"Come on," George whispers, looking every bit as terrified as I am. "Mr. Jackson has said we can go into form early so that we- well, you- don't have the rest of the form staring at you."
"Okay," I whisper.
"Mr. Jackson your form tutor?" Megan- who has joined the 'convoy' of myself, George and Priya- asks.
"Yeah," I say as I take step after step on my quivering legs.
This chapter is the swim cup and the aftermath.
Then two troubled boys learn a lesson one respect.
Plus a teacher get a taste of the diapered life if just for one day.
How many of us remember the little things in life?.. how many of us worry when we can't remember them?
Events unfold including but not limited to:
John being dragged through hallways
(despite his protests)
And Hannah learns from the observations of her elders.
Some people are good at breaking down the walls you put up around yourself.
Some of them take that phrase a bit too literally..
Events unfold including but not limited to:
John mocking Hannah's choice of reading material
(Even though he owns half of them himself, the hypocrite.)
And Hannah rebels!
There are moments in life that can take your breath away.
Not all of them are good though.
Events unfold including but not limited to:
Rosemary corrupting the youth of america
(Don't worry, it's only Dizzy so it's not like she's making THAT much of a difference)
And Hannah does what she does best..
Sometimes it feels like one person can make your world view spin on a dime..
Events unfold including but not limited to:
Sarah whining for Hannah to 'make them stop'
(while using her as an improvised footstool)
And Hannah gets some questions answered, but maybe not the ones she wanted.
Big Sister: A Sequel - 3 By Katherine Day (Copyright 2016) (Paul's beautiful soprano voice and his fun at being a "Big Sister" creates a new and jarring reality. The third and last chapter of this novelette)
Doing things when you're angry can often lead to more reasons for you to be angry, not always though.
Sometimes life just sucks..
Events unfold including but not limited to:
Sarah 'sleeping' through important events.
(while John watch's over her, but not in a creepy way)
And Hannah confronts more then one situation which gets a little out of hand.
Big Sister: A Sequel-2 By Katherine Day (Paul discovers the joys of girlhood role as his role of ‘Big Sister’ blossoms. Entering a new school, his unusual talent takes him further into a new life.)
(Copyright 2016)
Big Sister: A Sequel - 1 By Katherine Day (Paul discovers the joys of girlhood role as his role of ‘Big Sister’ blossoms. Entering a new school, his unusual talent takes him further into a new life. A novelette in three parts.)
(Copyright 2016)
It's usually hard to pick up the pieces, we tend to think that some things would take a miracle to be repaired.
Events unfold including but not limited to:
A purring Betty
(an amazing thing considering her age)
And Hannah gets to enjoy venting, in more ways then one.
“Beautiful, girls,” Miss Fullerton announces as the twenty-odd teenagers bow, before extending their arms and legs into the most elegant shapes. “Extend… And pointe.”
“C’est magnifique,” Mademoiselle Renou congratulates in her refined French accent. “Group one, you will continue practising at the barre. Group two, you will practise your pas de deux.” I, as a member of group two, nod, before following Mademoiselle Renou- not to mention a dozen leotard-clad teenaged girls- to the centre of the room.
When I came to I was on the patio deck of the Eureka, with Valerie and her parent gathered around me. Thinking they were rescuing me from drowning they had dragged me on board their yacht, where they tried to remove my “fake” tail and discovered the truth about me. So much for my people's Prime Directive of never letting yourself be seen by humans. I was a bad, bad mermaid!
But this wasn't quite the disaster it could of been. Although they'd found out about me, any trouble this family might bring down on my adopted species was a long ways off. They weren't exactly from around here. It seems that pirates aren't the only ones who can make a wrong turn in the Bermuda Triangle...
OFF THE DEEP END ~ CHAPTER 9 THE LITTLE HUMAN Part 3:EUREKA!!!
Laika Pupkino ~ 2016
Family is complicated, especially when magic is involved..
It feels like I've said something like that before?
Events unfold including but not limited to:
Sarah driving carefully
(not that anyone cares to compliment her on it)
And Hannah discovers a new-found hatred for royal red tartan.
My week as a mermaid continues: My young human friend and I surfaced and sat on a rock, where we could talk without having to use her underwater message pad. I was hoping she might start making sense now, but Valerie's strange stories were growing progressively stranger: Reagan and Kennedy on Mount Rushmore... A transsexual woman giving birth... Peace in Iraq but a war in Antarctica...
I might have decided that she just had a wild imagination, except she also had all this impossible hardware---like the artificial gill she'd been breathing underwater with---which had me wondering if I'd somehow wandered into an alternate universe. Given the kind of week I'd been having this didn't seem like such a crazy notion, but these mysteries had a different explanation that I would eventually discover. It was just a matter of time...
