Table of Contents

Short Stories by Texas Authors

Vol 1

© 2015 Texas Authors, Inc.

Cover Artwork by Boon Publishing, LLC

Permission has been granted by the authors of the short stories included within these pages for publication in this volume, both print and electronic form.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publishers, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review to be printed in a newspaper, magazine or journal.

All Characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental, unless indicated otherwise.

The ‘Personal History of the story’ section is written by the author of the story and has no bearing on the judging of the story. The information was only submitted after judging had been concluded and is only added to this book to give insight to the story and the author. Any and all comments made by the author in this section is of their own thoughts and opinions and not the thoughts and opinions of the sponsor’s and or their staff.

eBook Edition

Limited Edition First Print 2015

Second Print 2015

Third Print 2016

ISBN: 978-0-9967348-0-6

Published by Texas Authors, Inc.

A not for profit organization incorporated within the state of Texas.

THANK YOU

TO OUR SPONSORS

C-Spot Magazine

http://cspotmag.com

EBG247 eBooks

http://EBG247.com

Texas Authors, Inc.

http://TxAuthors.com

DP Digital Press

http://DPDigitalBooks.com

Proceeds from the sale of this book benefit DEAR Texas, Inc., Texas Authors Institute of History and Texas Association of Authors, all are not for profit organizations incorporated in Texas. IRS non-profit status varies by each organization.

Advisory: There are some words used within the stories to express a time and mindset that some people may find offensive. It is not the intent of the author or of the publisher to create or promote hateful concepts. The words are only use to express the context of the story.

Special Note:

One of the goals of Texas Authors, Inc., and the organizations we work with is to encourage people of all ages to read more. It is a pleasure when we come across two young authors who not only enjoy reading, but have written and entered their short stories into our contest.

Grave Betrayal (page 89) by Kaitlyn Lydon (age 14) won second place for Young Adult Fiction. Jay Simone (age 14) did not win in her category, but we did include her story Amy McStern: Kid Detective at the end of the book.

It is with great joy that we include these two young authors in this book and hope they continue to improve upon their skills and hopefully one day, become great authors.

Table of Contents

- Number One GI

- STEAL BIG

- Weather Breeder

- The Dog

- Window Pains

- One Scoop, or Two?

- The Chill

- Mirror Mirror

- I Miss It Every Day

- Halloween Mousse

- Black Star

- Texas Voodoo

- The Lady’s Profit

- The Vaquero Way

- Clownshoes

- Grave Betrayal

- Cool Penny

- An Average Homeless Man?

- Did He Have a Sister?

- Amy McStern: Kid Detective

- sponsors

Number One GI

First Place Winner…Fiction/Crime…Marjorie Brody

Steal Big

Second Place Winner…Fiction/Crime…Allan Kimball

Weather Breeder

First Place Fiction/Historical…..Robert Stevens

The Dog

First Place Winner…Fiction/Inspiration…Marla Dean

Window Pains

Second Place Winner…Fiction/Inspiration…Julie B Cosgrove

One Scoop or Two

Third Place Winner…Fiction/Inspiration…Diana Finfrock-Farrar

The Chill

First Place Winner…Fiction/Mystery-Murder…Cyndi Lord

Mirror Mirror

First Place Winner…Fiction/Suspense…Yvie Towers

I Miss It Everyday

First Place Winner...Fiction/Military…Jackie Smith

Halloween Mousse

First Place Winner…Fiction/Supernatural…Kendal Furlong

Black Star

Second Place Winner…Fiction/Supernatural…Bert Beeb

Texas Voodoo

Third Place Winner…Fiction/Supernatural…T B Riggs

The Lady’s Profit

First Place Winner…Fiction/Western…Tamara Hartl

The Vaquero Way

Second Place Winner…Fiction/Western…Juan Manuel Casas

Clownshoes

First Place Winner…Fiction/Young Adult…Shalanna Collins

Grave Betrayal

Second Place Winner…Fiction/Young Adult…Katelyn Lydon

Cool Penny

Third Place Winner…Fiction/Young Adult…PG Shriver

An Average Homeless Man

First Place Winner…Autobiography…B. Alan Bourgeois

Did He Have A Sister?

Second Place…..Autobiography…B. Alan Bourgeois

Amy McStern: Kid Detective

Honorable Mention….Fiction/Young Adult….Jay Simone

Number One GI

Marjorie Brody

Fatigue lined Todd Douglas’s face, dragged on his muscles, thickened his spit. But he stood erect. Alert. Eyes forward. Ignoring the stares from the panel of judges, the prosecutor, the court reporter, the ghosts of the dead.

“Be seated, Private Douglas.” Captain Anderson, prosecuting attorney for the Judge Advocate General, tugged at the base of his jacket. A small gesture. Perfecting the lay of his uniform.

Todd plucked the sharp crease on his khaki sleeve. He looked pretty spiffy himself.

“Before the recess you were talking about what happened the day Private First Class Hepper died,” the attorney said. “Let’s pick up there. And I remind you, soldier, you’re still under oath.”

The wood on the witness stand felt flatter, harder than it had all morning. Todd squeezed his butt cheeks, squirmed his ass around a little and tried to find a comfortable position. “Yeah, well, we all knew the risks. Everybody knew it could happen—happen to any of us. Shit. We were living with kill or be killed. Every damn day. Every damn night. We had to stick together.”

“Who devised the plan your squad followed?” the JAG’s piranha asked him.

“Sergeant Caldwell figured out where they stashed the . . .” Todd searched for a politically correct word. “. . . the ‘supplies’ we needed.”

“Let's be clear here. Those supplies you ‘needed’ would be considered illegal drugs in the United States. Is that correct?”

“It wasn't illegal in Nam,” Todd said with a shrug.

“Need I remind you which country's laws you swore to follow?”

“It was a matter of survival. But I don’t suppose you’d know about that—what it’s like to live 24/7 in a fucking hell hole.” Todd hardened his eyes. “So let me tell you. Enlighten you ‘bout what it’s like to live over there—if you can call it living.”

He flicked the collar of his shirt. “The shirt you wear all day, sleep in all night, reeks of death. Your pants stink from your own goddamn piss. And even when you strip, you carry that smell of death with you, buried in your own goddamn skin.”

“Private . . .”

“Your feet—what you depend on to hightail your ass to cover—corroded and raw with jungle rot. Where leeches crawl up your legs, suck blood from your goddamn balls.”

“Private!”

“You live under a hailstorm of bullets and satchel charges—those sweet little gifts the VC toss at you. Explosives in canvas satchels. You see your buddies made into Swiss cheese by punji sticks. Filleted by trip wire traps.” He leaned forward, ignored the moisture heating the space above his lips. “We needed those supplies. Hear me? We needed them.”

“It was war, Private. You expected a playground?”

Todd swiped an index finger through the sweat. Wiped the finger with a thumb. Kept his mouth closed. Smart-ass bastard didn’t understand a fuckin’ thing.

“Sorry, your honors. I withdraw the question. . . . So your answer, Private Douglas, was to get high?”

Todd slathered a grin onto his lips. "It took the edge off."

"That raid. The one for supplies that ‘took the edge off,’ it cost eleven civilian lives and wounded your interpreter. Correct?”

His smile fell like a can at target practice. “Yeah. Casualties of war. It happens. Like they say ‘bout shit. It happens.”

“Your honor, I ask that you instruct the witness to show respect for these proceedings.”

“So ordered,” the presiding judge said. “Private Douglas. It does your case no good to show your contempt in this court. Conduct yourself with the dignity your uniform demands.”

“Thank you, your honor,” Captain Anderson said. “Now, Private, I’d like you to tell this panel what happened to your interpreter during the raid—the raid designed solely to stock your illegal drug supply.”

Todd shot the attorney a why-the-fuck-you-asking-me-when-you-already-know-the-fucking-answer glare. “He got slashed in the arm. Sir. MASH unit had to take it off. His arm. Sir. Sent him to the hospital in Long Binh.”

Captain Anderson walked slowly behind the table that served as his desk. He pulled out his chair and sat straight as the flagpole in the corner of the room. Even when he leaned forward to read notes on his yellow legal pad—good color for a soldier who fights case law rather than the Enemy—his spine remained iron straight. With every goddamn minute the attorney stalled, the silence raised Todd’s temperature ten degrees.

“What was PFC Hepper’s reaction when the squad came back from the raid with the wounded interpreter?”

Todd wiped his brow with the back of his hand, crossed his arms and surreptitiously dried the sweat on the underside of his shirt sleeve. “Don’t know. I didn’t see him.”

Captain Anderson lifted a sheet of yellow paper with his right hand, ran his left index finger three-quarters down the surface.

A south paw, wouldn’t ya know it? Todd thought. Just like Hepp.

“That raid occurred on the afternoon of November 12, 1971? Is that correct?”

“Correct. Sir.”

“When was the next time you saw PFC Hepper?”

“Before we crossed the river.” Todd leaned back in the witness stand. Kept his arms folded. “Sir.”

“And that was?”

“Later that night. Sir.”

“If you could put your disdain aside for a moment, Private Douglas.” The attorney lowered the paper and pressed it smooth with a palm. “Let's get to the night of the raid. That same November 12, 1971. What was your mission?”

Todd looked across his shoulder and addressed the panel. They would understand Nam. “Delta platoon called for reinforcements. Ground unit had taken a beating earlier that afternoon—”

“While you were conducting your ‘supply raid’?”

How dare that pain-in-the-ass interrupt. “Yeah, I guess.”

“Continue.”

That’s what I’m trying to do, asshole. “Our squad was ordered to cross the Mekong River at the junction. Intel said a hundred plus Charlies were holed up in a village.”

“Let me inform you, Private . . .” Captain Anderson pushed back his chair and stood, strolled to the front of his desk. “We already have the testimonies of Privates Shilling and Renault.” His gaze never deviated from Todd.

What the fuck you staring at, peckerhead? Todd jutted his chin.

“What happened before your squad crossed the river?”

“We . . . set a mine.”

“We?”

“We . . . I . . . I was following orders.”

“Whose orders exactly?”

“The squad’s. We all decided.”

“You all decided?” Captain Anderson ambled in front of the panel, his steps slow, calculated, his back to Todd. “To set a mine. Interesting. And what was the purpose for setting this mine? To deter the enemy? To prevent an invasion? To—”

“To get rid of a snitch. A goddamn snitch.”

Captain Anderson stepped about-face, squaring his shoulders to the witness stand. “The whole squad decided on—?”

“We had to stick together. Sergeant Caldwell was sure Hepp—that’s what we called Private Hepper—was going to rat us out. Hepp was the only guy who wouldn't go on the raid. Claimed it wasn’t part of our mission. Said it put innocent gooks—well, that wasn’t his word—innocent ‘vill-a-gers’ at risk. At risk? Hell, our mission was at risk without the goods from that raid. So, Caldwell set up the plan and the rest of us . . . See it was like this. If we didn't handle Hepp, we would’ve been next. The Sarge would’ve seen to it.”

“Go on.”

“Sarge had been tipped off.”

“Sergeant Caldwell?”

“Yes.”

“And what had Sergeant Caldwell been tipped off about?”

“Hepp asked for a transfer. New squad. New leader.”

“Go on. What happened next?”

Whatdaya think happened? Sarge wished Hepp well with a pat on the back? “Sarge sent Hepp beyond the wire.”

“To patrol the border alone?”

“Yes.”

“Then what happened?”

Sweat pooled along the base of Todd’s spine, sucking his undershirt to his skin. “Sarge told the rest of us Hepp was going to turn us in. . . . Report the entire squad. . . . Every last one of us.”

“Speak up, Private. The answers aren’t on the tips of your shoes.”

Todd whipped his head up. Up yours.

Captain Anderson arched his arm through the air and gestured to the judges. “Tell this esteemed panel what happened when you presumed Private Hepper would file a complaint against you.”

Todd kept his gaze locked on the attorney. “File a complaint? In a war zone? What a laugh. It was nothing so, so civil. If Hepp ratted us out . . . it’d be the end. For all of us.”

“Continue.”

His ears reviewed the sounds of that night. Distant sounds: gun fire, rocket fire. Close sounds: buzzing insects, murmuring squad. His eyes re-experienced the listless colors of that night. Gray-black barbed wire. Gray-black ground. Gray-black sky and a crippled, jaundiced moon. Starch from rice paddies had stiffened his clothes, had scratched the small of his back. Bone-weary legs lifted heavy black boots as he marched.

Todd shoved the unwanted sensations aside and hated Hepp even more for forcing him to remember. “Sarge marched us to the perimeter,” he said. “Confronted Hepp.”

“What did Private Hepper do when Sergeant Caldwell confronted him?”

“Hepp denied everything but the request for transfer—of course. Said he was tired of living with such low-lifes. That’s what he called us. ‘Drug-using, self-serving low-lifes.’ Said he couldn’t respect us. Couldn’t trust us—fuck! Hepp said he needed a transfer to fight the war he was sent to fight. Like we weren’t fighting the same goddamn war.”

“Did Private Hepper say or do anything else? . . . Private Douglas? Something you’re not telling us? . . . What else happened during that confrontation?”

Todd took a long, slow breath and imagined Nam Green seeping deep into his lungs, bringing the burn, bringing the calm. “The VC had a way of judging soldiers. One to ten. Ten being the worst. Hepp walked right up to Sarge, looked him in the eye, and said in his best gook voice, ‘You number ten GI.’”

“What did Sergeant Caldwell do when Private Hepper accused him of being a bad soldier? . . . Private? What did Sergeant Caldwell do?”

Todd heard the words that snapped through the air that colorless night, re-lived his own startle. In the witness chair, he straightened his spine and pulled his shoulders back. “The Sarge called Hepp a goddamn nigger. Said no high and mighty black boy was going to disgrace him.”

“How did Private Hepper react?”

“He squared his shoulders and repeated, ‘Ten.’”

“And then?”

“And then Hepp did an about-face. He just turned his fucking back and walked away.”

“What did Sergeant Caldwell do when Private Hepper walked away?”

“Sarge . . .” Todd closed his eyes and he was still there. The barrel glinting in the moonlight. A sound—the sound—that erased every other. “Sarge shot him. Shot Hepp like some goddamn Charlie. Blew his fucking chest out.”

Captain Anderson dipped his head ever so slightly to the panel of judges. “What did you do when Sergeant Caldwell—?”

“We stood there. We did noth—”

“I’m not asking what the squad did, Private. I’m asking what you did.”

Todd held his eyes steady and attempted to read the stony faces of the men on the panel. The less he could decipher, the more adrenaline flooded his blood stream. “Nothing. I did nothing.”

“I see. You did nothing.”

“How could I? Sarge said Hepp was deserting. Desertion in the face of the enemy. Sarge had to shoot him. Told us we were all witnesses.”

“Did it look like desertion to you, Private?”

“Sarge called it. That made it so. But then Sting Ray—”

“Sting Ray?”

“Bobby Ray Bryant, sir.”

“Go on.”

“Sting Ray was mad enough to piss on Hepp’s grave. Hated that Hepp didn’t go on the raid with us, would even think about turning us in. The two of them went way back. Grew up in the same crummy neighborhood and Hepp protected him from street thugs as a kid. Said he owed the guy something.” Todd pushed words through tight jaws. “He didn't want Hepp branded a coward.”

“So what happened?” Captain Anderson’s whole demeanor shouted, You’ve-got-to-be kidding, but Todd ignored the attorney’s nonverbal trap and focused on the captain's question.

“Sting Ray convinced Caldwell to create a little accident—on our way to the river, make it look like a line-of-duty tragedy. Blow the body to pieces. No evidence of desertion.”

“You mean no evidence of foul play?”

“I mean, no proof of Hepp’s official cowardice. Saving Sarge beaucoup paperwork didn’t hurt either. . . . So the whole squad agreed. And that's what we did.”

“That’s what you did? Set the mine?”

“Sure. Why not? The guy was already dead.”

“You didn’t think to turn Sergeant Caldwell in?”

“We had enough worries with Charlie. Didn’t have time to look over our shoulders, watching for one in the back—by one of our own. So, yeah. Maybe we thought about it. But we had our priorities. Know what I mean?”

“Private Hepper had priorities, too. Like following the oath he swore to uphold when he entered the US Army.”

“And look what that got him.”

“You have a point, Private. Look what that got him.”

Todd’s limbs tingled, wanted to move, to strike out. “You don't get it, do you?”

“Oh, I get it. The buddies who were supposed to protect him, agree to blow him up, make it look like an accident.”

“Like I said, it was a matter of life-and-death.”

“Wipe that smirk off your face, Private.”

“How dare you—Sir—hide behind your safe little desk, in your safe little courthouse, on your safe little base and dare to judge me? To dare to—”

“I’m done with this witness, Your Honor. Sergeant at Arms—”

Todd sprung to his feet before the bailiff reached him. “We were doing your dirty work, Captain. With our careers on the line. Our lives—leave your fucking hands off me, man, I’m going.” He lifted his chin and stepped down from the witness stand, pausing in front of Captain Anderson. “Just don’t forget—Sir—it was our testimony, our testimony, that made Hepp into a Number One GI. We made him a goddamn hero!”

