The next couple of weeks came and went and then my two weeks in August. Like I said before, my vacation dough had gone to pay the doctor, so I stayed at home and watered the begonias.
The Monday morning after vacation, we were all back in the office, if anything looking more fagged than we had when we left. When lunch time rolled around, Donley and Young and I piled our lunches on Donley's desk—his desk was near a window on the north side of the building so we could get the breeze—and talked about what we had done during vacation.
McCleary ambled up and like it usually does after McCleary comes around, the conversation just naturally died down. After a two minute silence I finally took the hook.
"Okay, Mac," I said, "I know you're just dying to tell us. Where did you go?"
He almost looked surprised. "To Mars," he said, like he might have said Aunt Minnie's.
The three of us looked blank for a minute and then we caught on. It took us a while to recover from laughing and my sides were still aching when I saw McCleary's face. It definitely had a hurt look on it.
"You don't think I did," he accused us.
"Oh, come off it, McCleary," I said crossly. "A gag's a gag, but it can be carried too far. Where'd you go? California, Oregon, some place like that?"
"I said I went to Mars," McCleary repeated hotly, "and I can prove it!"
"Sure," I said. "Like I can prove the world's flat and it's supported by four elephants standing on a turtle's back like the old Greeks...."