OFF THE DEEP END ~ CHAPTER 8
THE LITTLE HUMAN Part 2:
Girl Out Of Time
Laika Pupkino ~ 2016
Home can be a lot of things, but sometimes its just the place you sleep.
The gang are back in the great US of A at last.
Events unfold including but not limited to:
Sarah giving Hannah's cold shoulder a poke
(not that it helps much)
And Hannah gets a bit too close to a mythical mountain.
The first thing every mermaid learns is that if you see a human you're supposed to swim away as fast as you can. But the girl in the pink wetsuit was right here in front of me, and there was no way she would think she'd been mistaken about seeing me. My best recourse seemed to be to convince her not to tell anyone about meeting me, and as we talked (or rather I talked, while she typed her words on her neat little electronic message pad) this seemed to be working. But there were things Valerie was telling me here that made absolutely no sense. Either this girl was crazy or the whole universe was. Given the kind of week I'd had, my money was on it being the universe that had gone...
OFF THE DEEP END ~ Chapter 7
THE LITTLE HUMAN Part 1:
The Girl with the Gizmos
Laika Pupkino ~ 2016
Today my sister decided to take me landlubbing, which the mermaid equivalent of the human sport of snorkeling- a low tech way to see all the pretty sights of a world that isn't your own. Except that instead of gliding almost effortlessly along through the water, our version has the tortoise-like pace of crawling + squirming over the ground + through the brush, and in some places you're basically rock climbing without feet. It isn't easy. But the little island Anemone had brought me to was so breathtakingly gorgeous it made it all worth it. It had everything you'd hope to find on a tropical isle- from coconut palms to waterfalls. And being uninhabited we could explore it all without running into any humans...
Or so we thought. Until that big white boat pulled into our perfect island's perfect bay, and things got super intense as our pleasant outing turned into a desperate game of hide and seek.
OFF THE DEEP END
CHAPTER 6 ~ THE WHITE SHIP
Laika Pupkino ~ 2016
Memories are funny things.
In this instalment Al takes us on a whistle stop tour towards present day.
Events unfold including but not limited to:
A paper Ankh getting roasted
(fire can be awkward like that sometimes)
And Al meets a rather dandy man with excellent hair because.. well that would be telling wouldn't it?
When my mother died and my father, someone that I had never met in my life, proposed to take me in, I actually believed that I was going to live with him. That of course wasn’t going to happen. That man, without even meeting me once, was sending me to a boarding school - a boarding school that apparently didn’t even know my name or gender, because in the letter they sent me to tell me I was accepted, they kept referring me as Miss Brooke Falconer.
That was completely ridiculous, I mean, I was Brook Woods, a tough (yet slightly short) guy!
Our pleasant dinner had degenerated into a loud fight between my mermaid sister & our mom; Anee yelling, “How can you keep harping about how awful land people are if you never even met one?!”
Mom stated flatly: “I know all I need to about them.”
“You think you do, but Daddy liked humans. And he had experiences with them, not just a bunch of ignorant bigotry!”
“I've had dealings with humans before.”
“When? When was this?! I've heard all your stories and you never mentioned-”
“I prefer not to discuss it.”
"Now there's a surprise! 'Ewww, it's unpleasant! Let's not discuss it!'" mocked Anemone. She kept goading Mom, relentlessly, stopping just short of calling her a goddamn liar: “No Mom, I wanna hear this! Tell us! Tell us about your encounter with the horrible evil hewwww-mons-”
“I FELL IN LOVE WITH ONE!” roared the Queen, slamming her fists down on the table.
She froze there, stunned; like she'd just blurted out a secret she'd intended to take to the grave with her. Then she sighed, composed herself + told us her story...
OFF THE DEEP END ~ CHAPTER 5
ANEMONE & ENOMENA Part 3:
Wild Kingdom
Laika Pupkino 2016
Magic is complicated. Family doesn't help.
In this instalment we take one final giant step backwards.
Events unfold including but not limited to:
An assault on Bad Juju
(with some assistance from a big stick)
And Alistor has an identity crisis because Sarah has awkward teeth.
Spring break wasn’t as much fun as it could have, that is, should have been. You’d think that when your mother won the lottery for 1.7 million dollars, that you’d be doing something really great on spring break. But no, my sister, Lucy, and I were packing boxes. Mom had this really weird idea. She grew up on the farm and thought there was nothing more wholesome than living on a farm. She sold the house and between her first year's annuity check and the equity in the house, she bought twenty acres with a house and an old fashion barn.