“You’re dead wrong, soldier. Private Hepper already was a Number One GI—‘a goddamn hero’. You just made it . . . official.”

Personal History of the Story: Controversy over the Vietnam war prevented our soldiers from receiving support both on the battlefield and after they came home. As a result, many idealistic youth lost their way. Private Douglas appeared in a play I was writing about a family struggling with the consequences of that war. He demanded his own story with such force—and  such need—I put aside the play and wrote “Number One GI”. Please note: the language used in this story reflects the discrimination prevalent during the time period and is not meant to condone the use of racist epithets—nor the culture behind them.

STEAL BIG

Allan C. Kimball

Yeah, I stole the money. So what? It’s not like I was dishonest or something.

Don’t tell me you never stole anything. Everybody does. You know— a pen from an office, nibbling candy in the grocery store, a couple bucks from your girl friend’s purse, a DVD from Wal-Mart, driving off without paying for gas, meds from your grandma’s bathroom cabinet. You know the drill. You’ve done it. But when we think we can get away with it, when we think no one is looking, or when the score is just so big we can’t let it set on the table and walk away from it, that’s when every one of us will steal big. That’s what I did and I’m glad. You would be, too. $789,345. I’ve got almost all of it right here.

789,345 life-changing bucks. Well, I still got $763,994 left.

I stole the money and everybody knew. Hell, nobody will ever miss that money.

I want to give thanks to the two people made this all possible. Lupé and Uncle Sam. Lupé was my best friend in Rusahfah. Man, could that Navajo play poker. We did two tours over there, playing MPs, which is not the kind of duty you really want but we were grunts, you know, so we had no choice. We hit it off, me being from Arizona, too, and I never had anything against Indians. So, like, a year after I get discharged I looked him up because, you know, I just couldn’t keep a steady job. Hard to keep your interest up working as a painter or a roofer or whatever the hell else I tried once I’d done time in Iraq.

Anyway, I looked Lupé up, mainly hoping for a place to crash for a while since that last girlfriend had tossed me out. They all seem to do that after a couple months. I called his cell phone and there he was in Houston of all places. He said had a job at the Fed, that’s the Federal Reserve Banking System, working as a canine security officer. Can you beat that? Exactly what he did with Uncle, walking dogs and wearing a weapon and a badge. He tells me they had two security openings I might be interested in. Lupé says they give preference to vets and my experience fit right in, just like his did. I wasn’t doing anything in Winslow at the time—cops wouldn’t even let me stand on that famous corner, you know—and my bankroll was getting thin so I hopped the Greyhound to Houston. And got the job.

The job was OK. It was pretty much the same thing day after day. Check this, check that. Walk around and check some more. Watch people off-load this and that. Watch them count cash. I never realized just how much cash comes through a Fed. Hell, one day I’m working around the basement and walk by this table with bills piled on it. I stopped and stared, of course. One of the supervisors sashays up and laughs, saying all the new people stopped and stared until they got used to seeing so much money just lying around. How much was there? 20 million? Brand new, crisp $100 bills that were scheduled to go out to the regular banks. Just sitting there. I could’ve picked up a few bundles, slipped them into my pockets, and just walked away. But the Fed has cameras all over the place, even in the toilets, even night-vision cameras in the janitorial closets. But I couldn’t stop thinking about all that paper money.

I pushed carts of cash into the vault and stood guard while clerks put it all in its proper place. Cash, cash, and more cash. Then there was the money we burned. Oh, yeah, the Fed burns money. Millions of it a week. Turns out that when paper bills get worn out banks ship them to the Fed in exchange for some of those crisp new bills. It all gets delivered by armored trucks, gets logged in by guards like me, gets brought down to the basement in what looks like one of those big laundry carts you see in motels, and gets counted a couple more times then gets run through a shredder and then dumped in our incinerator. Perfectly good cash going up in smoke. I thought about those wasted bills all the time, even dreamed about them. Which is where the idea came from.

I planned it for a full year. Too many cameras. Too many guards like me. But I figured one way—the honest way—just take the money and go. I figured I wouldn’t worry about them seeing me. It’d be on camera. I needed just a few minutes to get out. Then I’d run off to the last place they’d look for me and change what I looked like and I’d never have to work a day in my life again.

The key was the loading dock where those armored trucks brought in checks and cash in big fat manila envelopes. The cash I was looking for was the cash that was going to be burned. I figured that paper money was so old and so random they couldn’t have any record of serial numbers. Now, the way it worked was another security officer was inside a locked room and he controlled the big gates on the dock and watched the cameras. He opened one gate and the truck drove in and he closed the heavy gate behind them, that way they’d be trapped in the dock just in case crooks had hijacked the truck. They’d get in to the dock but they’d never get in the bank, and they’d never get out of the dock area since it was a drive-through deal. So they’d off-load the packages, I’d sign them in, then the guard in the control room would open the other gate and the truck would drive out. We had a camera on the loading dock, too, but the guard in the control room, his job was to open the gates and keep an eye on the cameras outside. He had a bulletproof glass window so he could watch the off-loading, too, but after a few weeks I noticed there was a kind of blind spot on the dock that he couldn’t see. Oh, you could see it on the dock camera, but, see, he wouldn’t be watching that.

I had to take up smoking, too, that was all part of the genius in the plan. That thinking ahead part. The loading dock was where the few guards who smoked came out to feed their filthy habit, and there was a standup ash can for the butts and there was also a trash can. Now, we also had a regular door next to each gate. The security officer working the dock that night—that would be me, remember—his or her job would be to check those two doors every hour and make certain they were locked. Well, it was a simple matter to unlock one of them. Then, when we were off-loading trucks, I waited until I saw a burn package and the truck guard had his back turned and I just dropped that package into the tall trash can. Then, around four in the morning when everyone was pretty sleepy anyway, and the trucks had stopped coming, I just went out on the dock for a smoke, lifted off the top of the trash can, lifted out the big plastic bag and slung it over my shoulder like Santy Claus and walked out the door by the gate.

See, now, I wasn’t greedy. I suppose I could have figured ways to get more than the $789,345 I ended up with, but I figured to do that I’d need help. And having help only creates problems. Somebody always gets greedy and lifelong buds can start lighting each other up because, you know, $20 million is thicker than friendship any day. Plus, if one guy gets caught he’ll snitch on the rest. You know it. First guy collared always snitches because he’s the only one who gets a deal. So, better to run alone.

I figured I had about five minutes or so before the control room security officer blew the whistle on me. I drove my car down to a Vietnamese restaurant a few blocks away and switched into a used Toyota FJ Cruiser I’d bought a couple months earlier under my fake name. I figured I’d need the four-wheel-drive plus the bright ugly blue would help me to hide in plain sight, I mean, what cop would think that a car that stood out from the crowd was going to be the one with the fugitive in it. Right? Of course.

That fake name was another key to all this. More of that planning ahead. I was at this flea market in Pasadena one day and I noticed a booth selling fake IDs. They’d didn’t look too real, but they might pass. The guy even took my picture and laminated the card right there while I waited. I was surprised he could sell this stuff right out on the open but he had this big sign that said “For Amusement Only” so I guess that had him covered legally. He sold things that said “Official Texas Identification Card” mostly. But for $20 more you could get a “replacement” driver’s license, you know, in case you had lost your real one. So I got an Arizona driver’s license under a fake name. Well, it wasn’t really a fake name, it belonged to a friend of mine I went to school with back in Winslow. I figured—see, this is where all the planning helps—that since I was from there if anyone asked me any questions I could answer honestly and they couldn’t trip me up. I know the city, hell, I even knew my friend’s family. Plus Texans don’t know what an Arizona driver’s license really looks like.

I did that a few months before I stole the cash. Next thing I did was thanks to watching TV. Saw on the Travel Channel about the big world championship chili cook-off every year in Terlingua. What impressed me was how remote the place was, the perky newsreader gal she called it “the end of the world” and that’s what I was looking for. I figured you stole money from the Fed, you’d have everybody and his brother-in-law out looking for your butt, your picture would be everywhere. But at the end of the world? Out in the middle of nowhere? What better place to lie low for a while? So I drove down there on a week’s vacation a few months before I stole the cash and was real impressed. It was more remote than I imagined. Using the fake name, of course, I bought 20 acres, off on a hill, maybe a mile down this gravel road from the main road. The real estate lady made me a few contacts and I had the house built. Now, all of this took every cent I had saved up, but it was worth every cent. I certainly paid myself back.

First thing I did after stealing the cash was shave my head. Then I headed to Galveston State Park to sleep out on the beach for a week or so. I figured, the cops they’d all be looking on freeways leaving town and the airports and bus station and train depots, all that. So I just hung out on the beach and let my beard grow out more. Made like I was fishing during the day. Slept in the Toyota at night. Sure enough, the radio said the cops had checkpoints set up all over the place stopping traffic heading east or west or north, the places you’d run off to if you were anxious to get out of town. South only led to the Gulf. But they had to stop the check-points after a couple of days because people bitched so much about traffic being all snarled up and this in a place that already has terrible traffic. So that stopped. After my beard began to get bushy and I’d gained a few pounds and had a real deep tan, I headed west on the interstate. I did some shopping then turned south at Fort Stockton and spent a couple days at a campground in Alpine and let my beard grow out even more. I had always been pissed my beard grew out red when I had brown hair, but now it was a good thing because the cops were looking for a skinny, pale, clean-shaven brunette who drove a Chevy Malibu and here I was a very tanned, chubby bald guy with a red beard in a Toyota four-wheeler. Perfect.

Once I settled in to the new place I cut through the wooden floor in the bedroom and dug a hole in the ground and put that old plastic bag in it. The bag loaded with all the cash. Then I put the wood back in the floor and covered that with a thick rug and all that paper is safe, right. I keep out some for when I need stuff, just to have some handy, you know.

I had to be careful meeting folks. I told people I was recovering from cancer and, you know, people will believe what you tell them until you prove yourself wrong. It kept people at a distance, like cancer is catching. I started putting on more weight—about 65 pounds so far—because that would also help with the disguise. Nice thing about this place is people pretty much leave folks to themselves. And cops? You know, in three years I think I saw one.

Of course, I don’t get out much. I don’t want to be away from the house, you know, because you just never know someone might snoop around and steal it. Yeah, yeah, I know I stole the cash first, but, see, I didn’t take that money from anybody. I didn’t harm a soul. That cash was just going to go up in smoke. I just… what’s the word we used to use in the Army?… I just liberated it. So I had to be careful. I had to stay close to home, which was hard when the nearest supermarket was up in Alpine 100 miles away.

So, I make up a grocery list every two weeks and I got this guy Clem who drives up to Alpine and gets stuff for me and I buy him a case of Old Milwaukee and pay him $25 for gas and his trouble. I’m no cheapskate, you know. But I figure it’s better to do that than go myownself. First off, there’s that Border Patrol checkpoint you have to get through every time you drive north from here. I mean, last thing I need is having someone checking me out every couple of weeks, sooner or later some wise guy is going to recognize me because I’m sure they have my picture on the walls of every cop shop in the whole country, Border Patrol included. And second, I mean, it’s a 200-mile roundtrip from here to the city and I just can’t leave my cash alone in the house for four hours. Five if you count the time I’d spend shopping. I know, I got it buried and hidden, so they’d have a hell of a time getting at the cash but somebody could get lucky. Only $720,000-even is in the hole right now and the rest is scattered around where I can get at it quickly if I need it. So I don’t go out much. Well, hell, I don’t go out at all, really. But I don’t need to. I have all I need. I’ve got satellite TV and internet. I subscribe to about two dozen magazines. And I get whatever else I want on the internet like my favorite T-shirt that says, “I reject your reality and substitute my own.” That’s from a TV show. I set up a Pay Pal account and put enough cash in my bank account here to cover purchases. I keep the account balance low so as not to attract any attention. I put in a little every month so it looks like I do odd jobs or something to get by. That’s what most people do down here, so I fit right in. Three years, no problems. Don’t expect any.

Yeah, I know you don’t understand much of this. I mean, you’re a rat. What was it kind of rat that Clem called you? A kangaroo rat. Yeah, that was it. Don’t look much like a kangaroo, though. Hell, you don’t even hop around. He said to get rid of you ‘cause you’ll trash stuff, but I figure you don’t eat much you’re so small and I don’t mind the company.

Personal History of the Story: In college I worked part time at the Houston Branch of the Federal Reserve Bank and it was impossible to be surrounded by that much money every day and not daydream about ways to steal some of it. So I did it in a story.

Weather Breeder

Robert Stevens

I had not been home since my mother’s funeral two years ago. My old bedroom where I stayed was the room I shared with my two brothers growing up. Nothing had changed. My books, dust covered, lined the shelves. Robert Frost’s poetry, Ernest Hemming way’s stories, Thoreau’s essay On Civil Disobedience as well as many of the classics was neatly arranged. A photo of Grandpa in France in WWI, high school, college yearbooks and photos were stacked beside the old cherry bureau. Childhood memories flooded my mind as I tried to shake off sleep. The black east wind kicked-up that night. Large old maples in the rear of the house cast sinister shadows across the back yard. They creaked and groaned with the wind. The low bellow of the fog-horn from Noble’s Light that warned seamen of the dangerous and rocky coast created a familiar rhythm, the sound that had lulled me to sleep as a child. The wind howled, rattled the shutters and awoke me. Like lightning, it all came back; the day Uncle Jed was found drowned, his body tangled in line upon the seaweed strewn beach.

I will never know with certainty what caused his death. But knowing Uncle Jed, I think I can imagine what probably happened? Several days before he drowned, the sky, blue as iced diamonds exploded with a quietness that must have made him uneasy. The air pressed the life from October’s crimson and yellow leaves. Coming in off the water, screaming gulls rafted in small ponds which dotted the great salt marsh. Late in the day, a misty haze settled low over the horizon as the sun’s setting rays touched only the tallest maples.

During the evening an ominous breeze blew out of the southeast. I can see him now as he put a few more logs in his old black Atlantic wood stove. He’d be up at four a.m. ready to race the dawn to the edge of the outer harbor. One more working day to get these traps in before the weather turns.

He slept little. The wind increased its velocity and rattled the shutters. Wind didn’t usually bother Uncle Jed; he’d spent fifty years on the water and survived. He woke, grabbed a cup of coffee, jumped into his battered dodge pick-up and headed for the harbor. His headlights scanned the dock and bait houses as he swung into the parking lot.. No one was there. It was not unusual. Uncle Jed was always first out. During the night, the gale force winds scattered bait buckets and tipped lobster traps carelessly left about the dock. Through the dim light of dawn, he saw whitecaps whipped by the wind.

The raw dampness washed his faced. His hands inured by years of pulling traps felt only the course weave of the line fastened to the pram. Against the tide and wind, he patiently rowed out to the New Dawn.

He tied the pram off to the mooring and climbed into the stern of his lobster boat. He cranked over the V-8 Cadillac engine he had converted for the New Dawn. Most fishermen searched the auto grave yards, lifted engines from the chassis of abandoned cars, and installed them into their boats. Its muffled roar clashed with the tumultuous sounds of the gale. He headed due east, slithered through the bobbing buoys, peered starboard for familiar channel markers, and headed for Winslow’s Light. Once there, he charted his course for Tielman’s Ledges where his traps lay waiting.

Inside, the cabin protected him from the salt spray and intermittent showers that blew across the bow and pelted the windshield. As he passed the final buoy, he felt tense. The sky lightened in the east. He turned back to watch the furrow of his wake, churning foamy green and white. It contrasted with the gray-black granite blocks of the break water. He left the security of the harbor and was now out in the open ocean.

The tide was rising and running fast. Waves rose and broke over the bow. Uncle Jed seldom checked his compass or charts, like the ancient mariners, he knew his location by the pull of the tides and currents. He had a deep respect for nature in general and the ocean in particular. Though he used radar for location and sonar to detect the illusive schools of cod and haddock, he possessed an innate distrust of them. It was his instincts that had always brought him home.

Twenty three miles out lay the ledges, several fathoms beneath the surface-an ecological paradise- a microcosm of the universe of marine life. The cold Labrador Current flowed southward sliding past the northward flow of the Gulf Stream like tectonic plates. The sinking cold water and rising warm water churned up the plankton and kelp, the food supply for the schools of fish and mammals that inhabited this part of the North Atlantic. Uncle Jed recalled how this fishing ground had been not so long ago, before the new nets, before the Russian trawlers that are now visible on the horizon and before drilling oil off Georges Banks. In those days lobsters sold for thirty nine cents a pound. Cheaper than chicken, lobsters were considered poor man’s food. The ledges provided a livelihood for those who wanted to work and were willing to take risks. Fishermen maintained their independence something mainlanders could not appreciate.

