BIKES • by Bob Shepherd
When I reached my fifth birthday, my mum and dad took me into the front room. They had prepared a surprise. I tried to tug at the old grey blanket they had draped over my present and it crashed to… Continue Reading
gifts
A PRESENT FOR DAD • by Monica Wenzel
“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
YOUR FRIEND • by Max Everhart
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
STAGE IIB: ANGER • by Shelley Berg
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
THE MANTICORE’S SOIREE • by Alec Hutson
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
THIS IS A TOUCHING HOLIDAY STORY? • by Ed Kratz
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
THE PASSING OF THE BOOK • by Gerald Warfield
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
STRANGE FRUIT • by Laura Alexandra Hunter
“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
IN THE CHOCOLATE SALOON • by Jan Alexander
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
FILLIES AND FELLAS • by Sean Jones
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