Introduction: Tommie is confused by the enormity of what she thinks might be happening. She returns to her room and cries herself to sleep. Cindy realizes that her whole approach had been wrong, and turns it over to The Wizard.
This story is another addition to The Cynthia Chronicles. Cynthia (Cindy) Brewer has graduated from medical school, and is well into her residency. The Wizard has difficulty remembering exactly where she is in her studies. Randi Lewis at age 18 is starting work on her Master of Science in Chemistry (read Randi and the Professor), and Charli Brewer will soon be a freshman in pre-med at UConn. Bobbie Anderson is setting the golf world on fire having now won tournaments on the PGA in addition to her many victories on the LPGA. This story takes place a year before Bobbie and the Glass Ceiling. If you are not familiar with the stories that make up the Cynthia Chronicles, you might want to go back to the beginning with An Incremental Journey. There are references to Cynthia and the Reluctant Girlfriend and Charli and the Girl Cave. If you don’t remember what happened in those stories, you might want to go back and read them again. This story also takes place just a few months before Cynthia and the Queen of the Knight.
Introduction: Big things are happening at the Hotel, and Tommie is becoming a bit uneasy about things. Most of the special group that has been arriving since the day before is magic, and they seem to have an unusual interest in her. Cindy realizes she may have made a big mistake.
This story is another addition to The Cynthia Chronicles. Cynthia (Cindy) Brewer has graduated from medical school, and is well into her residency. The Wizard has difficulty remembering exactly where she is in her studies. Randi Lewis at age 18 is starting work on her Master of Science in Chemistry (read Randi and the Professor), and Charli Brewer will soon be a freshman in pre-med at UConn. Bobbie Anderson is setting the golf world on fire having now won tournaments on the PGA in addition to her many victories on the LPGA. This story takes place a year before Bobbie and the Glass Ceiling. If you are not familiar with the stories that make up the Cynthia Chronicles, you might want to go back to the beginning with An Incremental Journey. There are references to Cynthia and the Reluctant Girlfriend and Charli and the Girl Cave. If you don’t remember what happened in those stories, you might want to go back and read them again. This story also takes place just a few months before Cynthia and the Queen of the Knight.
Introduction: Tommie has an appointment with her doctor. Things start out quite well. The doctor is a bit surprised by her development and then things get a bit strange. Tommie’s ability to converse with animals comes to the forefront.
This story is another addition to The Cynthia Chronicles. Cynthia (Cindy) Brewer has graduated from medical school, and is well into her residency. The Wizard has difficulty remembering exactly where she is in her studies. Randi Lewis at age 18 is starting work on her Master of Science in Chemistry (read Randi and the Professor), and Charli Brewer will soon be a freshman in pre-med at UConn. Bobbie Anderson is setting the golf world on fire having now won tournaments on the PGA in addition to her many victories on the LPGA. This story takes place a year before Bobbie and the Glass Ceiling. If you are not familiar with the stories that make up the Cynthia Chronicles, you might want to go back to the beginning with An Incremental Journey. There are references to Cynthia and the Reluctant Girlfriend and Charli and the Girl Cave. If you don’t remember what happened in those stories, you might want to go back and read them again. This story also takes place just a few months before Cynthia and the Queen of the Knight.
Introduction: Randi fills Charli in on what has been going on. Needless to say she is beyond happy. Tommie has a very pleasant surprise.
This story is another addition to The Cynthia Chronicles. Cynthia (Cindy) Brewer has graduated from medical school, and is well into her residency. The Wizard has difficulty remembering exactly where she is in her studies. Randi Lewis at age 18 is starting work on her Master of Science in Chemistry (read Randi and the Professor), and Charli Brewer will soon be a freshman in pre-med at UConn. Bobbie Anderson is setting the golf world on fire having now won tournaments on the PGA in addition to her many victories on the LPGA. This story takes place a year before Bobbie and the Glass Ceiling. If you are not familiar with the stories that make up the Cynthia Chronicles, you might want to go back to the beginning with An Incremental Journey. There are references to Cynthia and the Reluctant Girlfriend and Charli and the Girl Cave. If you don’t remember what happened in those stories, you might want to go back and read them again. This story also takes place just a few months before Cynthia and the Queen of the Knight.
Author’s Note: While Alys9 did edit this for me,
I didn’t necessarily use all of her suggestions.
Any errors remaining in the text are mine.
