Chapter 8

The General

The Gina, Maria and Rachel got back home at nine o’clock. Garrett and Charles were watching Sportscenter on ESPN. They were talking about how the football season was going for Garrett, who was a freshman and starting on the varsity football team as an outside linebacker on defense and a wide receiver and third string quarterback on offense. Gina and Maria came in and sat down with them, while Rachel went upstairs to play with her new phone.

Maria asked “So, how did you boys get along while we were gone?”

When I came on board the ship Acies Mentis, in Liverpool. I had one simple plan, desiring more than anything to finally to be out from under my mothers stern gaze and influence, I was to make myself a man. After being babied and pampered into the appearance of a proper young Lady, protected all my life in the atmosphere of my mother and auntie.

Issue 5: Birds of a Feather

“Maybe something came up?” she offered in a soothing tone.

“What?” I asked, turning to look at her. She wasn’t there anymore. In her place was another black feather.

Chapter 7

Uhhhh, Grandma, Grandpa, I have something to tell you.

Rachel’s school curriculum came by Fed Ex Tuesday. Gina had ordered a program that would enable Rachel to do her work online and would let her attend virtual lectures. In some ways, she would be getting a more focused education at home than at school.

CHAPTER 31
When you are a small child, Summer lasts forever, and for me it was almost like that.

CHAPTER 30
That was living, as Nana would say. How to sum up what I consider now as my first true holiday? I could list the climbs we did, or the peaks we crossed, or the silliness in boats on Derwentwater, or…it would be just that, a list, and while each of the items there brings me a memory, a smile, it remains a series of names and dates for anyone else.

Lost in the middle of a foggy sea

Hanging the last of the clothing on the rack, I return to see what assistance I may to Tanner and Irina who have been disassembling everything and gradually moving it over to the RV. Going over, I begin to place some of the lighter items into their places on the shelves, plugging them into the power strips as I go.

CHAPTER 29
We returned to Boot with me buzzing away and the other three somehow completely relaxed, after another four climbs.

CHAPTER 28
Tessa was suddenly looking more than a little confused.

“I’m not used to this….this sort of acceptance”

Co-written by Victor G

16 year old Darren Peterman faces the prospect of telling his father and little brother that he wants to be an older woman like his mother.