The journey to the ledges afforded Uncle Jed time to reflect upon his life. Many times, he told me, his thoughts could wander across the waves and into the breezes uninterrupted. Other thoughts included the premonitions he had. Aunt Agnes, his great Aunt, foretold many events that came true, according to Jed. So what was he thinking that day? The floating seaweed triggered the juices and his mind began to churn.

Years ago, during the Great Depression, Uncle Jed enlisted in the U.S. Army, not because he was particularly patriotic, but because he was hungry. Maine, like the rest of the nation was in the severe throes of economic dislocation. He lied about his age, passed the physical and after basic training was assigned to the 42nd Coast Artillery, a mine battery at Portsmouth, New Hampshire one of many protecting the harbor. The Germans had their eyes on the naval shipyard.

“Couldn’t be better,” he told me.

He loved boats and the ocean, so Uncle Jed became a GI-sailor. One day he remembered with great alacrity. Just one month after Pearl Harbor, he woke to the wind rattling the barracks windows. The thick early light of winter’s dawn did not cast shadows as he hurriedly dressed. He looked out the frosted windows past Fort Point Light and Whaleback light, sentinels in the harbor, and saw the Isles of Shoals low on the horizon. The grey green sea had a heavy chop. Macabre whitecaps danced beneath ominous grey scudding clouds pushed by a biting north wind.

A light dusting of snow had fallen the night before. It squeaked beneath his feet as he headed to the mess hall and breakfast. He passed his ship, the General Richard Arnold tied to the dock. She was a 110 foot junior mine planter built in 1907 from wood. The Arnold was used to assist in mine laying operations at the harbor.

* * *

Uncle Jed was assigned to the Arnold and was waiting for the mine planter “Baird” to return to the fort to assist in laying additional mines. The Baird routinely serviced Portsmouth, Portland, and Boston Harbors. It was due in that day.

His thoughts were interrupted when he heard, “Hey Jed, you‘re lucky you’re not going out today!”

Jed’s friend, Sergeant Billy Townsend reported, “Gale warnings just posted.”

He slammed the mess hall door.

“Damn its cold. The temperature was five degrees when I left Camp Langdon.”

“This is a bitter wind, too cold to lay mines today,” Jed replied.

“Don’t worry about that, Jed; Sergeant Bowers just posted the duty roster. You got KP for the next three days. I guess that civilian crew from Connecticut will set the third group of mines when the “Baird” arrives.”

“Well, they will have to wait for the L-88 to get here. She’s ‘posed to leave Boston and be here this morning.” Jed said.

“No problem,” Townsend quipped, “She’s a new steel hulled boat with a diesel engine, not like that coal burning washtub you’re on.”

“Billy, pass the coffee.”

Jed had a strange feeling. He thought about Aunt Agnes. This was the first time since he was stationed at the fort that mine operations were cancelled due to weather. In his mind, he saw great sheets of black water rushing past. He felt something terrible was going to happen. But, who would believe him?

That morning in Boston Harbor, the L-88, a sixty-five foot, junior mine planter scheduled to leave for Portsmouth, was delayed. During the next few hours the wind increased in velocity, creating dangerously high waves.

Shortly after noon, Harbor Defense Command at Portsmouth Harbor received the following message.

…SOS…This is the skipper of the L-88 en route to Fort Constitution from Boston…approximate position…fourteen miles southeast of White Island and east of Cape Ann, Gloucester…

Command Post of the 42nd Coast Artillery responded immediately.

“What’s your situation?”

“We can’t make headway…in danger of being blown out to sea…need assistance,”

Captain Odenweller checked the duty rooster. William Chasteen was the master of the “Arnold” on duty.

“Get me Chasteen, pronto!” he ordered his radioman.

“Chasteen, this is Captain Odenweller. We just received an SOS from the L-88. Ready the “Arnold,” you’re going out!”

“Yes, Sir”

“Fire up the boilers,” Chasteen ordered his men in the engine room.

The crew untied the ice covered mooring lines in a biting northerly wind. The engine hummed after warming up. Chasteen got underway and headed to the outer harbor. At the same time, the Navy also responded from the Naval Shipyard to the SOS. It sent the Yakima, a working tugboat, to assist in the rescue. Both vessels headed into a raging gale. Within minutes the tug began bucking heavy seas.

“We’re turning back!” the skipper of the tug radioed to Chasteen, “too much ice building. I’m afraid we’ll capsize.”

Undaunted, Chasteen continued his mission in the small, top heavy Arnold By late in the afternoon, the Arnold had not yet sighted the L-88. Frustrated, Chasteen yelled, “She’s blowing out to sea!”

At Defense headquarters, Captain Odenweller was on the phone to the commander of the General Absolam Baird

“Major Mclamb, I’ve got to send you out! I don’t think the “Arnold” can make it in this weather. The wind is increasing, the pressure continues to drop, and the seas are heavy. We are in for a big blow. And the L-88 is being blown further and further out to see. She’s losing ground steadily.”

The Baird, a large mine planter, left the harbor in search of both the Arnold and the L-88. Both boats were vulnerable to the deepening storm.

Odenweller turned to his radioman.

“We can’t take a chance on losing those boats. Contact the airfield in Manchester and the Coast Guard station down in Salem,” he ordered.

The Army airfield in Manchester, New Hampshire and the Coast Guard in Salem, Massachusetts sent out search planes to locate the L-88 before nightfall. At dusk, one of the planes sighted the L-88 and dropped a flare off her stern.

Skipper Chasteen slowed by ice from the wind swept spray blowing over the bow and poor visibility, finally reached the L-88 floundering in heavy seas. The L-88 after leaving Boston, had been out to sea for over six hours.

Chasteen ordered the crew. “Attach a tow line to the bow.”

The ice keep building on both ships every time a wave crashed against them The crew managed to secure a line and Chasteen began to tow the L-88 back to Portsmouth Harbor, but he began to realized his efforts were futile.

“Keep both engines running at full speed!” he bellowed in to the engine room.

The diesel and coal burning engines of both boats roared over the roiling sea but could barely maintain their position. The two ships desperately waited for the Baird.

At approximately eleven o’clock, the Baird reached the two small mine planters bobbing and tossing in the sea. Their position was fifty-nine miles southeast of Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Major McClam ordered both boats be put in tow. Crewman from the three ships in the black of night, fighting cold and slipping on ice covered decks, secured the lines.

The searchlight from the Baird scanned both boats. The American flag on the L-88 was still blowing straight out in the stiff relentless wind, up-side down, as it had been hoisted when the distress signal had been transmitted. All lines were covered with ice like long lines of diamonds which shimmered in the rolling sea. Black shadows in contrast raced across the deck. An eerie glow emanated from the ice encased portholes. The “Arnold” looked like a ghost ship, a wraith struggling in a black cauldron.

McClamb radioed to Chasteen.

“How’s your ship?”

“It’s fine, sir. I’d like to complete my mission,” he replied.

“Ice is still building on the bow. If you continue to pitch and roll, you’ll be in trouble. That’s an old boat.” McClamb responded.

“I can handle it, sir.”

Chasteen thus waived the offer and continued to command the “Arnold” in tow.

At 12:50, a large wave broke over the bow of the “Arnold.” Water surged into the coal fired boiler room. A hot burst of steam billowed from below.

“Man the pumps!,” Chasteen yelled to his crew. All rushed below to help. Water kept pouring over the “Arnold” now helpless without power. The bailing effort failed. The pumps could not keep up. When the engines failed, the tension on the towline to the “Baird” was stretched to its limit.

Riding up on the crest and crashing down into the trough, twenty foot waves pounded all three craft. Linked together like sausages, the Baird, the Arnold and the L-88 fought the heavy seas and subzero temperatures as they tried to make headway toward Fort Constitution and safety.

All of a sudden out of the black sinister night, a huge wall of water rose from the depths and crashed over the Arnold. A thunderous creak splintered through the sound of the storm. Ice, wood, and steel snapped against the background of Posieden’s fury. The “Arnold” split in two.

“Man over board!” screamed the skipper of the L-88 who had just witnessed the disaster.

“Cut the lines!,” he ordered his crew.

The crew immediately responded. Into the blowing water and windswept deck of the L-88, crewmen fought the weather. They cut the line with an axe. They knew the suction created from the sinking Arnold would take them down as well. The Arnold broke apart, the skipper saw one seaman thrown from the bridge. Only his quick thinking and expert handling off his craft avoided the suction pool. He came alongside the seaman. It was the skipper, Chasteen.

“Don’t worry about me!” he yelled from the icy water.

“Save my men!”

“Save my men!”

For more than two hours the Baird and the L-88 searched for survivors. Searchlights illuminated the grim reminder of what had happened, empty lifeboats and lifebelts scattered in the froth. When the Arnold split, the crew was below manning the pumps. Eight men drown as the ship went down in less than two minutes. In this weather, hypothermia would have set in immediately.

“Hey, Jed,” he softly spoke, “Lady Luck followed you last night.”

* * *

Lighting flashed off the bow of the New Dawn. Uncle Jed thought of the spectacular displays of the Aurora Borealis, northern lights, during the winter months. Many ancient cultures including the Mi’kmaq Indians foretold the weather by the intensity, color, and movements of flames streaking across the northern skies. If the color red appeared, severe storms usually set in. Fishermen, not unlike ancient peoples, watched the weather; paid close attention to subtle wind shifts and changes in pressure. Years ago, most likely in high school, Uncle Jed learned about magnetism. He was intrigued with electro-magnetism, charges, arcs, and batteries; anything that made an engine work. So the idea that sun spots affected earth’s magnetic field which created nature’s Fourth of July fireworks in mid-winter made perfect sense to him.

One winter, the Aurora Borealis were particularly active. Fishing was bad that year. Severe storms pounded and slammed the coast. A string of nor’easters gaining strength off Cape Hatteras drove straight for the Gulf of Maine blowing hurricane force winds and heavy snow. These were followed by equally destructive southeasters, but without the snow. Lobster traps and lines tangled in great heaps of black green seaweed were strewn along the tide-lines from Cape Cod to Nova Scotia. These gales, called three day blows, kept fishing at a minimum and most fishermen in port. That October produced the first of many storms that would wash the shore in fury.

I have often wondered if Uncle Jed has the same premonition he had when the “Arnold” went down; black water rushing past. He was fatalistic like most fishermen and if he had the premonition would have disregarded it. His death by drowning always seemed odd to me. For years I had been puzzled by his death along with the destruction of the New Dawn. Something strange had to account for the accident. Then, I remembered something he told me when I was young.

“During the war when our merchant marine fleet was crossing the North Atlantic the ships would sometimes experience very large waves. In fact, the RMS Queen Mary was broadsided by a 92-foot wave but survived,” he told me.

That was it. He was washed by a rogue wave.

Personal History of the Story: The story is based on the lives and experiences of several fishermen and family members I grew up with in New Hampshire and Maine. It deals with the conflict between natural intelligence and instinct versus the an increasing role technology plays in our lives today. The character, Uncle Jed represents a time gone by, a time perhaps that needs to be restored. I am interested in human intelligence and the conflict modern technology poses.

The Dog

Marla Dean

I was six when I came home from school and she was gone. I sat in the empty kitchen until it got dark and remember rushing to the front door when I heard it open, but it was my dad. He didn’t say much, just told me to get packed we were moving. When I asked him where my mother was, he looked at me hard and warned me to never speak of her again. I understood his threat and kept my tears for my pillow. I knew my mom would come for me.

At first, I told myself, she was having trouble finding us because we moved around so much. Each day my heart would beat a little faster as I entered whatever house we were living in. I imagined her smiling at me and her smell, a whiff of cigarettes and roses, but gradually I forgot what she even looked like. I’m not sure when I stopped expecting her to be waiting for me after school, but things were quieter after she left.

My daddy had a real mean temper and after a few beers it was just best to stay out of his way. I guess she didn’t do that too well. I remember the screams and horrible arguments, and hiding between my mattress and box springs, hoping they’d forget about me. She made my sandwiches for lunch every morning as if the battles of the night before had never happened. Each day she told me she was putting a little love into them just for me. I didn’t blame her for making a run for it, but I wish she’d said good bye.

The summer of my tenth year my daddy moved us into a rent house called a “fixer upper”. It wasn’t that old and looked like most of the places we had lived, an unloved house, where no one planned to stay too long. The back yard was empty, weeds, no trees, and one of those small, aluminum, storage sheds shoved right up against the neighbor’s chain link fence. Nowhere to run and nowhere to hide. It had already been a rough month since we arrived in this place. The beatings were pretty regular and he wasn’t giving me a chance to run either. My dad got a job at a coffee packaging plant. His shift didn’t start until late afternoon and he liked to sleep all morning. He’d wake me up when he got home from work around four A.M., yank me out of bed, and start in on me about something. I guess maybe he was lonely too and our only contact was through his anger. I discovered how quiet I could be that summer, but even when you are very careful you can sometimes slip up.

One morning I was fixing a bowl of cereal and dropped it. It landed on the floor with a loud crash and broke into a million pieces. I froze, but didn’t have to wait long before hearing yells and curses from his room. I knew what was coming and got out the back door. I needed to become invisible fast. He was crashing around the kitchen and I heard him scream in pain. He must have stepped on the broken glass. Just as I hooked my fingers into the metal of the neighbor’s fence and started to climb, I noticed a small space between the fence and the storage shed. I was skinny, even for a ten year old, and managed to squeeze into the tiny place. My back pressed against the metal shed and I slid down wrapping my arms around my knees, trying to make myself as small as possible. I closed my eyes tight and prayed to simply disappear. I knew he’s kill me if he found me.

The back door slammed open and bounced against the side of the house with a crack. He was calling my name, cursing and yelling to the whole neighborhood what he was going to do when he caught me. I listened, waited, and then it got quiet. He started muttering something as he slammed back into the house. I began to breathe again and opened my eyes. The dog was sitting right in front of me on the other side of the fence.

I didn’t think he was any particular kind of dog. He was big and mostly black with long hair and soft brown eyes. It was already hot and he was panting, showing me all of his teeth. I wasn’t scared of him, but wasn’t stupid either. I held myself real still, watching him watch me. He must have made some kind of decision because he stuck his nose through the fence and licked one of my knees. The minutes passed slowly. I felt the metal digging into my legs and my back ached, but I wasn’t going anywhere until late afternoon. I reached out and touched him. He pressed his entire body against the fence, hungry for contact, and I stuck my fingers through the wire and scratched. I didn’t know why I began talking, but I told him everything about my dad and my life. The words poured out of me. We were both alone, sad, and in want of something. The dog listened intently and seemed to understand my blubbering and need of him. I remained hidden throughout the day and the dog stayed with me. It was close to five when I heard the truck start up. Soon after, the backdoor of the neighbor’s house opened and an arm placed out a bowl of dog food on the cement steps. I knew what waited for me when my father got home, but neither of us moved. I rubbed the dog’s ears and finally told him softly I would be back. I had found a friend.

My dad made himself heard around four in the morning. I could smell the beer on his breath before he reached the bed. This time no amount of pleading or apologies had any effect and he beat me until his arm grew tired. Exhausted, he finally went to bed and I lay in my sweaty sheets bruised and runny faced until I heard his snores. Sleep was done for me. I filled a large glass with water, grabbed two hotdogs for my friend and quickly crept out into the darkness. I was soundless. The moon had settled on the horizon and the dead grass crunched under my feet as I crept into my hiding place. The dog was waiting. He was as silent as I. From that day on neither of us were lonely. I never saw another person with the dog or heard anyone speak to him. Every day at five, a hand would emerge to give him water and food, but I never saw the whole neighbor. My father and I greeted in passing and our early morning interactions were sporadic. The dog was my secret and escape.

For the next two months our pattern was set, and maybe for the first time since my mom left, I was happy. I’d come out early and talk to him about my dreams and anger. It didn’t matter how hot it got or even if it rained. He never tired of listening. I’d leave him in the afternoon, prepare a sandwich for my dad and retreat to my room until I heard the truck leaving. Then I was back out with the dog until I went to bed each night. I could hear him outside barking and whining if my daddy was after me. If I cried or screamed, the dog responded, and it comforted me knowing something cared about what was happening. I told the dog everything.

One Thursday, my dad finished off a six pack before work. He grabbed my arm so hard I thought he was going to pull it off. He got real close to my face and told me how sick he was of me moping around. I didn’t know what to say, but knew he was waiting for something. I asked him if he wanted a sandwich and he slapped me so hard my ear was ringing. “No, I don’t want a goddam sandwich, I want a new life, I want a do over, I want . . .” his screaming voice turned to a kind of moan. I watched him from the floor as he rocked weeping and pounded the walls. I understood his pain and wished with all my heart I wasn’t part of it. He left me cringing in the corner and stormed out the house. As I listened to the truck speed away, I hoped he would never come back, and the other side of me was terrified he wouldn’t. What would I do? Where would I go? I went out to talk it over with the dog.