“I don’t know why you can’t dress like a girl. I mean, I’ve never seen you in a dress and you’ve lived next door for five years,” I told Susie, the tomboy that lived next door. She was my sister’s age, two years older than me, and I was starting to notice girls and she was one I noticed. Under her jeans (boys) and loose shirt, there was a good looking body. The only time you could tell was when she put on a swimsuit. “And you should do something with your hair and maybe wear some nail polish or somethin’,” I continued.
“Leave her alone Frank. She can dress how ever she wants. I don’t blame her. I like to wear jeans and sweatshirts too,” my sister defended.
“Yeah, you’re nearly as bad as she is. You only wear dresses sometimes, when there’s some kind of special occasion. You’ve got a drawer full of nice nighties and all you ever wear to bed is flannel pajamas. The only difference between you and Susie is you polish your nails. Susie never wears dresses,” I complained.
“I don’t always wear flannel pajamas.”
“Oh yeah; I forgot. During the summer, you wear Dad’s old T-shirt and Boxers. Real girlie. I’ll bet Susie wears that kind of thing year round.”
Susie whispered something to Karen, who nodded. “I’ll tell you what,” Susie said. “Let’s have a contest. I’ll bet that I can do everything you do and that you can’t do everything I can do. If you win, I’ll wear whatever you say for a whole week and fix my hair all girlie. I’ll even let you go first.”
“What if I lose?”
“Well then,” she grinned, “you’ll have to wear whatever I say all week.”
“What ever we say… I’ll even do it too. And you’ll have to do something with the sorry mop you call hair to make it look better. I don’t know where you get off talking about Susie’s hair. At least she washes hers,” my sister Karen insisted.
Introduction: Tommie tells her sister about meeting a real witch and The Wizard. Elaine’s not too sure what to believe. We also learn one other thing. Tommie can converse with his cat. Does this sound familiar?
This story is another addition to The Cynthia Chronicles. Cynthia (Cindy) Brewer has graduated from medical school, and is well into her residency. The Wizard has difficulty remembering exactly where she is in her studies. Randi Lewis at age 18 is starting work on her Master of Science in Chemistry (read Randi and the Professor), and Charli Brewer will soon be a freshman in pre-med at UConn. Bobbie Anderson is setting the golf world on fire having now won tournaments on the PGA in addition to her many victories on the LPGA. This story takes place a year before Bobbie and the Glass Ceiling. If you are not familiar with the stories that make up the Cynthia Chronicles, you might want to go back to the beginning with An Incremental Journey. There are references to Cynthia and the Reluctant Girlfriend and Charli and the Girl Cave. If you don’t remember what happened in those stories, you might want to go back and read them again. This story also takes place just a few months before Cynthia and the Queen of the Knight.
Family is complicated. Magic doesn't help.
In this instalment we are a bit closer to our end goal.
Events unfold including but not limited to:
A socially deviant receptionist (a title she would accept with joy)
And Al gets to the hub of things, in more ways than one.
Introduction: We have met Tommie who seems to be a very well-adjusted young boy going to be a girl. She has a great support group behind her as she starts her transition. Cindy realizes very quickly who Tommie is, and her full name, sister’s name, and picture confirms her suspicions. The Wizard seems to be a bit Laissez-faire about the whole thing, and that perplexes Cindy.
This story is another addition to The Cynthia Chronicles. Cynthia (Cindy) Brewer has graduated from medical school, and is well into her residency. The Wizard has difficulty remembering exactly where she is in her studies. Randi Lewis at age 18 is starting work on her Master of Science in Chemistry (read Randi and the Professor), and Charli Brewer will soon be a freshman in pre-med at UConn. Bobbie Anderson is setting the golf world on fire having now won tournaments on the PGA in addition to her many victories on the LPGA. This story takes place a year before Bobbie and the Glass Ceiling. If you are not familiar with the stories that make up the Cynthia Chronicles, you might want to go back to the beginning with An Incremental Journey. There are references to Cynthia and the Reluctant Girlfriend and Charli and the Girl Cave. If you don’t remember what happened in those stories, you might want to go back and read them again. This story also takes place just a few months before Cynthia and the Queen of the Knight.
Introduction: For this little bit of fluff we go back only a couple of months before Cynthia and the Queen of the Knight. Over the years that these tales about Cynthia Brewer (nee Lewis) have appeared there have been a number of loose ends. We have met people, many the victims of The Wizard’s magic, and then we hear nothing more about them. A prime example is Charli and the Girl Cave. Charlie Donizetti’s parents as well as his aunt and uncle were brutally murdered during a robbery, leaving Charlie an orphan. Also orphaned were his two cousins. Other than a brief mention that the cousins had been sent to an orphanage in western Connecticut, we know nothing about their fate. Now is the time to find out what their fate was. The Wizard is up to his usual tricks.
