To Return Home

Chapter 1.1

I dove into the water, alongside my sister, Paula. Neither of us wore any of the diving equipment of old, except for a pair of goggles each. I hated trying to see underwater without them. Many people didn’t worry about them either, but I had hated blurry vision since I was a kid. Before I was injected with nanobots, I was myopic, but the bots had cured me of that problem almost immediately. My vision had been perfect ever since then. To dive into the water and not be able to see was too nerve-wracking. Perhaps since it took me back to the time before I was female? I wasn’t sure, but nevertheless — I wasn’t willing to do it.

Egypt, Eight Years Ago, Newly Discovered Archaeological Dig:
“Bart, tell me again why we are out here checking this site out?” Casey couldn’t see how this had anything to do with the CIA or National Security.

“The boys at Langley intercepted a message saying that an unusual artifact of unknown origin had been found.” Bart Hardy hated being out in the desert at night.

Chris has bullied his friends for far too long. Three of them have had enough and decide to turn the tables on him.

Summer Times
A Novelette in a Dickensian Style
By Maryanne Peters

Chapter One

“I have a proposal for you, Mr. Summers,” she said. She appeared to me to be a fine woman, of imperious bearing and with an expensive frock – totally out of place in the gatehouse where we first met that day.

 

Part 3 of 29

Sunday, June 16
What a day! Mary Ann is showering and I have a few minutes by myself to write. I feel like Alice after she fell through the looking glass, things are getting curiouser and curiouser indeed!

[The day of the funeral]
“Ready darling?”

“As ready as I’ll ever be Mum,” replied Maxine.

“The car is waiting.”

Maxine pulled the heavy veil down over her head. She was dressed head to toe in black. Her dress was black silk and very full. Her whole outfit could have come from the late Victorian era. Long before Adrian had become bedridden, they discussed the funeral and everything in great detail especially what she was going to wear.

In this chapter, our hero learns about restroom rules, bravely selects what to eat for lunch, and joins his first SIGL meeting.

 

Part 1 of 29

Author's Note
An earlier version of this story was posted in 2009. A while back my Muse decided I needed to let Angel finish telling her story. After listening to her I have revised and substantially added to her story. As a valued member of the Liar's Club, she is pretty good at telling a tale.

Positively Patsy Part 5

When we went to get dressed for the first show on the Friday evening we found that Maxine had supplied us with outfits with a Japanese flavour. All the girls were in variations of the ‘Lolita’ fashion so loved by young Japanese girls, while the boys had button-to-the-shoulder tunics with dragons front and back. On any other day I would have thought it over the top but, having walked around Tokyo and seen what was being worn in the street, I was interested to see what the audience, and the media, thought of our gear.

I know I keep you amused, but I feel I’m being used. All I needed was a friend to lend a guiding hand. I couldn’t have tried anymore. You stole my heart.

When Theodor Geisel wrote the Cat in the Hat he was already a well-established children’s author. Several of his books had been made into animated cartoons.

His publisher asked him to do what he could to reduce the literacy problem in the United States by writing a book that could be used as a reading primer. He was given a list of 225 words (There’s dispute on the actual number.) and told to make a story out of those words.

I didn’t learn to read by reading The Cat in the Hat. It didn’t come out until 1957 when I was nine and probably on to The Bobbsey Twins. I do remember reading The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins in the first grade, and being enthralled.

I can’t even estimate the number of hours I’ve spent with my children and grandchildren on my lap reading his wonderful “Dr. Seuss” books. In his honor, I made a list of the words used in The Cat in the Hat and devised a TG poem using only those words.

The sun would not shine.
I was too sad to play.
So we sat in the house
On that sad, sad, bad day.

The Jillaroo Part 1 / 4. Birth and Rebirth

I am lying in bed, my face bathed in sunlight from a nearby window, and my two grand-daughters are telling me about their day at school while my grand-son is looking out of the window at his friends playing soccer.

The moon is in its seventh house. Greg is on his very first high. The dawning of the Age of Aquarius came late to Bellington College. Greg finds love, but will he risk all to keep it?

It Just Ain't Happenin'

By Melanie E.

Sometimes, no matter how hard you try, you just can't have the things you want.

The Huntress
A Short Story
By Maryanne Peters

Chapter 12
Natalia and John have their first encounter in years as John realizes who Natalia has become and Natalia has an encounter with her ex wife
The final pieces of Aragons fate are put in place and the Princess plots for the future

When Maxine returned home from the Hospice, she sat still for a while. The carers were busy cleaning the Bedroom where Adrian had slept for the past two months. The medical equipment … The medical equipment was all being boxed up to be sent back to the rental company. It all seemed so final. She just had to accept that Adrian was not coming home again. Now it was up to her to run her life and the business. For the first time since she’d gone to that interview with Sally Jameson, she felt truly alone. She mentally sighed to herself. There would be many more days like this in the days, weeks and months to come.

Maxine sat at her desk and gazed into space for god knows how long thinking about everything and nothing at the same time.

Chapter 16

The next few days were quiet and Wendy and I got around to cleaning out the flat after the weeks it had been collecting dust and we did a bit of shopping to restock the pantry. I then had a phone call from the agency asking if we could all go and see them the next day; they would send a mini-bus at ten. We let the other girls know to be ready.

In this chapter, our hero gets a new understanding of what delicate can mean, learns about a confrontation in the principal's office, and follows a friend in pain into the unknown.