I felt really bad, my arm hurt and my face stung from the slap. The dog listened and I pushed my face against the fence and his fur. I loved the dog more than I had ever loved anything. I held his head, the best I could through the fence, talked to him close, eye to eye. I told him I didn’t think I could take it anymore and I knew he understood. After an hour or so I decided we needed a snack and went into the house for a couple slices of cheese. I didn’t know my dad had returned or notice him watching me through the kitchen window as I ran back to the shed. I found out later he was fired for being drunk on the job and had come home early. I was feeding the dog cheese when I heard the back door slam. Every part of me shifted into alert and I knew the dog could feel my fear. He began to tremble with me.

“Billy? Get your ass over here!” His voice broke the silence. I heard the pop of the beer can and his voice was rising now, “Did you hear me? GODDAMNIT, I said get your ass over here. I want to talk to you about feeding good food, food I pay for, to a stupid dog!” I wasn’t invisible anymore. He was coming down the cement steps and crossing the yard on the dry grass. Before I could breathe he yanked me out of my hiding place. “Goddamit, you little son-of-a-bitch, when I call you, I expect you to come.” I didn’t say a word as he shook me hard and drug me back to the house. I tried to get away and knocked the beer out of his hand by mistake. He slapped me across the face and I fell to the ground seeing stars. I heard the dog growl, but didn’t see him jump the fence.

I don’t think my daddy saw him either until it was too late. He was reaching down to grab me when the dog hit him and knocked him flat into the dirt and dried grass. He started screaming as the dog tore into him. He was terrified and his cries were not like any I had ever heard. The yard was filled with snarls and shrieks. All I could see was teeth, dust, and black fur swirling over my dad like a little tornado. His neck and face were bitten up and he was bleeding badly when he started crawling for the house. The dog took a piece of his arm; and I don’t know how, but my dad reached up to turn the door knob. The hand that had hit me so many times was grabbed by the dog. My daddy got the door open, but not before he almost lost three fingers to my friend. He was crying and raving in the house when the dog came over and licked my face. I hugged him hard and was still holding him when I heard sirens coming down the street.

The beatings stopped the day the dog jumped the fence. It was a week before my 11th birthday. My daddy needed over a hundred stitches and nearly lost the fingers on his right hand, but got some cash for the injury and let it go. He’s always looking over his shoulder now, afraid of what he might see coming after him from the corner of his eye. He still gets mad, yells and crashes about, but he has never raised his hand against me since that day.

We moved soon after into a trailer a few towns over and I don’t know what happened to my friend. I never knew his name, but I haven’t forgotten him and neither has my father. He still jumps every time he hears a dog bark. One day, I’ll go back, maybe when I get a bike. It can’t be that far and I know the dog will be waiting for me.

Personal History of the Story: I wrote this story many years ago and had forgotten about it until I was clearing out some old boxes. I saw structural and other problems with the writing, but loved the essence of the story. I decided to bring it back to life. I revised and played with it once again until I was happy with the words. I’m not sure why I wrote it, but as in all fiction, the characters are people I knew or had thought about at various moments in my journey. I have found there are few greater comforts than the love of a dog and nothing more interesting than the choices of a child.

Window Pains

Julie B. Cosgrove

The reflection in the window pane portrayed a fantasy world. But for just a moment, Andrea Ferguson allowed her mind to dwell on it instead of the reality which hovered in her mother’s sick room. The window’s glass mirrored a painting, which had hung over Mom’s bed for years. Bitter sweet memories flooded in as Andrea stared at the serene scene. The artist’s rendition of a spring day showed sunlight glimmering through a tree's chartreuse leaves as it toyed with each translucent vein. A blonde-headed girl lounged against the trunk in a white linen dress, her summer-tanned legs outstretched as she made a wish on a dandelion.

“Did you ever look like that?” Andrea whispered the question which lodged in her heart for years.

As if transposed over the painting, her mother's bed-ridden body now appeared in the windowpane as well. Lying there, waiting. Why, Lord? Why must death come too soon, yet linger on the ledge so long?

Outside a blustery wind mocked what Mattie Ferguson’s lungs could no longer do, in spite of the forced oxygen. Her frail frame shivered. Andrea tiptoed over to pull the bedspread under her mother's chin. She spied a flicker of motherly love and gratitude in the woman's eyes, despite the medicated haze.

Andrea's twin sister, Angela, sidestepped through the door. “It's supposed to get down in the thirties before morning. Where's Momma's quilt?”

“I put it in the cedar chest. Who would have thought in April…”

“You've been in Florida too long. Momma always said…”

“I remember. ‘Wait until May before you put the blankets away.’”

Andrea glanced away. Life’s full of ironies. She, who desired roots above all else, left hearth and home to follow her fiancé. Angela, born with the wanderlust spirit, settled for Jake, a hometown honey. Fate still rubbed a raw spot between the two twins. She changed the subject. “You spoke with the hospice nurse?”

“Hmm. She said she'd be here tomorrow around ten. That is unless…”

“Not yet. It's not time.” Andrea stroked her mother's shoulder.

“How could you possibly know?” Her sister grasped the old woman’s blue-veined hand.

“I just …feel it. She can still hear us, you know. Can't you, Momma? Something keeps you here. You’re not ready to go home yet, are you?”

“Home. Please. For Christ's sake, Andie.” Her twin used the sound-alike nicknames of Andie and Angie their mother called them as children. She slumped into the overstuffed chair where their mother loved to sit and knit—another life ago. “You know I never bought into all of that. Even if Momma did. You converted her, not me, Miss Never-got-married Missionary.”

The barb stung, again. “I didn't convert her, Angie. God did.”

Angela raised her hands in surrender. “Not now.” She headed for the door, but then stopped. Without turning around she added, “Do you want take-out? Bob can get it on his way home from band practice. You know teenagers. They love to drive.”

“Sure. Just tell him not pizza again, okay?”

“Right. Three times last week was enough.” Angela stepped back into the bedroom, cheeks puffed in mocked nausea. The two laughed in unison. Fences mended.

Andrea turned at the sound of a soft gurgle. Her mother's eyes gazed at her girls as a smile strained for the strength to form. Mattie Ferguson always hated when her twin daughters argued.

* * *

Two days later, the temperature and humidity rose in an envelope of low, dark clouds. Outside the windowpane, the gray world dangled between dawn and dusk. No sign of life outside and very little in the room. Andrea punched in her sister's cell phone number. An answer came on the second ring.

“Hi Andie. What's up…oh, no. Not Momma.”

“Not yet. But soon, hon. Real soon.” Andrea watched her mother's rattling chest struggle to rise, then collapse. “You better come home. I already called Jake.”

Silence. Had she lost the connection? Andrea looked at the tiny screen still ticking away the seconds on her calling plan.

Then her sister's voice returned. “Okay, Andie. Who else should we call? Let me look in my directory.” Shock, sadness and her A-personality wrapped together in her tone. “I don't know. Hospice, I guess.”

Andrea clicked off the phone and laid her head against the curtains. The back of her eyes stung. A fist of emotion punched her in the chest full force, pressing hard against her heart. Yes, there was someone else she'd wish she could call. But how could she explain that to Angie after all this time? Where would she start?

* * *

A dense fog clung to the windowpane, obscuring any view beyond the willow branches. Just as well. What lay outside her bedroom window no longer mattered to Maggie Ferguson. She passed on in peace, surrounded by her family. Except for one.

Andrea sat on the empty bed as the hospice nurse removed the monitors her mother no longer needed. Angela stepped in after the nurse left. “Bob shuffled through Momma's desk to locate any instructions or wishes she left about her funeral. You know, music she might want or …” Angela stopped and breathed away the rising emotion. “Anyway, he found this.”

In her hands lay an avocado-green, metal box with rust- tinted seams. She ran her fingers over the roses on the lid, painted in shades of pink and white splotched by russet scuffs. “Ever remember seeing it?”

“No.” Andrea scooted over to allow room for her sister. For a moment, the box lay between them. Andrea fiddled with the buttons on her blouse. “Go ahead. You were born first.”

Slowly, Angela lifted the lid. Inside sat a corsage ribbon with withered remains of a flower. Beside it lay both of their baby bracelets. “Oh, wow.”

Andrea squeezed her hand. Her sister squeezed back, and then thumbed through the treasures.

“Look, here are all the baby pictures - yours, mine, Bob's …” Angela stopped. She held a faded black and white photo of a newborn on a hospital scale. “Who the heck is this?” She flipped it over to read the stamped information. “Shands Hospital, Jacksonville?”

Andrea 's face paled. She dashed to the window for air and opened the sash with a jerk. The fog seeped into the room, wrapping her in a veil as if to protect her from the secret now revealed. Sobs gurgled in her throat.

Hands gathered her by the elbows and led her back to the bed.

“Andie? Who's the baby in the photo?” Her sister’s voice revealed what she suspected.

With a shaky finger, Andrea traced the small face in the photo. A tear splashed onto her lap. “Remember when Tony was killed in the wreck?”

“He was coming back from a Gator's game, right?”

“I was six months along.”

“What? “ Angela's eyes widened. “Wait. That means when you left for Florida to follow him you were. . . Dear God, Andie. Why didn't you tell me?”

“I was too ashamed. “

“That's why Momma flew out. Jake and I just thought she went out there to talk you into coming home and forgetting all that Jesus Freak stuff.”

Andrea took a deep cleansing breath. Strength to reveal the rest filled her lungs. “ I'd already signed the adoption papers. A pastor on campus knew a couple in Tallahassee who couldn't have kids. They paid for the delivery. But, I couldn't stop bleeding. The county paid for the emergency hysterectomy. “

The tick of the bedside clock became the only sound in the room. After several minutes Andrea continued, “I thought God caused the bleeding to punish me. So, I became a missionary to the kids in the inner city to make amends. Now I know better.”

“I don't get it.”

“You see, I run the free day care while the moms take classes. Those sweet children sort of become my own kids. So many passed through my care over the years. Some still drop in or send me a card at Christmas.” Her eyelids welled once more. “A few call me Mamma Andie.”

Angela took the photograph and placed it on the mattress. “So that's why you stayed in Florida. “ She turned to her sister, her eyes swimming. “All those years I sent you pictures of Bob's milestones. And those quips about coming home, settling down and having kids of your own. Oh, Andie. I’m so sorry.” She shoved her fist in her mouth to stop the sobs.

“It’s okay. You meant well.” Andrea pulled her twin close, shedding fresh tears on her shoulder.

After a moment of swaying and sniffling, Angela rose to get them both tissues. “Did you ever try to …?”

“Contact her? No. How could I? What would I say to her? I gave up my only child, Angie. Sixteen years ago.”

The fog lifted. Sunlight broke through the windowpane, casting a beam onto the twins and the painting above the bed. Andrea looked at it and smiled through her tears. “That's why Momma loved this painting so much. See the pretty little girl under the tree? She thought that's what my baby might grow up to look like.”

Angela examined the black and white photo again, then the girl in the painting. “Momma was right, Andie. I'm certain of it.”

Personal History of the Story: I wanted to write this story in order to show the healing of family rifts can occur, even in the throngs of death. So often we have misconstrued views as to why our siblings do the things they do. Jealousies brew for decades and cloud our opinions. Without their mother as a buffer, the twin daughters must face each other and learn to love again, despite their faults and because of their strengths. I hope it encourages those who read it to view their families in a new, more empathetic and accepting manner. We choose our friends, but God gave us our families.

One Scoop, or Two?

Diana Finfrock Farrar

Mercifully, two of the nurses escorted them out a back door and down the long hallway which led to the parking garage.  It had taken a long time, too long, to get everything settled there. She didn’t remember most of the drive back to her mother’s, but here they were, looking at a house that had been home for over 40 years, which now seemed utterly and completely unfamiliar.

Her childhood had been filled with many hours of neighborhood play on this street.  Mama helped the girls organize lemonade stands and bake sales.  The boys’ favorites had been kick the can, stoplight and baseball.  They all played in the vacant lot across the street, where Daddy had often been the designated pitcher and would announce each batter with exaggerated stats.  Kevin and the Harper boys usually dominated in the games requiring athletic ability, but she and the other girls ruled when it came to good old-fashioned house, nurse and war, all neighborhood staples as well. The boys would fight and the girls would treat them.  But, prescribing a pleasant treatment and dispensing an encouraging prognosis usually depended upon whether the patient was your brother or not.  Their medications had been M&M’s and Kool Aid, old ace bandages and Telfa pads dressed every wound. How easy it had been back then to create an awful injury or disease and then cure the patient, all well before dinnertime.  If only those old childhood rules could apply to her adult world now.

As the women walked into the house, Carmen looked at her mother and extended her arms. She wished she could relieve her mother of this unbearable heartache.  This beloved person wrapped in her arms needed all the reassurance she could provide, but even at a time like this, Carmen still received a source of comfort and strength from her mother’s embrace.  Could Mama feel any of the same from her?

“Honey, I don’t know if I can stay here by myself.”

Carmen drew her mother in closer. She would be lost without him, Carmen knew this.  Mama’s generation built their lives upon husband and household.   She was the proverbial good wife who had raised the kids, cooked dinner every night and did everyone’s laundry. She would willingly drop whatever she was doing to cook, wash or mend something at a moment’s notice, which was usually all she ever got. Carmen shuddered to think how many times Mama had prepared three separate meals to accommodate a football practice, drill team or a late night at the office. Surprisingly, she never seemed disturbed by any of it. Thank God that part of her own life had not mirrored her mother’s.

Kevin had arrived at the house much earlier, and he found them in the den. “I thought I heard the garage door.” He gave a quick kiss to Carmen, then put his arms around Mama. “You okay?”

Kev was now the head of the family, the one to whom Mama would look for help and advice. Unlike their other siblings, he had shared a physical resemblance to Daddy and had also inherited his athleticism. But their temperaments were very different.  Where Daddy’s personality had been more playful and outgoing, Kev was more serious and shy.  He looked awkward in his new role, but admirable, just the same.  Mama kissed his cheek and then held his face in her hands.  He swallowed hard.

Just then, Jared skipped out of the kitchen, leaving the doors swinging in his wake. He was only five, but being the youngest of four he had already learned that assertiveness and self assurance served him well.  His strawberry blonde head was a blur as he twirled around his father and then his grandmother.  He was happy as could be, oblivious to the veil of sadness which cloaked their hearts. He had a splotch of something on his cheek and around his lips.

“Gramma?   Daddy’s gettin’ me somethin’ to eat.  What flavor ice cream do you want?”

“Oh honey, I don’t have a favorite.” She hesitated.  “I’ll have the same as you.”

“Mine is chocolate.  That’s my favorite. Want it to be your favorite too?”

His sticky fingers grabbed her wrinkled hand as he pulled her toward the kitchen. Kevin started to reach for Jared to intercept this capture of their grieving mother, but Carmen held him back.

“How ‘bout sprinkles?  You got to have sprinkles on chocolate!”

“Whatever you say, baby.”

They disappeared through the swinging doors, Jared chattering all the way.

“Let her go, Kev.  Jared may be just the distraction she needs right now.”

“So, how is she?” he asked. He couldn’t hold her gaze, had to look toward the kitchen doors instead.  He was still gripping the ice cream scoop and was repeatedly tapping it into the palm of his free hand.

“She doesn’t know what to do with herself. She . . . . .”

“Daddy!” Jared called from the other room, “We need the spoon.  Do you have the spoon?”

“I’ll take care of it”, Carmen said, as she took the scoop from Kevin’s hand. “Why don’t you go get Daddy’s things.  I didn’t have the heart to bring them in with her just now. They’re still in the car.”

Mama & Jared were sitting by the window in the kitchen.   She was short and petite with silver hair, it had once been the same color as Jared’s. She had the enthusiasm and energy of ten people, but since Daddy got sick, she had shrunken somewhat.  She had become invisible or transparent, an apparition of her former self.   Carmen watched them as Mama listened to another one of Jared’s unending stories. His eyes sparkled and his spirit literally danced under the umbrella of his grandmother’s unconditional love. She truly loved her grandchildren. Even today, as awful as it was, she would be devoted to those she held most dear.  It was easy to see the value she placed on each of them as individuals. And they all knew it, felt it, reveled in it.

“I like whipped cream and nuts, too, but we don’t have any of those.”

She leaned in close to him and brushed the hair off his forehead as she spoke. “Well sweetie, I’ll remember to get some Cool Whip and pecans for you next time I go to the grocers.”

That was classic Mama, thinking of others even now. Carmen held up the scoop for her mother to see.

“Mama, do you want one scoop or two?”  Her mother seemed very far away now, and she had a look in her eyes that Carmen had never seen before. Mama didn’t answer, but merely shook her head at Carmen, as if asking a question. This appeared to be a decision requiring some monumental consideration on her part. She seemed genuinely disturbed by the fact that she really didn’t know what it was that she wanted.

