"The Tinycawlers"

Check out the first installment of Rodman Philbrick's ''The Tinycawlers," a serialized story for young readers, in today's Boston Globe. (Free registration required.) The story begins,

• If there was one song that Thomas J. Cawler could erase from planet Earth, it would be the Randy Newman tune ''Short People." The stupid song that Blaine Healey liked to sing at the top of his lungs whenever he passed Tommy in the hall.

A very promising first paragraph.