I woke up a little late the following morning. The sound of mom hammering on my bedroom door jarred me from my sleep. It took only a brief glance down at my phone to tell me why my mom was hammering on my bedroom door. I had overslept by a good half hour and was now running behind. Going into panic mode, I jumped out of bed, threw on a school blouse, slipped on a pair of panties, slipped on a skirt and forced on some socks and laced up my shoes.

Ursula spends some time helping out in the kitchen - and becomes more puzzled as the morning progresses. Meanwhile, Eriana, Bennet and Semma are introduced to new mounts and take a ride outside Joth's walls.

The Voyage of the Visund

A tale of Anmar by Penny Lane

17 - Eriana Rides Out

Ms Jennings came into my room with a smile on her face.

That made me very fearful given her reputation.

She worked for a Government ‘Special Services’ Department somewhere in Whitehall. A sense of foreboding came over me. Their normal function was to provide HR services to a number of departments but their real function was known to very few people. Everyone in her section had ‘Top Secret’ security clearance so if something a bit out of the ordinary was needed doing that wasn’t assigned to us, they did it.

The HR function meant that you generally only saw her or people from her Office when it was bad news and for us, that bad news invariably meant ‘we have no further use for your services’.

Stuck in a Rut.
By Rosalie Redd

Casey Church is a normal 13 year old boy, full of hopes and dreams and fears and anxieties. But in a world where there hasn’t been a girl born in over a century, what is normal?

Chapter 6.

Summer with Em - Chapter 12

By Julie D Cole

It was clear that Em, Amy and George knew Fran as they greeted each other warmly with hugs and kisses. Not quite as intimate as Em and Bec’s however who held hands as they turned to face me.

Em spoke ‘Kim this is Fran, short for Francesca but she is not into girly names. Sorry Fran but it’s true isn’t it.’

"So would you like to explain what happened"? Detective Woods asked as he sat across from me.

He offered me a cigarette but even though I had been through hell for the past two years I wasn't a smoker before and I wasn't one now.

"Look you need to tell me something, anything that can be used to help you" he said looking at me almost pleading.

"Where should I start"? I asked.
"The beginning I guess" he said lighting his cigarette.

Tom was sitting on his bed when he heard his mother leaving the driveway with the family car. He knew he was alone. His sister was at school. He was home sick with the flue and was curious to go through his sister's things, especially since she seemed so against him doing that. She had told him time and time again: If I catch you in there Tom you'll regret it.

I guess it shouldn’t be too much of a surprise that I was sent home after a severe berating by the police and my parents telling me how I needed to straighten up and act right. I kind of took their choice of words a bit too personal.

Webster’s dictionary defines Speed as the fallowing: the rate of change of position along a straight line with respect to time over a set distance. In other words, the quicker you can get from one place to another. The question is what do you, do when your family has spent the last two generations in search of ways to accomplish this goal faster and faster. Would do you do when the family business is the search for more Speed. For Robert ‘Robby’ McGuire the answer is easy. You grab your sister and strap on a pair of Formula One racecars then go for broke.

A bright flash startled Janet. She looked up to see Mrs. Kimby holding a camera. She couldn’t help the blush that flooded her face when she realized what the woman had done. “You didn’t have to do that,” Janet told the other woman.

“Of course, I did,” Mrs. Kimby replied. “I just had to have a picture to remember this by. I doubt this will happen again.”

As much as she didn’t want to, Janet had to concede Mrs. Kimby the point. “So, you’re going to be taking pictures?”

He didn't like anything he was looking at. The gauges didn't show any signs of life when he flipped the switches. Everything was dead. This wasn't good. There was no noise from below to tell him the little diesel was even trying to start when he turned the switches on.

He dropped down into the galley where Karen was pumping water into the sink. "I don't have any batteries this morning. I think I forgot to turn off the radios last night and the mooring lights drained everything."

He opened the hatch leading into the engine room. Karen could hear him complaining about boats in general, as he tried to crank the diesel over by hand.