“I’ve got three scoops, Auntie Car.” Jared’s chin dripped with chocolate as he shoveled the ice cream into his mouth.

Kevin and Jared went home when one of the neighbors dropped off a casserole and homemade cookies.  For most of the meal Carmen and her mother ate in a comfortable silence.  The two women were close.  With the exception of a few tumultuous teen years, their relationship had been a good one. Today, their mutual silence was as much a conversation as anything they could have spoken to each other.  They served, ate and cleared the dishes in a silent dance, each one anticipating the needs of the other.  They moved to the music of their hearts, however broken and unsure. Each one flowed naturally with the other, knowing each move, gesture and expression.

Carmen gazed out the window as she removed the lid from the cookie tin. It had grown dark.  She could hear the high school band playing in the distance, it was Friday night.  She had loved Friday nights as a child.  Football on Friday had been as sacred as church on Sunday.  The cheerleaders, the music, the letter jackets and mums.  Her parents never missed one of the boys’ games.

Carmen closed the refrigerator door, cold milk in hand. She missed those carefree days.

Mama got two glasses out of the cabinet, but then she just stood there and held them against her body instead of bringing them to the table. Carmen could see she was deep in thought and was now struggling to find just the right words.

“Honey? Earlier, when Jared asked me what my favorite ice cream was, it wasn’t that I didn’t want to have a bowl with him, but I honestly couldn’t tell him what my favorite was.” She hesitated briefly and then continued. “ I knew your father’s favorite and I could probably name what each of you kids would prefer too.  But as for myself, I haven’t a clue.” She sat down and placed the glasses on the table for Carmen to fill.

“Oh, Mama.” Carmen placed a hand on her mother’s stooped shoulder.

“Today, with Jared, I realized that I was grieving another loss, perhaps one even more frightening.  I don’t know who I am anymore.” She had to look away as she continued. “I caught a glance of myself in the mirror this afternoon and I saw a stranger looking back at me.  I’m afraid, Carmen.”

She told Carmen of past hopes and dreams. She had a love of the arts, but especially painting. “I wanted to see the world and then be able to remember it all-with a palette and brush.” Mama had called them “canvass moments”, those special times and places that most people immortalize with a camera. She even had fantasies of a future with a museum as an art broker or critic. Carmen had never heard her mother open up like this before. As close as they had been, she now realized that Mama rarely talked about herself. Carmen reached for another cookie, Mama hadn’t touched hers.

Although Mama’s memories were flowing like a strong, steady river, her voice still faltered occasionally as she spoke. She paused frequently as she described many of the dances she and her friends went to with the airmen stationed at Key Field. Carmen wondered if she was remembering their faces, or perhaps even hearing their voices? Most of them were nothing but flyboys, but one had been a dreamboat, namely Daddy. Her hands trembled as she fingered her wedding band. Mama was uncomfortable, and she continued to look down at the table between thoughts. She had let her own dreams take a back seat when she fell in love with Daddy. Being a wife and mother had been enough, but now she was “feeling empty, poured out.”

“You know Mama, I understand what you’re saying. Even more than you may realize, in fact.” Carmen shared some of the same feelings, although they stemmed from different circumstances. “I’ve been stretched so far …. between work, Michael and the kids …. I don’t have any time to call my own anymore.”

Now Carmen opened up. She told her mother how difficult it had been to juggle the stresses of a successful career with the guilt of not being home when the kids were little. Carmen knew firsthand the benefits of having a stay-at-home-mom, and knowing just what her kids were missing made her balancing act even more difficult.

“And with Michael’s business trips becoming more frequent since his promotion a few years ago… Mama, sometimes I just want to scream.” The fact that her father’s lengthy decline had left her drained was left unspoken. And now, with Mama all by herself, there didn’t seem to be an end to Carmen’s own heartache. Yes, she was empty and poured out too.

“You know honey,” Mama said, “ I wouldn’t change a thing about our family, and I don’t want you to feel that you should change anything about yours. I am so proud of who you are, at work and at home, and you should be too.” She had been looking Carmen in the eye, but now she looked away. “But you see, this afternoon, with Jared’s seemingly simple question, I realized that I had been so busy being a wife and a mother over the years that I’ve just forgotten who I am without that.”

Dear Mama. Carmen could see that she didn’t know how to trust herself or her feelings. And Carmen was troubled. Had she, Daddy and the boys helped create their mother’s current situation by being so willing to receive her gifts of self ? Mama’s worth was tethered to the happiness of those around her. How in the world would Mama make the rest of life’s journey on her own?

They finally finished the cookies as they resumed their silence, listening, as outside the band celebrated another touchdown.

• • •

Mama lived another 15 years after Daddy passed away.

In the months after his death, she returned to some of the activities she had put on hold during his illness. Church activities, neighborhood associations, visits to see all the grandkids’ universities.  But Mama had also embarked on new interests.  She volunteered at the hospital, began to travel with some friends, and she once again picked up her paintbrush, dabbling in oils and watercolors.

Although her renderings weren’t museum quality, she did have several canvasses hanging in the den depicting scenes from her Widow Women Travel Club adventures. One painting, a sunset on Maui, hangs in the volunteers’ break room at the medical center. But the one most dear to Mama’s heart was the portrait she painted of Daddy in his leather flight jacket, at the age of 24.

Leaning on the door frame, Carmen stood in the doorway of her mother’s bedroom.  She could still smell Mama’s familiar scent in here.  She looked around and spotted her Avon night cream on the dressing table.  That moisturizer would always be a bittersweet reminder of memories too raw to feel today.  It was just too soon.

Carmen had been lost in all the old family photos and knick-knacks which covered the bureau when she saw it. Her mother’s Keeping Box was on the nightstand.  It was an old cigar box that one of the boys had decorated long ago with all sorts of buttons of different sizes, shapes and colors. Whichever brother fashioned the box had given it to her for a birthday present.

Carmen caressed this special box of treasures and then opened it gingerly.  There was an old snapshot of her mother as a small child being cradled by Grandma Rosie. There was one of Mama and Daddy on their 25th,, and there were several other pictures of women she didn’t recognize - probably the Travel Club. There were invitations to each of their weddings, some birth announcements, a few old letters and postcards, and a homemade “Mother’s Day card for Grandma” by Celeste, dated 1982.  A paint brush, Daddy’s obit and some rose petals were also in there.  But on top Carmen had found a neatly folded slip of paper, written in a script that she recognized to be that of her mother in her later years.

Carmen’s eyes filled. She cradled the little slip of paper in both hands and brought it in close, against her heart.  All it said was, mint chocolate chip and cherry cordial, but there’s nothing like a hot fudge sundae the way Jared makes it.

And through her tears, Carmen said aloud to the walls, “God bless you Mama, and thank you for teaching me to never forget mine.”

Personal History of the Story: Written in 2003, I wrote this story as I faced a period of difficult personal growth following 18 years of motherhood, my divorce, and my father’s death. I am both the adult daughter and the elderly mother in this story, and writing this narrative served as an important step in my progress toward a happier and more contented state of mind.

The Chill

Cyndi Lord

An elderly woman sat on an over-stuffed chair deep in the shadow of the porch and stared at me as I strolled along the walkway. I noticed she wore a stained border dress and had a glass of something with ice on a table beside her. Overgrown grass filled the yard. Weeds jutted from the flower beds, and a hanging plant displayed brown leaves and dead flowers. Odd. Their son told me his father kept the yard pristine.

Certain an empty rocker must be her husband’s, the first suggestion of his absence played taps in my gut. No report of acrimony and their recent fiftieth wedding anniversary celebration left me perplexed. I climbed the painted steps.

Her gaze moved to my briefcase. “Are you a detective from the police?”

“No. Why, are you expecting one?”

“Wouldn’t surprise me none. My son, he’s a doctor, moved to Chicago ten years ago. He’s been calling. Now, he’s headed to Africa for some charity work.”

“Yes. Why does he make you expect a detective?”

She rubbed her wrinkled hands together. Visible veins and age spots marred the skin stretched over boney, gnarled fingers. “He’s been calling every day. Real pushy, he’s been. The police were here two days ago, you know.”

“Because your husband is missing?” I eased onto the front railing and set my briefcase next to my feet.

“That’s what my son thinks. How did you know that?”

“Your son called and retained me.” I reached into my purse and pulled out my ID case. Removing a business card, I leaned over to let her read my identification. “I’m a private investigator. He asked me to come talk to you.” I handed her the card, and put the ID back into my purse. “Where is your husband?”

She looked at her neighbor’s house. “He’s away. I told Michael that, and I don’t know why he called the police or you.”

“May I sit in the rocking chair?” I stood before she replied and walked to her husband’s seat.

She nodded without looking at me and turned her head to the front door. “I should get you some sweet tea.” “I’m fine.” I opened my briefcase and pulled out the file. “Can you verify for me that you are Athena Oscar?”

“That’s me.”

“Your husband is Charles John Oscar?”

“Yes.” She glanced my way and rubbed her hands together.

“Where is your husband, Mrs. Oscar?”

“Sleeping.”

I caught air in my lungs. “He came home?”

“Yes, he’s home.”

“You told your son his father was gone on a trip. You told me a minute ago he was away.”

“He was, but he’s home and—”

“Your son asked me to verify your husband is here. I need to talk to him. Will you wake him up, please?”

“No, I cannot.” Her head snapped like a snake’s in my direction, eyes slit, and lips in a tight line.

I toiled to match her expression and not smile. She’s lying. Feisty old broad. “You know, on second thought, I’d love some iced tea. May I help you get it? We’ll refill yours, too.” I allowed the smile to come and stood.

Athena’s stare escalated into a scrutinizing glare. I held it with my own and let the smile die. “Can I trust you?” She whispered in a raspy voice.

“Of course. Your son is concerned about both of you. Oh my, I’m embarrassed to ask, but I must.

“What now?” She pushed herself to standing with a grunt.

“I’ve been drinking coffee all morning and I need… well, you know how it is after an hour or so.”

Her chuckle surprised me. “I hope you can wait until I’m done. When you’re my age, it’s only minutes.” Her lips turned downward and a shadow crossed her eyes. She opened the screen door and held it for me. “Just wait in the living room. I have to go, now.”

Inside, Athena disappeared into the kitchen while I sat on the edge of the sofa. One recliner had reading glasses and a magazine turned face down over an arm. The other had a small stack of newspapers and an elderly cat in the seat. Looks like he hasn’t sat there in a week or more.

The scent of vanilla filled the air from a plug-in near the kitchen doorway. The sweet smell failed to disguise the odor of something old and rotting. Maybe something dead. Not a putrid odor; a smell of old vomit. I closed my eyes and sniffed. Decomposition, early on-set, gaseous. My eyes popped open, and I bobbed my head then shook it – no validation existed. Not yet. A door shut in another room, and my nervous system flinched.

I leaned for a better view. Athena entered the kitchen and pulled a five pound bag of ice from the freezer. I stood and took a step forward, stopping when she walked into a hallway she’d used to access the bathroom. Or, so she claimed. The skin on my face tightened.

I entered the kitchen, and with soft steps, into the entrance of the hallway. Across the hall the open bathroom door revealed a vacant, tidy room decorated in shades of yellow. If she catches me, I can go right into the bathroom. I took another step into the hallway. Five feet to the right, in deep shadows, the walkway ended with a closed door. To the left, two opened doors sent sunrays spilling onto the carpeting. The floorboards creaked under my feet sounding like cannon shots with each step I took. My heart pounded harder. What if she has a gun?

My hand shook on the shoulder holster strap when I unsnapped it. I tucked the front edge of my vest into the back of my waistband for unencumbered access. A thump and scuffing from the room flooded my system with adrenaline and locked my muscles. Hair raised on my scalp. Her voice came from the other side of the door annoyed and hushed.

“See the problems you cause me?” Her cackle followed.

I strained to hear a reply. Is he really in there? Silence.

The sound of my controlled breathing and slushes of blood rushing past my eardrums crowded my senses. I shook my head and squeezed my eyes shut. The doorknob’s rattle snapped me back to attention, and I stepped into the kitchen.

The door hinges squeaked, and Athena’s padded footsteps stopped. The sound of the door closing cued me to step back further. I let my soles hit the linoleum in thwacks.

“Athena, are you all right?” I walked forward two steps and pulled the bottom of my vest back into place to hide my firearm.

She stepped into the doorway nose to nose with me. Her eyes squinted, and she moved back. “I told you to wait in the living room.” Her eyes roamed the kitchen behind me.

“I thought I heard you fall or drop something.”

“I dropped the—” She spun around and looked behind her. “Where have you been? How did you hear that out in the living room?”

“I don’t know. I just did. I really need to use the bathroom.” I stepped to the side.

She stood like a statue.

“May I go now?” I forced a smile.

Athena stepped back and grabbed the refrigerator handle. “I’ll get us something to drink and take it to the porch.”

My legs felt like jelly. I have to put my back to her when I pass by. What if she attacks?

She pulled the top door open. The ice catcher and five pound bags of ice filled the freezer section. Her boney fingers wiggled the plastic.

“You sure have a lot—“

Her body jerked and she swung around. “I thought you were going to the bathroom?” She glared and her face flushed.

“I haven’t moved. I wondered if you might need some help.”

She slammed the freezer door. “I can get you a glass of tea all by my lonesome. Stop sneaking up on me.” Her slippers snapped on the floor as she strutted by. “I forgot to bring my glass in. Go on into the bathroom before I change my mind.”

“Okay.” I nodded and walked into the hall.

Her footfalls fell silent on the living room carpet.

In the shadowy end of the hallway the closed door sent chills up my spine. I stepped closer and inhaled. My fingers caressed the knob, and my hand trembled. The strong odor of disinfectant spray burned my nostrils. An underlining stench gagged me. Rotted chicken breast in a bedroom? I swallowed hard and turned the knob.

Pulled drapes and dusky light increased the palpitation in my heart. A body covered with a sheet lay on the double bed. Only the head showed. I gasped.

Deafened by the sound of an air conditioner spewing a frigid blast, I strained to listen for breathing. The screen door slammed as I fumbled for the light switch. She’s in the living room. I only have a few seconds.

A bag of ice folded around the top of his head half-moon shaped, and skin cracked on his cheeks. The rank smell of gas seeping from his intestines filtered through the stained sheet covering his body. I held my breath and pulled the cover back. Bags of ice lay along each side of his bloated torso. The aroma hit me with the force of a sucker punch, and my lunch rushed into my throat forcing me to swallow. A glimpse of skin separated from his knuckles made me drop the sheet. I blindly reached to flip the light switch and my fingers found a sticky substance. I jerked my hand and it came with me. The fly strip held a number of dead blowflies.

The delay cost me discretion. Athena stood in the hallway. Our eyes locked, and I pulled my hand away from the burnt orange mess, prepared to fight for freedom. It fell to the floor. I kept my gaze on her.

Her lack of animation lasted less than ten seconds. She dropped the glass, scattering shattered crystal and ice cubes to the floor in front of her. In one move she jumped forward a few feet and rushed toward me like a charging bull. The screech and her waving arms startled me into action. I anchored a leg behind me and braced my body.

“Stop.” I shot an arm out and held my palm toward her.

She clung to the doorway with both hands, her eyes locked on her husband’s bloated face. Tears flooded over and fell onto the nightstand. Her lips trembled, but no sound came.

Chills ran through me. Not knowing if they came from the decomposed body or the wall unit, I hugged myself. “How long have you kept him like this, Athena?” The rattle in my voice surprised me. I cleared my throat. I can’t breathe in this stench.

She didn’t answer me. “I tried so hard, honey.” She used the night stand to support herself and bent over him. Her shaky hand caressed his cheek. Skin pulled down and separated from beneath his eye.

Thin cracks marred the plaster ceiling. “I have to call someone.”

“No, please, no.” A sob escaped.

My eyes turned to her. A blowfly swopped my face. I swung at it, visions of its last meal mortifying me as it threatened to land on my cheek. My hand slapped Mr. Oscar’s leg. “Oh, Lord.” I jerked the offensive hand up and clasped it with the other. “Athena, I need to call someone. I know you—”

She raised and turned to me. “Please, no. You don’t have to. No, you don’t.”

I licked my lips and studied her face. Red eyes pooling fresh tears pled with me. Her teeth chattered, denture material clicking together, grinding my nerves raw. “Let’s talk on the porch.”

“I asked you if I could trust you. Now, look what you’ve done.”

“Let’s talk on the porch.” I reached a hand out to her, thought better of it, and took her arm.

She shuffled through the broken glass and puddles of melting ice.

On the porch, I inhaled the fresh air deep into my lungs and took my phone from the holder attached to my belt. We sat where we had earlier.

She pointed at my midsection. “I see you have a gun. Can you just shoot me? I don’t want to be separated from him. I mean it. I don’t.” She rubbed tears from her cheeks.

