“I need to go shopping,” Rose said. Liam mumbled something as he rolled over. His sister stood beside his bed, staring at him. The nightlight in the hallway lit up her outline. At least she hadn’t turned on his light.… Continue Reading
Harry sat in a semi-circle with five other kids, waiting for John Barrett to hurry up and open his birthday presents. John, who Harry only ever hung out with whenever his real friends were grounded or out of town, stood… Continue Reading
She wanted those shirts back. Except the pink one. She loathed pink now. She would never wear pink again. The others, though — made from that beautiful Italian cotton with the sateen finish, the mother-of-pearl buttons, impeccable tailoring — were… Continue Reading
A musical clamor rose up from the porcelain tiles of the Scapanine Road as Julian de Nova Valencia lashed his horse on faster. His lateness for the soiree was now verging on being unfashionable — one of life’s great injustices,… Continue Reading
Founder’s Day approached, and seven year old Billy Brewster trembled with excitement. He shivered with the cold, too, but that was not unusual. The planet New Antarctica — or that frozen hell as it’s called — celebrates Founders Day to… Continue Reading
Jason, a bronze sickle in one hand, glimpsed movement at the edge of the woods and straightened to peer above the golden stalks of barley. At the far end of the field, Dame Stilwell, his teacher, had emerged from the… Continue Reading
“You eat?” Carmel’s landlady was standing on her doorstep with two pieces of fruit unlike any she had ever seen before. “What is it?” Carmel asked speaking slowly and clearly. “You eat?” Evie repeated with a smile. “Yes.” Carmel took… Continue Reading
Le Saloon de Chocolate. It’s a little shop in the empty-calorie heartland suburb where I grew up. Clearly the owners never learned proper French, though they have a space in the upscale mall, the one with more pretensions than the… Continue Reading
The dilemma — I knew even as a nine-year-old boy to be a “good problem” — was I’d unwrapped a blue plastic horse from Mrs. Golding during the fourth-grade classroom Christmas party and all the girls wanted horses, as girls… Continue Reading
He smiled as he finished wrapping the gift. It hadn’t been as hard as he feared. Satisfied, he brought out his pen and wrote. *** Amanda received the first latticework animal the morning before her sixth birthday. It was sitting… Continue Reading