This story is another addition to The Cynthia Chronicles. Cynthia (Cindy) Brewer has graduated from medical school, and is well into her residency. The Wizard has difficulty remembering exactly where she is in her studies. Randi Lewis at age 18 is starting work on her Master of Science in Chemistry, and Charli Brewer will soon be a freshman in pre-med at UConn. Bobbie Anderson is setting the golf world on fire having now won tournaments on the PGA in addition to her many victories on the LPGA. This story takes place about two months before Cynthia and the Queen of the Knight and a year before Bobbie and the Glass Ceiling. If you are not familiar with the stories that make up the Cynthia Chronicles, you might want to go back to the beginning with An Incremental Journey. There are references to Cynthia and the Reluctant Girlfriend and Charli and the Girl Cave. If you don’t remember what happened in those stories, you might want to go back and read them again.
My sister and I had about as much fun as two mermaids can have that week.
.
On Monday she took me on a tour of the village up the hill from our castle, where everyone was curious to get a look at me. The whole ocean knew about Queen Atlantea's magically created second daughter by now; who as rumor had it was: “Beautiful, but dumb as a sea cow!“ But nobody was mean to their idiot princess. They all tried to look out for me, to make sure I wouldn't go kissing an electric eel or something.
.
As we sat at a table in Shellcastle's town square an adorable little girl came swimming up to us with a sea lily in her hand. The fry was confused that there seemed to be two Princess Anemones until I pointed; and she handed my twin the flower-animal before grabbing her in a hug.
.
And now the tiny mermaid wanted to hug me too. If this was celebrity I could get used to it...
OFF THE DEEP END ~ CHAPTER 4
ANEMONE & ENOMENA PART TWO
A Song For Future Generations
Laika Pupkino 2016
A hero isn't born a heroine and growing up can be a bumpy road.
In this instalment we go back a few years.
Events unfold including but not limited to:
A slightly more awake Sarah
(although the benefits of that are debatable)
And Hannah reluctantly goes to prom for a night he should never forget.
TV personality and Tomb Raider Sarah, along with her faithful camera man Tor went off route in search of their next episode.
Things didn't go quite as planned, and these are the consequences..
OFF THE DEEP END ~ CHAPTER 3
ANEMONE & ENOMENA PART ONE
Mermaid Princess: First Day on the Job
Laika Pupkino 2016
Way back in another life---before I was kidnapped by pirates and jumped overboard in the dead of night and almost drowned but got turned into a mermaid by a genie from a bottle---my friend Pepper used to say how I was lucky to not have any siblings. Every visit, texting or phone call had at least one epic tale about the latest fight with her sister or how the little brat would borrow Pepper's things without asking, and then lose them or just leave them laying somewhere half wrecked...
But I could never quite believe that having a sister like Ginger wasn't good at least as often as it was bad. After being an only child for all my life, being twins with a mermaid princess was.... WoNDeRfuL!!!!
Maybe if Anemone and I had grown up together it wouldn't seem so special, but I was too new to this life to take any part of it for granted. It was hard to feel like there was anything worth fighting about when just brushing my long soft golden hair put me on a total high, if I wasn't already on one from having woke up in my clam shell bed that morning to discover: “Yep, still a princess!”
Anemone had been an only child until now too, and she was loving us being sisters as much as I was. We went everywhere and did everything together, and all the ocean's dolphins and whales and sea turtles, the fish, the stars, the shrimps and lobsters (but not so much the crabs...) and even the unbelievably stupid sponges were our friends.
“Come on, cheer up!” Dad urges me as I comb my long- for a boy- floppy blonde hair. “Don’t think there’s a single twelve year old boy who wouldn’t kill to go where you’re going tonight, getting to see the best film ever with your girlfriend AND being surrounded by a bunch of celebrities…”
“Yeah, I guess,” I say with a long sigh.
“What’s wrong?” Dad asks. “Just a little tired? Don’t tell me you don’t like Star Wars…”
“No, the film was alright,” I say, making dad sigh.
“Well, that was a complete waste of time,” Taylor
said. “Do you know why the Knowing One used an illusion instead
of a transformation when he came to see the portal here in the
women’s quarters?”
“Um, I thought we’d decided that was because he’s a wuss?”
Checks can be made out & sent to:
Joyce Melton
1001 Third St.
Space 80
Calimesa, CA 92320
USA
Note: $6000 is the operating, maintenance and upgrade budget. Amounts received in excess of the $6000 will be applied to long term debt accrued over the last 19 years.