I held the phone suspended and stared at her. I don’t want to take him away from her, but I can’t leave him here decomposing. Poor old lady. “Athena, how did he die?”

“Please, just go. Don’t call anyone. They’ll take him from me. I know they will.”

“How’d he die?”

“I didn’t want—” She put both hands over her face.

I dialed the office, and my husband picked up on the second ring. “It’s me. Mr. Oscar is deceased, stage two or three. Make the calls.”

“Are you okay?”

“Yes. I’ll wait for the P.D. to arrive.”

I snapped the phone shut.

Her hands came down from her face. “Am I going to jail?”

“Why do you think you might?

“Keeping him here and—”

I held up a hand. “How’d he die?”

“I poisoned him.”

“Why?”

“My son was going to put him in a long care facility without me and take me to Chicago. I couldn’t let them take him away.”

“What did you poison him with?”

“Rat poison in his iced tea. He vomited a little then just went to sleep.”

I looked at the floorboards. Why am I not more appalled?

“You’re so kind. I’m happy you never got to drink your tea, dear.”

I raised my head and stared at her.

She smiled then burst into racking sobs.

A cruiser pulled into the driveway. I stood and walked down the steps.

Personal History of the Story: As a retired private investigator I utilize past cases, apply creative license, and intense fictionalization to write stories readers enjoy.

Mirror Mirror

Yvie Towers

“Bella!”

Footsteps came fast and hard behind the dark-haired beauty as she made her way down Westgrove Mall’s main corridor toward the exit. She did her best to ignore them, though – or at least she pretended to.

“Bella, wait up!”

Bella’s path soon was blocked by Daniel, a coworker who’d clearly overexerted his portly body in his pursuit of his longtime crush. His arm darted up when Bella tried to pass around him, so she mercifully stopped and allowed him time to catch his breath.

“Daniel…” she chided while taking a step back so as to escape his reach. “What is it? I’m late already,” she lied.

“Late?” he asked while still panting. “Do you…have a date or something?”

“Yeah, something like that,” Bella said without so much as looking in Daniel’s direction. Daniel stood up straight, desperately wiping the sweat that just wouldn’t stop pouring out of him. He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a folded piece of orange paper. He handed it politely to Bella, who didn’t accept it but rather stood there looking at it as if it were contaminated.

“Take it,” Daniel urged, but Bella was unwilling to bite and instead insisted that Daniel just cut to the chase and state his purpose.

“There’s a party tonight,” he explained in a lively voice. “I know how much you love Halloween, and how much you love parties…”

“Yeah,and?”

“And, I was thinking that you might like to go to this one…with me.” The look on Daniel’s face was hopeful – expectant even - but Bella wasn’t at all swayed by his plight. She took the paper to appease him, and then let him down.

“Daniel,” she began in that condescending tone of hers, “this,” she said while motioning back-and-forth between them, “ever going to happen. You know that, right?”

Daniel stood there crestfallen, wishing that the ground below him would open up and swallow him – and Bella too. “Yeah, I know. It was just a thought, ya’ know…”

The two stood there long enough for the silence to become awkward. Bella then sidestepped Daniel and walked the twenty or so feet to the exit, lightly grazing the lone security guard holding the door open for her. She dropped the flyer in the minor collision, and he graciously stooped down and picked it up.

“Thanks, Ruben,” she said as she grabbed the paper and left. He didn’t respond, but sneered at her behind her back as he pulled the glass door shut and engaged the lock at the top. Bella chanced a quick glance over her shoulder to find Daniel, standing right where she’d left him and staring at her through the window like a forsaken puppy. She almost pitied him – almost.

She increased her stride down the breezeway and rounded the corner on her way to the employee lot. It wasn’t until she was halfway down the sidewalk that she realized just how dark the back lot was – and just how alone she was.

She slowed her pace, becoming more spooked with each echo of her heels clicking against the cold, unforgiving cement. There wasn’t another car in sight, neither in the lot nor on the adjacent road. Still, she managed to shake her trepidation and continue with sure steps to her waiting vehicle. That is, until the floodlights on top of the mall went off. Bella stopped, paralyzed by the fear that ran through her.

Thinking better than to continue to the lot alone, she spun and trotted back to the entrance, only to find that the lights inside had been turned off and that Daniel and Ruben had long since left the atrium. She rapped against the glass with her silver thumb ring, but got no response.

She began to consider whether or not she could run around the perimeter of the mall in time to catch some of the other employees going to their own cars. Then she could just catch a ride with one of them. But then she tried to think of who she’d ever been nice enough to for them to willingly give her a ride. There was no one. So Bella steeled herself and scurried to her car. It wasn’t until she was locked inside and had the motor running that she felt safe.

The flyer was crumpled between her hand and the steering wheel. She remembered it being orange instead of black, but didn’t give the notion any further thought. Instead, she thought about how rude she’d been to Daniel, and in an effort to make herself feel better she decided to take a look at the paper.

Mirror Mirror was emblazoned across the top in bold, orange letters. The venue boasted over 100,000 square feet of uninterrupted mirror maze. No one had ever made it through to leave through the actual exit. Being the first to do it would earn her what was simply billed as ‘life-changing.’ Money - it must be money, she thought. But even if the prize weren’t money, there wasn’t such a thing as a bad haunted house in Bella’s opinion, so she decided to check it out for herself.

She found the address at the bottom, but had never before heard of the street. She entered the address into her GPS, but it yielded nothing. There was, however, a small map drawn at the bottom of the page that, strangely, started at the mall and ended at the location. Chalking it up to the place being a new attraction, Bella decided to follow the map and be the first to get through Mirror Mirror.

An hour later, Bella reached her destination only to find that she was the only one there. It was nearly midnight, but the droves of people that should have been clamoring to get in simply weren’t there. She drove around to the back of the building and found another empty parking lot. Uneasiness governed her thoughts, and Bella quickly came to the conclusion that she should get going while the getting was still good.

She fishtailed her way to the exit and was several yards onto the road when she saw headlights coming toward her. They were still a couple of miles away, but in the stark darkness of the Texas plain, she was sure that’s what they were. And there was a line of them – dozens of cars all headed straight for a night of terror on Halloween night. She drove back into the lot and parked right near the door.

She waited until the cars were nearly in the lot before she got out and walked toward the building’s entrance. Bella struggled to remember whether or not the door had always been ajar – she didn’t think it had been. In either case, there was someone inside who’d opened it, so she boldly walked up the paved walkway and into Mirror Mirror.

The inside of the warehouse appeared to be nothing more than a big empty space, and it was completely dark save for a spotlight that was shining down on a table and chair situated in the middle of the room. She heard commotion coming from outside that sounded like cars pulling in and people hurrying to get to the door. So Bella speedily walked over to the table and sat down. As soon as she was planted firmly in the seat, four walls came crashing down around her, encasing her in a 4 x 4 room.

Bella sprang from her chair and frantically began feeling for a way out, but the walls were smooth and sealed together – she was trapped. She looked up and saw that the cramped space had no ceiling, so she hurriedly climbed atop the table. Even in her five-inch heels, the tops of the walls were still a good four feet above her; she tried to jump and reach them anyway. The third attempt nearly killed her; she lost her footing and went tumbling to the concrete below.

Bella remained still long enough to be sure that she wasn’t injured – hurt, yes…but not injured. She groaned and picked herself up slowly, taking the time to give herself the once-over to be sure she was really okay. Then something on the table caught her eye – a pen and paper that hadn’t been there before.

It appeared to be some sort of waiver form. On it, the rules of the house were listed, and there was a place for her to sign. The rules were simple, and there was only one - make it out of the house before time expired. That was it.

“Hello!” she called out, hoping for an employee or someone to come and explain things to her. She wanted to go into the experience with her eyes open, and though she was sure that no real harm would come to her, she wanted to be prepared for whatever she may encounter. But no one came, so she resigned herself to playing along. The first person she saw would have some explaining to do.

Bella signed the bottom of the page, and before she’d even set the pen down the spotlight above her went out. Seconds later, it came back on and the walls had turned to mirrors. One of the mirrors was actually a door, and without a second thought Bella opened it and left the small room.

On the other side of the door was a mirrored hallway that seemed to go on forever. The walls, ceiling, and floor were each reflective and though Bella hadn’t moved, she found herself becoming disoriented. She’d been in the hallway for a whole minute before she realized that though mirrors were all around, her own reflection was nowhere to be seen. Panic began to creep its way in, but Bella took several deep breaths and gathered herself. She remembered that all she had to do was make it out before her time expired. So, she started walking.

She took tentative steps at first, still adjusting to the endless stretch of mirrors. So as to maintain her wits and sense of direction, she placed her left hand on the wall and used it as a guide. The wall appeared continuous, but soon her hand ran across a break. She looked to the left and saw another long, mirrored hallway which she opted to bypass. She placed her right hand on the opposite wall and walked a few more paces. Another opening came up - this one to the right. She decided to explore that one, and abandoned the main corridor.

With her hands on either wall, Bella walked down the long, straight passage. Minutes passed, and then she saw something at the end of the hallway. Bella froze, and after a few tense seconds, she realized that the figure was a person.

“Hey!” Bella called, hoping to have her greeting returned. All she got in return, however, was an echo. Certain that two heads would be better than one, she approached her potential partner in hopes that the two of them could find their way out together.

It was a woman – Bella was able to tell that much after only a few steps - and she’d apparently seen Bella. The two began running toward one another, picking up speed with each stride. Bella raised her arm and waved at the woman; the woman did the same thing to Bella – at the exact same time. Bella waved with her other hand, and so did the woman.

Stopped in her tracks and sickened by the harsh reality, Bella sank to her knees and stifled the urge to vomit. What she’d hoped would be an ally was her own sad reflection, looking back at her with an almost mocking expression. Bella cried and watched as her reflection’s tears fell onto her pale yellow dress. Yellow? Dress?

Bella gasped and then looked down at her own clothing, though she clearly recalled what she’d put on that morning. Her black T-shirt and dark denim jeans were the furthest things from the flirty, feminine dress that her reflection wore. More confused than afraid, Bella rose to her feet and approached the mirror. She stopped a few inches from it, and studied the image before her.

At first glance, the woman in the mirror looked just like Bella. She had the same icy blue eyes and the same black hair. The rose tattoo on Bella’s wrist looked just like the one on the woman’s wrist, though the woman’s was more weathered and faded. Bella took a good look at her reflection’s eyes, and how tiny lines had begun to form around them. Then she noticed several strands of gray hair at each of her temples – gray hairs that she was sure hadn’t been there earlier in the day. If Bella had to guess, she’d have said that the woman in the mirror was at least ten years older than she, easily thirty-five years old. Yet she looked so much like her…

The lights went out, plunging Bella into total blackness. She put her hands on the mirror and pressed firmly, trying in vain to move the wall. Terror overcame her, and her breathing became more erratic with each passing second. She tried to scream past the lump in her throat, but nothing came out. Seconds later, the lights came back on with a hum and the darkness was gone - as was the woman in the mirror.

Bella ran back to the main corridor as fast as her legs would carry her, and when she reached it she was so winded that she could hardly stand. She rested her hands on her knees and took in gulps of air. That’s when she noticed her rose tattoo, looking weathered and faded just like that of the woman in the mirror. She also took note of the yellow dress she was wearing.

Bella pushed her fear aside and thought about what had just happened. There had been a reflection in the mirror at the end of the hallway – of that, Bella was sure. And the woman looked just as Bella would look in her mid-thirties – she was certain about that as well. What she couldn’t figure out was where the woman had gone or why she was wearing the woman’s dress. Another few seconds passed, and as Bella finished catching her breath from her brief sprint, she understood. The woman wasn’t gone. Bella had become her and, in a matter of seconds, aged ten whole years.

Make it out of the house before time expires… Bella tried to ignore that niggling voice in her head and find her way out of the maze. She looked to the left and saw that the small room she’d started in was gone, the door replaced by a mirrored wall. So she quickly made her way down the main corridor, stopping when she came to another opening with hallways on either side. She chose to go left that time, and soon came across a door.

Relieved that she’d found the exit, Bella flung the door open to find a woman standing in the center of the mirrored room. Before Bella could speak, the lights went out for a few seconds and then came back on. The woman was gone, and there was no reflection. Bella didn’t need a mirror to tell her what’d happened. She was able to look at her tattoo and the skin under it and tell that she’d aged again. Just like that, she was in her mid-forties. Bella closed the door and went back to the main hall.

Hours passed, with Bella cautiously navigating her way through the house. She wanted to open every door she came across, but tried to be judicious about which ones she opened. Most of the rooms she looked in were empty, but several of the rooms she looked in were occupied. It was those rooms that Bella was dreadfully unsuccessful in avoiding, and in those few short hours she’d managed to age five more decades.

Nearly one hundred years old, Bella hobbled her way through the maze using the walls for balance. The fluorescent light stung her eyes. Her feeble legs were barely able to support her slight frame. The delicate skin of her fingertips became sore and raw as she ran them along the smooth, mirrored walls. Still she pushed onward, determined to escape if it killed her.

Bella exhausted herself trudging along, laboriously placing one foot in front of the other. She dragged herself around one last corner and saw two doors on the mirrored wall; one, was labeled ‘EXIT,’ and the other read ‘THE END.’ Bella pondered what the difference between the two doors was, and reached a grim conclusion.

Unlike the rest of the house, the mirrors in the final room did provide her with a reflection and a chance to see herself for the first time in, what was effectively, decades. Her once clear, blue eyes had gone cloudy and gray, and they held no life. Her once flawless, radiant face had turned into a cracked, wrinkled canvas. Her womanly curves had diminished, allowing her paper-thin skin to cling to her brittle bones.

Greatly saddened, Bella considered what she’d become. Would her friends, who’d always admired her classic beauty, still be so amicable when they saw how unsightly she’d become? Would her parents ever accept that she was their darling Bella? She didn’t even bother to consider what her boyfriend would do once he laid eyes on her. What purpose could she serve? To whom would she be any good? She didn’t have an answer to any of those questions.

For all the terror that Mirror Mirror held within, it was the unknown outside that truly scared her. Leave the house or face the end – the choice had practically been made for her. With her last bit of strength she crossed the room, opened the door, and walked through…

Personal History of the Story: I wrote this with the thought in mind that most people fear both the unknown and the uncertainty of the future, whether they realize it or not.

I Miss It Every Day

Jackie L. Smith, Ph.D.

He was what people call a loner, from the day he was born. A quiet, low- maintenance infant, he would wake and contentedly lie in his crib, humming to himself while he played with his toes or hands until someone came to find him awake. Sometimes his mother attributed this to his sense of security, his confidence that his caretakers would eventually come to meet his needs for food or a change of clothing. She even gave herself some credit for this; knowing how much she had wanted this child, and how happy she was throughout her pregnancy.

As he grew, his happiness with his own company seemed to only deepen; not to say that he was abnormally or psychologically anti-social. He responded happily to others in his life circle with smiles and positive behavior. It was more that he did not need others to be happy or feel complete.

As he grew, he made a few close friends, and could have had many more; he was physically attractive with his vibrant green eyes, his wide, even smile and dark, slightly wavy hair. He had a dimple when he smiled and his laugh was a deep, throaty sort of chuckle which encouraged an equal response from others. Though credited with being shy, it was not so much shyness, but a vague, recognizable self-confidence and contentment with what and who he perceived himself to be.

One might easily have pictured him as a theologian, philosopher, or some type of counselor. Physically he was competitive in individual sports where he challenged himself and was not tied to the responsibility for others’ performance. There was nothing in him which desired to lead; merely to personally perform to his own standards without pushing his ideas or desires on others.

At first his grandmother worried about him. Quiet, introverted, courteous and unassuming, how would he cope with the sometimes unfriendly world outside his home? She perceived a strong sense of vulnerability about him. She found him to be a gentle soul, and almost tender in the way he treated his sister and brothers. His grandfather also had his own worries about Jacob. He worried that his sense of right and wrong as well as justice would allow others to take advantage of him.

“He’s too trusting,” he would tell his wife. “I wish we could make him a little tougher.”

The grandmother agreed; however, she had an abiding faith about the meek inheriting the earth and felt God would keep his eye on Jacob.

He was the eldest child of five. His mother professed to an overwhelming love for her children; frequently saying, “Children? Oh, I have five!” When people would exclaim over this, she would very quickly and proudly say, “My children are my life. I always want a bunch of children. If I could afford it I would have more.”

Truth of the matter was that she couldn’t afford the ones she did have. After the divorce from the boy’s father, she collected a small sum of irregular child support; until in her efforts to free herself completely from any financial dependence or dominance by her ex- husband, she agreed to make a “deal”. She would relinquish any claim to child support payments if he would relinquish all parental rights. Since he was under two years old when this agreement was reached, he never really knew his father. Her new husband, being older and more established, had several friends who were attorneys and they very generously gave a wedding present to their buddy which made it easy for the boy to think this was his father. They gave the free legal work so that, along with the relinquishing of parental rights by the biological father, the boy could immediately be adopted by the new man in his mother’s life.

