Synopsis. While Bonnie does Baby Jennie's make-up in the highchair, she explains the origins of her feud with Baby Jennie to her friend Tammy, and how she was forced to wear nappies. Tammy learns of Baby Jennie's early fascination for wearing pretty dresses.

“…Well, I guess that’s that, then,” Rob sighs. “You all know what this means.”

“We tried so hard to avoid it,” I mumble. “But in the end, I guess we’re just going to have to face up to it.”

“Yep,” Neil says. “I think in the end, we all knew this was going to happen sooner or later.”

“Yeah,” Rob sighs, leading to an awkward pause. “Next game… We open up box 8.”

After the visit to the studio, with his frustration mounting, Ryan retreats to one of his old vices. While the obsession with video games had seemingly doomed Mark and Devon, a greater danger looms just outside his window.

Excerpt:

A skipping rope slapped gently against the asphalt, each jump and each giggle caused candy-coated claws to dig into my mind, the claws digging deeper and deeper as my desire to join the girls grew.

“Wow! You did three skips that time! I wanna be good like that!”

I looked out the window and saw a skipping rope tied to a telephone pole. Two girls, one of them Kaylee’s age and one Ashley’s, were taking turns holding the rope. Each time they failed to jump the rope, they switched places. The whiney, nattering voice of the younger girl should have been a massive turnoff, like a beautiful girl with a mannish voice, but instead, it planted a powerful need, an alien yearning to reach out to these girls- to play with them, but it also caused a resurgence of doubt.

“Would they even want to play with me?”

Locks of Love

Melanie E.

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