said, lifting the boy off his lap, "I probably pulled it out myself, just so I could make up stories for rascals like you. Now run and play!"

As the boy ran off, laughing, Grandpa felt his side and winced. "Still hurts," he muttered, but no one heard him.