She allowed him to believe the new children and he shared the same father.

While his brothers and sisters could and would occasionally give vent to their frustrations with their mother or the irregular and unstructured home environment and life, he accepted what came his way, quietly and uncomplaining. His attitude seemed to be it was what it was.

When queried, he admitted he had no idea what he wanted to do with his life. As a matter of course, his younger brother would go on and on about what he was going to do when he was grown, and Jacob confessed he had no idea.

Straight out of high school; mostly because he felt he should do something he allowed his grandmother to pay registration and tuition for a semester at the local community college. At the end of the semester, he told his grandmother, “I am wasting your money and my time, Grandmother. I don’t know what I want to do with my life. “

Finally, he decided he might as well go into the military until he decided what he wanted from life. His grandmother was the only one who tried to talk him out of it; especially since Iraq and Afghanistan were both hot issues at the time. However, quiet though he may be, he could hold his own once he made his mind up on something. When he talked to a recruiter, and took the written tests, unexpectedly a sense of excitement began to creep into his conversations.

His aptitude tests indicated he could have a wide choice of fields from which to choose for his training; yet he talked of being a grunt, an infantryman, perhaps even a sniper. He once confided to his grandmother, “A lot of people join the military because they aren’t good at anything, you know?”

“Well, maybe, Jacob. But that’s not you, is it?”

He laughed before he responded, “I hope not! I just don’t know what I want to do with my life yet. Maybe this will tell me.”

“And there are more opportunities open as a veteran, too,” Jacob said. “If I get out and want to really go to college, Uncle Sam will pay for it.”

So he joined the Army. He went off to basic training in Georgia and the family went to his graduation ceremony. He had excelled during the training. He graduated in the top ten percent of his class; and had received special recognition within several specialized areas. He was one of the few in his squadron selected to remain in Georgia to attend Army Airborne Training.

So the family headed home and came back again to watch him receive his wings at the end of the school. At first, it seemed like he would be given his choice of ongoing training; but when final orders came in for him, he was sent to Seattle, Washington and from there was deployed to Afghanistan.

He was assigned to a small group of nine soldiers, assigned as support for a Special Forces Unit. His deployment was for a year and his family was consumed with worry and stress over his assignment. He talked about what he was allowed to; and though there was a sense of fear in his voice at times; there was an over-riding, unmistakable sense of pride as well. He talked of their bomb sniffing dog, of the children he saw in the villages, of some of the looks they were given by some of the Afghan people which seemed full of hatred. He talked of learning how to manage the huge weight of his gun, backpack, ammunition, and other supplies in the high altitude and climbing hills. He asked them to send candy for the kids he saw there and even asked for a couple of Walkmans for two youngsters who hung around their camp.

He asked them to send his favorite chips and some thicker socks, and more toothpaste and beef jerky. He sent photos of the roof blown off his sleeping hut, and tales of near misses, and how sick and tired he was sometimes of living twenty-four hours a day with the same eight guys.

He told of making rank, and of seeing things he never thought he would see. He mentioned some details about some of the men in his unit and he was both disgusted and awed by some of his superiors. He spoke of missions he was proud of; no details, just that he had been proud of himself and how he could now run with that weighted backpack for even five miles without having to stop.

He repeatedly voiced his hatred of the Army.

He began to refer to his small unit as buddies and by their first names. He sometimes admitted being lonely, even with his little eight man group with him all the time. At various times he would curse the army, the country, his superiors, and occasionally his country. But at others, he would praise someone’s bravery, performance, or idealism.

Alternately, he regretted ever joining up, and spoke of being proud he was serving his country. He hated the Army. He wished he were home. He would never re-enlist when the time came. He spoke of close calls, of people he didn’t trust, or who made him ashamed. He bragged on something his buddies had done or said or accomplished. He said the Army had too much politics in it. He said not everybody played by the rules. He said not all his leaders should be leaders.

Sometimes he talked about those who were malingers and used every excuse to stay behind. He spoke of some who were on their second or even third deployment on the front lines and who had volunteered for the duty.

He began to speak of afterwards. One week he spoke of how his first sergeant was staying in the army for his twenty, having a lifelong retirement check and all those great benefits. The next week it was, “I can’t wait to get out of this fucking place and out of this man’s army! I’m sick of some of these lazy, good for nothing pieces of shit who don’t carry their share of the load.”

He shared his sorrow when they lost their bomb dog and his worry about his own dogs at home. He wanted reassurance that the family was taking good care of them, and wondered if they would remember him when he returned.

He began to share things about his crew members; who was married and had children; who was called ‘the old man’ because he had enlisted in his late thirties, after being unemployed for over two years and unable to support his wife and kids. He spoke of the one who couldn’t wait to get home and get married. Sometimes he wished he had a girl waiting for him.

He longed for tacos and Mexican food and swore it would be the first thing he would eat when he hit stateside again. He missed hot showers and a real bed. He reported he was promoted once again. He was wearing the cross Grandmother had given him before he left and he reminded them he had turned legal on his birthday and was now twenty-one.

He was making plans, he said. He would get out, go to school and become an underwater welder. He could make a lot of money doing that. He would use his V.A. loan and buy himself a home. He might stay in the reserves; for the retirement and the money.

They began to learn more about him in this long distance year than they ever knew when he was with them. They could easily see his confidence building in himself and what he was doing. He spoke of his crew as though they were brothers. He confided to his grandmother that though he had no idea what religious affiliations his buddies were, they all prayed with each other before each mission. He spoke of some of the hazing some of the experienced troops pulled on the new recruits; the unfairness of it all; and the double duty watch he had to pull at times because of someone else’s failure to do their job. Sometimes there was bitterness in his words that the family worried would remain. They weren’t sure they liked some of the changes they saw in him. He had always seemed such a positive and optimistic person; it was more than just a perceived loss of innocence; it seemed a very real threat to his former personality. The family, most especially his grandparents, wondered at what permanent changes which might be taking place in him.

He had always been rather apolitical, and now he questioned his country’s right to even be over there where he was…He spoke of loss of national pride, of America’s attempt to be the world’s police force and how we were always embroiled in some kind of fighting somewhere, all the time. He ridiculed the idea that we were, still, a peace-loving nation. He questioned whether the real reason behind the fighting was oil.

Silently, his grandmother wished he had never joined. If the military was going to strip his hope, his patriotism, his pride in country and perhaps self, it was a terrible bargain. All this talk of “it will make a man of him”; voiced by mostly the men in his life obviously had not considered the basic make-up of Jacob. He had hoped to find a career choice or vocation which appealed to him; and it appeared (at least to her) that he was turning into a negative, pessimistic, and hopeless human who only saw one side of life.

* * *

The year was over. He was coming home for a thirty day leave and then would head back to Washington; hopefully to remain there until he was discharged.

When he got off the plane, they almost didn’t know him. He was in uniform, but he was bigger. He had a huge duffle bag over his shoulder and another smaller bag in his hand. He dropped them both when his siblings mobbed him. People around them took in the scene and smiled approvingly at this soldier being welcomed home by his family.

There were many small changes they noticed over the next few days and weeks of his leave. His voice was deeper. He seemed to be all hard-packed muscle. He walked with a new found pride in himself. He couldn’t break his habit of early rising and could quietly be found outside with his dogs, or sitting in the back porch swing taking in the dawn when they found his bed empty. He volunteered some stories but didn’t appreciate questions about where he had been or what he had been doing.

“I wish I could just stay home,” he said. “I hate Seattle. It rains all the time. I can’t understand why people would want to live there.”

“Well, it won’t be for long. A little over a year.” His grandfather said. “That is, unless you decide to stay in.”

“Nope. I just hope I get under a year left so there won’t be another deployment over there.

He and his brothers went fishing a few times, but he still was not into going out and partying or drinking and he seemed relaxed and happy to be home.

It wasn’t until he finally mustered out and came home that he began to share some of his experiences. One night on the back porch, sitting with his grandmother and his brothers he tried to put into words what changes he had noticed in himself and how he viewed his world, and life itself.

“I can’t stand it when I run into someone I used to hang with and after the initial greeting they ask me, ‘Did you kill anybody? How many did you kill?’ My God,” he said, pausing, “I hate that. What kind of a question is that to ask someone?”

No one responded to his question and a few minutes later he said, “You know yourselves,” and he looked steadily at his brothers and his sister; his mother wasn’t present, and then continued, “We really never had any structure in our home. We didn’t have regular bedtimes, or mealtimes. We never followed rules about homework or chores or anything like that. I always viewed us as sort of hippies, if that is even the word.”

Some of his brothers murmured agreement.

“So I worried about how I would hold up to having someone order me around all the time. Someone watch me all the time. Make me do something I sure didn’t want to do…I also didn’t know if I would be able to…well, depend on others. I never really felt like I could count on anybody here to look after me or take care of me. I always kind felt like I better count on myself. It was hard to let go and trust someone else. Especially with my life. To depend on them doing their job so I could do mine. And geez, living with eight other guys, their gross habits, their sloppiness or obsessive behavior, things I didn’t do and didn’t want to do or hear about. Privacy? Where was my privacy I had always liked? I always thought the military was primarily about commitment. Real commitment.”

“And you didn’t find that kind of commitment there?” asked his grandfather.

He paused and then he said, “That’s just it. I did. I found it within a small group of nine men. A total commitment to one another. Complete, inviolable, permanent, something which will always be there. I will have something in common with those men for the rest of my life. I will probably forever hold others up to their measure. Because of them, I am not sorry I joined the Army. I am not sorry I got out of the Army.”

Again he paused, and looking off into the dark distance, he said, “And I miss it every day.”

Personal History of the Story: When my grandson returned from front line missions with Special Forces in Afghanistan, I was surprised when he would one day emphasize how glad he was out of the Army, how he had counted the days, etc. Then the next he would be full of fond memories of the other 8 members of his little team, and how close they became, living and fighting together for that year, and the next day he would say “I miss it every day.” About his feelings about the entire experience. I wondered if all these young soldiers might have this same “mixed baggage” of hate it, love it, with I was still in; am glad I am out; would do it again, would never do it over…” I found it very moving.

Halloween Mousse

Kendall Furlong

It’s what a balloon feels on a helium bottle at a Halloween party; your head grows lighter, emptier, and possessed of an irrational urge to fly off into the sky. I recognized the sensation; insulin scavenging my blood for the glucose that wasn’t there.

Damn! I thought, struggling to open my eyes in a world slipping away.

The girl laying next to me groaned with the pleasure of my kneading her breasts. I stopped. The effort to keep the act going with its deep sensuality shrouded my concentration. I needed to recover from the overdose.

This is crazy, I thought. I could barely remember her name now even though I’d shot up the extra insulin for her.

Susan! It came to me. After weeks of putting moves on Susan, she had finally accepted a Halloween date—dinner at my apartment, just the two of us. I prepared a special Halloween menu: For cocktails, “Bloody Twilight” Campari and tonic. Sprinkling trail mix over romaine lettuce produced a salad I wasn’t sure what to do with until I remembered some plastic heather an ex-girl friend and Emily Brontë fan had given me. With a heather-garlanded bowl, I had “Withering Heights” salad, then a “Werewolf steak” of ground beef accompanied by sautéed vegetables in garlic sauce as the main course. But the piece de resistance was desert—extra butter and Cointreau-laced chocolate “Mousse de Ghoul”. I rather liked that. It’s why I did the extra insulin, I wanted to have enough in my body to deal with the sugar bomb that meal would dump into it so I wouldn’t have to reveal my medical history before she got to know me. First, I wanted to prove diabetics had a life too.

Sensing my distress she held my hand and cooed, “What’s the matter, baby?” guiding it back to her nipple, clearly not wanting to let go of the spell.

Yesterday, I’d waited for her in the atrium of the office building where we work to renew my long-standing dinner invitation. She’d never accepted before; always willing to go out, but not to my apartment.

“I’ll go out with you, but it has to be in public,” she would say, stiff like that. I guess she’d said it so many times it seemed natural so that I got used to it after a while, taking it as a badge of her virtue. Clearly, she didn’t sleep around. And when I accepted her terms she became vivacious, full of interesting takes on life and fun to be with, which is why I kept asking her out.

But now fuzz balls were filling my head, clouding my mind. “I’ve got to get some sugar in me,” I said, ignoring the suddenly willing Susan in my bed and trying to fight off onrushing panic.

“Me too,” she said. Her tone was teasing as she turned to face me. Dark, bottomless eyes peered into mine as she reached out and rendered me helpless with the erotic thrill of her taking me in her hand.

Without large quantities of sugar, insulin shock follows in less than ten minutes from the first sensation of something going awry inside you. Locating a large, compact supply has to quickly become your sole goal if you’re to survive.

When I admit to people I’m diabetic, I don’t go into details. It’s the details that scare them: diabetic comas, clogged arteries that restrict circulation in extremities and cause limbs to fall off. Some people get squeamish and I avoid that part of the story—especially with girls I’m trying to make.

I’m sure she felt my limpness in her hand and saw my eyes filled with the desperate fear of trying to force myself onto a survival track because she whispered, “It’s all right, sweetie, we have all night.”

“Wh-what?” I stammered, oblivious. I jumped up, thrashing about for clothes and trying to focus on what she’d said.

During the course on diabetes I took after my diagnosis, they programed into us a little packet of emotional-physical responses that the onset of insulin shock triggers. These synapses now fired sequentially. The first one instructed; depend on yourself--no one else is likely to know what to do. A sub-routine sent me to the closet to grab a bathrobe to cover my naked body and pushed me toward the door of my apartment.

By this time Susan had realized something was terribly wrong. She screamed and tried to grab me, to keep me from running out into the street in a bathrobe, but my momentum plunged both of us out into the night and onto the lawn in full view of the heavy traffic of the avenue.

The orderly row of cars whizzing past faltered as drivers, dismayed or excited by the sight of a naked beauty trying to pull a guy in a bathrobe back into an apartment, lost control and veered from their lanes to the sound of crunching metal and shattering glass.

“Hey, baby,” a young male voice came from the street, “I’ll do you.” The beginnings of a crowd started gathering on the sidewalk.

My second programed instruction told me to block out everything and concentrate on finding sucrose. The sub-routine this time searched my brain and came up with a large poster of an ice cream sandwich at the convenience store on the corner. I ran toward it. The impromptu crowd sent a fully exposed Susan scurrying back to into the apartment and momentarily out of action.

Costumed revealers between me and the corner store yelled “trick or treat”. When I cut across the grass, intending to leave the sidewalk to them. A clumsy replica of Star Trek’s Mr. Spock shouted, “Amok Time”, wiggling his hands in the air and sticking out his foot to send me sprawling.

“No treat gets you a trick!” they cried, then falling into hysterical laughter when my bathrobe fell open and exposed my manhood to the world.

I scrambled, trying to get to my feet, but every movement, every step got harder and I began to think I wouldn’t make it. My unconscious mind locked in the sugar acquisition algorithm, freeing the conscious one to speculate and I became aware insulin shock had taken possession of my body. It moved when I commanded, but not the way I commanded, writhing instead, uselessly sprawled on the apartment house lawn. I looked up at the heavens where the stars robust enough to shine though city lights twinkled down at me. So this is how it ends I thought. Victim of an unconsummated lay. I wondered if my embarrassment would be sufficient penitence; or, if this were the night God would recover His old reputation for mercy.

The change in Susan had astonished me. She had barely tasted the meal, pronounced it “sinfully delicious” threw her arms around me and led me straight to bed. Wow, from prude to la passionaria. Maybe all that passion, walled up inside her, came gushing out when released by the right person—that would be me—and now this shame ending. I closed my eyes to wait for the inevitable.

I’m not sure the time between bowing to my fate and feeling someone shake me, but when I opened my eyes again Susan kneeled beside me. She held her hand to my face. “Baby, can you hear me?”

Coming to, I struggled to get out a weak ‘Yes.’

“Good”, she said, “we’ve got to get you back inside.”

Her presence was beginning to revive me--a testament either to the power of my own sexual urges or to her incredibly passionate sensuality. “I’m diabetic,” I said, fighting to get each word out. “I took an overdose of insulin . . . gotta have lots of sugar.”

“I know, baby,” she said affectionally. “That was really, really sweet of you.”

“Wh-what?” I blurted out, blindsided by the revelation of this knowledge.

“Don’t try to talk now. Come on, up,” she commanded.

“No, you don’t understand. I don’t have any sugar in the apartment to counteract the insulin.”

“What about the mousse?” she said, arching her eyebrows with the clear intent to provoke.

That stopped me. In the panic of finding pure sugar and my programmed reactions, I’d forgotten about the mousse. It was loaded with ingredients convertible to all the pure blood sugar I would ever need. So, with her supporting me I managed to stand up and hobble back to my apartment.

