worth a thousand laughs

grayson stared into the mirror and laughed. his little sister, emily, had certainly had a good time \”decorating\” his face. bright red lipstick was smeared around his mouth haphazardly (adv. 隨意地), large circles of rouge (n. 腮紅) adorned each cheek, and his eyelids were painted dark blue. she had even attached a couple of his mother\'s clip-on earrings to his ears. grayson thought he looked hilarious, and he knew his best friends, alexander, would agree, so he pulled out his phone to take a selfie (n. 自拍). grayson pursed his lips, cocked his head, and took the picture. he added the caption, \'here\'s my long-lost sister, kylie!\' and he sent off the photograph to alexander.

after carefully washing the makeup off, grayson headed downstairs to help his dad with dinner. as he set the table, his phone began buzzing. he pulled the phone out of his pocket and chuckled at alexander\'s text: \”lol! ur a goof!\” grayson stuffed the phone back in his pocket and headed into the kitchen to pour drinks for dinner.

the following morning started out normally enough, as grayson and alexander met at their usual corner and headed off together to school. they were running a few minutes late, so when they arrived, grayson headed straight for his locker to grab the materials he needed for the first class. that was when he got the first inkling (n. 暗示) that things weren\'t going to be normal that day after all.

christopher anderson stood at his locker across the hall from grayson and called out, \”hey, pretty boy, where\'s your sister\” several students surrounding christopher cackled (v. 咯咯地笑) along with him and they all bumped fists.

as grayson traveled down the hall, a group of girls heading in the opposite direction were whispering to each other. grayson noticed one of them point to him as they all started giggling.

grayson\'s first class was pre-algebra with mr. henkins, and as the teacher explained how to solve equations with one variable, something brushed past grayson\'s face and landed quietly in his lap. he glanced down to find a crumpled (adj. 皺巴巴的) piece of paper lying there. when he unfolded it, he discovered a scribbled (adj. 潦草的) drawing of a woman\'s face with the words \”kiss! kiss!\” scrawled underneath it. grayson slumped dejectedly (adj. 沮喪地) in his chair and wished he were invisible.

for the remainder of the morning, grayson continued receiving ments, sideways glances, and snickers. he attempted to brush off the ments by replying, \”yeah, i\'m a really funny guy, aren\'t i ha, ha.\” but he was embarrassed by the attention, especially for something as silly as that photograph. how could everyone have seen it he had sent it to just one person!

in the cafeteria at lunchtime, grayson finally saw alexander again. by this time, his embarrassment had escalated into anger. \”how many people did you send that photograph to i didn\'t say you could send it to anyone else!\”

\”man, i am so sorry,\” alexander apologized sheepishly. \”i only sent it to sebastian because i didn\'t think you\'d care if he saw it. he thought it was super funny, just like we did, but he must have sent it to someone else, and they sent it to someone, and on it went, like dominoes falling. pretty soon, almost everybody in our grade apparently got the photograph. grayson, i promise you, i did not mean for that to happen.\”

grayson inhaled deeply, and then exhaled a long breathe. he knew he couldn\'t really blame alexander. if he didn\'t want anyone to see the photograph, he shouldn\'t have sent it in the first place, because once it was out there, there was no getting it back or controlling where it would go next.

\”don\'t sweat it,\” grayson assured his friend. \”it\'s on me for not knowing better what might happen. i guess i\'ll just have to be kylie for awhile, at least until the next thing es along to grab everyone\'s attention.\”

問題:

1. who is the protagonist in this story

2. does this story have an antagonist

3. is this a realistic story

4. is this story set in the past, present, or future

5. why does grayson share the photo

6. what does alexander mean when he says the way the photo was shared around school was \”like dominoes falling\”

7. what does the story tell you about grayson\'s character

8. a fable is a folktale with a lesson. fables usually end with a moral, which is a short sentence that sums up the lesson of the story. what is a moral for this story