Inside, she pulled me away from the table and back to the bed. “No,” I said, “I need the mousse now. There’s not much time left.”

“That’s alright,” she said. “I know all about diabetes.”

“You do?”

“Sure. Why do you think I agreed to come to your apartment tonight?” Suddenly my image of her shifted to Florence Nightingale.

“I . . . donno”

“Just relax and let me do the work.”

I wanted to protest this, but was too far in the insulin shock. I watched in a daze as she pulled the bathrobe from around my shoulders and out from under me, then let the shift she’d worn slide down off of her and lay down on top of me. I didn’t expect to survive, but even the excess insulin couldn’t keep me from grinning at dying in the arms of a gorgeous woman like Susan. I half opened my eyes to watch. Her face almost shown with pleasure and happiness. That was when I noticed two of her teeth. They looked like they were growing. I opened my eyes all the way. Her canine teeth were almost an inch long now. Desperately, I wanted to get out from under her, to get away from there. I tried to move, but couldn’t. She was holding me firmly.

“What are you doing?”

“Relax sweetie. It’ll feel good.” She nuzzled her face in my neck. I felt a tiny stinging sensation, followed by a wave of pleasure sweeping over me, reaching all the way to my toes. She pulled back. Her mouth was bloody. The ecstasy still held me. Stupidly, I said, “Is that my blood?”

“Yes,” she answered.

“You’re a vampire?”

“Yes, and your blood is wonderful.”

“Wonderful?” I said. “How? I’m diabetic.”

“I know.”

“But my blood has to be awful.”

“Noooo,” she said. “Don’t you see? When you asked me to dinner I knew you’d have to take extra insulin to soak up the extra glucose. Well, it soaked up all the blood sugar you had left. That’s why I took you to bed before you had time to eat and stuff yourself back up with rich food.”

“I don’t understand.” I said.

“Well, when my bathroom scales this morning showed I had gained five pounds I knew I’d have to do fat free blood for a couple of days. You’re the first meal on my new diet!”

Personal History of the Story: The writer’s group I’m a member of has a tradition of writing Halloween stories every year. A couple of years ago, during the craze over the Twilight series, I decided to write a story showing my group that Stephanie Meyers had it all wrong – you cannot trust vampires.

Black Star

Bert Beeb

Shawn Walters sat in front of his bedroom window, watching as his younger brother Judd came strutting through the privacy fence gate into the backyard of their beige, two story suburban home wearing nothing but a pair of neon green swim trunks and a rifle slung over his sunburned back, his shaggy blond hair glowing in the uninterrupted sunshine. When his brother disappeared from view he set his gaze back on the glimmering black star that bedazzled the baby blue afternoon sky.

Shawn envied him. It was all a just a game. He was too young to grasp the doom that loomed overhead. His thirteen year old mind was convinced that they could survive anything down in the basement. Shawn knew better. The reality of death was like a demon that had possessed him.

The last radio reports said the size of the mass was inconceivable. Scientists were baffled as to what it was. They only knew that it was a perfect cube with a height and width five times more massive than the Oort cloud that encased the solar system. The most disturbing thing was how fast it was coming. Its blackness made it difficult to detect until a blotted out region of stars was discovered two weeks ago.

The jarring pop of a gunshot ripped Shawn from his thoughts. He scrambled from his cluttered room, bounding down the stairs, knocking family photos off the wall. He burst out of the back door from the kitchen, scanning the area. Judd came running from the left side of the house, red faced and out of breath.

“Two guys hopped the fence and went for the back door. I fired a warning shot and they took off like stray cats!” Judd hooted.

“Get in the damn house now, Judd!”

Shawn slammed the back door after Judd walked through. He pulled out a chair at the round wooden kitchen table, sat down and started rubbing his temples with his palms. The gunshot had reignited his anxiety.

“We can’t keep living like this!” Shawn cried out, slamming his fists down, knocking a yellow post-it off the table onto the floor.

He got up and went to the sink for some water. When he turned the faucet, the water came out in an erratic burst, followed by nothing but spurts of air. Shawn threw his glass into the aluminum sink. The shattering impact caused shards to ricochet in all directions, one shard hitting Shawn on his left cheek. He felt the warm blood trickle down his face before the sharp sting of the cut. Judd harrumphed and stormed out of the kitchen, stepping on the note.

Shawn cleaned up the glass and picked the note up from the brown linoleum floor, dusted Judd’s dirty footprint off it and put it back on the table. The words “Back in no time. Love you.” stood out in black pen; the words pulled at his heart and brought on tears even though he tried not to look at them.

He understood that his parents were trapped in China, but he still felt abandoned. Judd was convinced that they hadn’t tried hard enough to get back home. Shawn couldn’t blame him for feeling that way. He had no intention of reasoning with him about it either. It would only be a waste of what little time they had together.

Judd came in, pulling a red tank top over his head. He put a scrawny arm around Shawn’s slender slumped shoulders. An apologetic grin started spreading across his round face.

“Feed me.” he commanded.

Shawn shoved him away and nodded with the same grin in agreement. It drove Shawn crazy that they looked so much alike. People often mistook them for twins despite him being three years older.

They sat down on the maroon and green plaid sofa in the living room with a bag of potato chips and some beef jerky and read comic books while they ate. As Shawn was wiping his greasy hands on his blue jean shorts, the house started to quake. It began as a soft tremble but within seconds it became a rolling rattle.

The brothers bolted for the basement. They went to their safe place under the stairs and huddled together. Minutes passed with no end to the quake. Shawn had a sudden revelation that the world would probably tear apart long before the blackness arrived. He was starting to think the end had come when the quaking abruptly shifted down to a strange vibration that tickled his nose.

After a while they decided that the vibration was not going to stop. They were coming out from behind the stairs when they heard frantic knocking at the basement door. Judd immediately went up the stairs.

“Don’t open the door Judd. It could be robbers!” Shawn yelled from below.

“Please let me in! PLEASE!” a girl’s muffled shriek pleaded.

“We can’t leave her out there Shawn. She could be hurt!” Judd yelled from the door.

“Okay, okay! Open the door.”

Judd unlocked the deadbolt and started to open the door slowly. A girl with wide brown eyes and frazzled hair, wearing a long light pink night shirt burst through. She fell to her hands and knees whimpering, saying thank you over and over again.

She lifted her head slowly and looked around the room, finally locking her wild eyes on Shawn.

“They were so horrible. I just ran. I was so scared. They killed my mother and my sister! I don’t want to be alone anymore! I just don’t want to be alone anymore! Oh god!” she cried, never taking her gaze from Shawn’s.

“It’s okay…you’re safe now. Just try to chill out, alright?” Judd assured her from behind.

She looked over at him with a forced smile that fell quickly apart. She buried her pale face into her tiny hands. Her body started to rack with sobs.

“Thank you, I’m sorry I…”

“Who killed your family?” Shawn asked as he helped her up and guided her over to his dad’s old brown couch from his college days.

The basement was their dad’s man cave. He called it the kid free zone. The walls were adorned with car pictures, car collectibles and shelves of trophies from his racing days that were now scattered all over the floor.

“Some men broke into our house this morning. I live just a few blocks down and we have a basement just like this. My mother and sister Cara were in the living room. I was in the basement sleeping. I had to listen as those men hurt them. Then I heard my sister begging for her life. Then nothing for a long time. I climbed through a window and hid in the neighbor’s backyard. I went back a while later. They were stripped naked and dead.”

The brothers sat in shocked silence as the girl’s crying reignited.

“What’s your name?” Judd asked after she calmed a bit.

“Etta.”

“Nice name.”

“Thank you. I’d like to lie down for a little while if that’s okay.”

“Yeah, sure. You can have the couch.” Shawn offered.

Shawn and Judd made their pallets under the stairs. They all fell asleep to the unnerving, steady vibration of the dying earth.

Shawn awoke to a jostling chaos. Etta was holding tight to the couch and whimpering on as it was jerked around the basement. Judd was gripping his pallet as the floor shook. The world settled back into the soft vibration after a few minutes.

Morning sunlight shone down on them through tiny window slits, illuminated by the reflection of heavy dust in the air. Shawn and Judd climbed out from under the stairs.

“I’m going outside to have a look. Judd, don’t answer this door for anyone other than my special knock. We can’t take any more risks or we’ll end up like Etta’s family.”

Judd and Etta nodded in agreement. Shawn put his ear against the door and listened for any sign of intruders. Confident there was no one out there, he cracked open the door and peered out to be sure, but when he tried to open the door enough to get through, something blocked the way.

He forced it open, pushing the dishwasher aside. Beyond, the rest of the house was in ruins. The roof had collapsed and Shawn could see the open sky from his living room. The black star had become much larger. It now looked like the moon’s evil twin had taken root in the day. Its darkness seemed to mingle with the sunlight as it shone down, weaving the rays with blackness.

Shawn climbed over the rubble to his front door and opened it with a gasp. The whole neighborhood was little more than rubble. He thought he saw movement from the corner of his eye. He quickly closed the door and went back down to the basement.

The three of them prepared a meal of cookies, potato chips and warm soda. For a while they were kids again. They played card games, talked and joked about things that used to matter.

They slept deeply that night. Shawn was the first awake. He was surprised that the buzzing vibration had ceased and that it was still dark outside so late in the morning. He quietly got up and went out to the backyard for some fresh air.

When he emerged from the back door, he was dumbfounded by what he saw. The sky was the darkest black he had ever seen. Not a star shone. It seemed to be sucking the very life from him. He felt weak and dizzy. He was walking backwards without even realizing it. He almost stumbled over a lawn chair but turned with the momentum and sprinted back inside.

He tried to slip back in quietly but when he entered the basement, Judd and Etta were staring at him with concerned expressions.

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” Etta said.

“You look like a ghost.” Judd added.

“It’s here.” Shawn replied sullenly.

“Well, should we pray or something? What should we do?” Etta asked.

“No thanks. Think of all the prayers being said as we speak. No one is listening. I say we get sick on candy, play some cards and whatever happens, happens.” Shawn didn’t wait for an answer.

He pulled out a stash of Halloween candy he had been saving for a special occasion. He divided it with his new friend and little brother and then started shuffling the card deck.

During their second game of “Go Fish” the vibration gradually returned. They tried to ignore their fears and carry on as best they could. Etta started weeping softly while she stared at her hand. Judd put his arm around her and she took comfort on his shoulder until the quaking erupted and tore them apart.

They were thrown around the crumbling basement like ragdolls in a washing machine. Shawn dove onto his father’s couch. Etta and Judd were desperately trying to hold on to the stair railing. The couch bounced around until it toppled over.

Shawn lay under the couch listening to the rubble grinding and Etta’s screams. Then suddenly it all stopped. It was an eerie, creaking calm. Shawn started to pray. He begged God to forgive mankind for the things they did to deserve what was happening, and he begged for a quick and painless death for Judd, Etta and himself. He was happy that he’d get to see his mother and father again in the afterlife.

He waited for whatever kind of death the black star would bring him. He heard a strange sound, like a massive bubble popping. Then from his left, a wall of pitch blackness passed through the basement wall, moving slowly toward him. A sulfuric smell hung in the air. He considered letting it take him, but he saw Judd and Etta running up the broken stairs urging him to follow. He got up, not taking his eyes from the dense shadow of black until he turned to go up the stairs.

When he got to the street, Etta and Judd were still calling him from a distance. He could feel an immense energy pulling at him from behind. The stench was overwhelming. He stole a glance back and was shocked to see that it was just a few feet away. It spanned as far as the eye could see, blotting out everything behind it. He jumped over a trash can and in midflight he was suspended. The blackness enveloped him. He screamed.

Shawn could not move or even close his eyes. He could taste something foreign and bitter on his tongue and he could feel a coldness coursing through his veins. He felt like he was being poisoned and he wanted to vomit. The thickness was oppressive and it became harder and harder to breathe until he could no longer take a breath.

As his mind began to go black, he was suddenly blinded by an overwhelming white light. The coldness was instantly replaced by searing heat.

He landed hard on the sidewalk on the other side of the trash can. He looked ahead and a black shimmering wall was moving steadily down the road beyond two others who stood frozen up ahead.

He stood up, brushed off his bruised knees, turned around and started walking. He passed his house, continued out of his neighborhood and down the road until he reached the tree line. He sniffed at the air, and then took in a large gulp. He crouched, let out a challenging roar at the forest, and rushed in.

Personal History of the Story: I enjoy writing about possible space anomalies. Astronomy is one of my favorite subjects. I also have a very strained relationship with my brother so I find myself writing about strong brotherly bonds.

Texas Voodoo

T B Riggs

Galveston, Texas 1890

Sofia Henley, a mail-order bride, had traveled all the way from the Rio Grande Valley to wed John Henley, who owned a small cattle ranch near Galveston.

Besides ranching, Sofia also loved to garden. She had a terrific green thumb, whereas her neighbor and friend, Agnes Miller, did not. Sofia's garden was her pride and joy. Her various assortments of flowers, herbs and fragrances—combined with a collection of colorful clay pots and statues—gave her garden an air of mystic grace and beauty.

* * *

Sofia Henley, a beautiful young woman of Hispanic and Indian descent, was also an accomplished artist-potter who sold many of her clay-fired creations in New Orleans, a city bustling with vitality and musicians, a vibrant metropolis in which the queen of voodoo, Marie Laveau, reigned in a shadowy underground—the same woman who often came to visit and purchase Sofia's colorful hand-made amulets and talismans.

Marie Laveau, believed to have been the daughter of a white plantation owner and a beautiful black Creole woman, for awhile earned her livelihood as a hairdresser, catering to a wealthy Caucasian clientele, learning all their intimate secrets through gossip, which gave her insight into their private affairs. People from all walks of life asked her to bring them luck, cure their ailments, and of course, acquire for them their desired lovers.

Rumors of voodoo, spirit possessions, snake worship, zombies and animal sacrifices scandalized this belief in public. However, in private, people would consult all kinds of voodoo priests and priestesses, regardless.

* * *

It was a well-known fact among their friends that Sofia's husband, John, before their marriage had given Jacqueline Jambeaux, a young and gorgeous French speaking woman of ill repute, riding lessons. However, John had sworn to Sofia there had been no sexual relations between them. It was strictly business. Jacqueline had purchased a horse from him and as a favor he'd taught her how to ride. She had come to Texas from the Caribbean Islands.

Trusting her husband, Sofia was totally oblivious to the fact he carried a photograph of Jacqueline Jambeaux, hidden under his brown jacket lining.

* * *

Two weeks prior to Sofia's arrival, John had gone to Jacqueline's house for her regular riding lesson when a photographer showed up. He was summoned to Jacqueline's house by an English Lord, he'd said. He was there to take some photographs.

It was summertime, and the Texas heat was excruciating. Jacqueline had just returned from a few days at the beach and now lay naked on a white frilly hammock in her garden. Next to her lay a half-empty bottle of rum. Her figure curved and regal, John stared at her jutting breasts, fine hips, and shapely thighs, and begged the photographer to take a picture. He would pay him a twenty-dollar gold piece. Paul, the photographer, had recently purchased a new camera called the Kodak, and so he agreed.

A few days later, John hid Jacqueline's photograph behind the lining of his favorite brown jacket— to bring him good luck, he thought. Rumor had it that any man who kept a photo of a beautiful naked woman close to his heart would always have good luck in life, providing he kept it a secret.

Except, John had anything but good luck, every single night thereafter, he would dream about Jacqueline and her magnificent body, which he yearned to touch. He was now a deeply troubled man. Jacqueline had come between him and his new bride in their marriage bed.

At night, he would stand for hours on his porch and gaze up at the moon like a love-sick pup.

* * *

Every week-end, John and Sofia would ride down to Galveston Bay and watch the foreign ships come in. It was then he'd switch clothes. He'd put on his white linen jacket and Brazilian straw hat to fit in with the traveling crowd and tourists. Sofia would sell her pottery, vegetables and flowers, while he mingled in with the crowd, steering them towards his wife's table and her wares. It was on those days, he'd forget all about Jacqueline Jambeaux.

Standing behind her table at the farmer's market, Sofia would concentrate on her clay pots. Tourists loved them. They were her best sellers. She'd always dug her own clay from a clay pit near her home. Taught by her Mexican-Indian grandmother how to throw, glaze and fire these magnificent creations, they were the most colorful, stunning clay pots anyone had ever seen.

It had been a beautiful sunny day. Business had been brisk, and soon they were headed for home. Sitting in the buggy next to her husband, Sofia closed her eyes and thought about her childhood home. She still missed all her friends down in the Rio Grande and had planned to visit them soon. Her grandmother who'd raised her, had passed away suddenly. Not having any family left and not having any good prospects to marry, she'd answered John Henley's advertisement seeking a wife. A few months thereafter, they were married, and she couldn't have been happier.

* * *

Several days later, Sofia noticed that John's favorite brown jacket had a loose button ready to fall off. She immediately fetched her needle and thread. Throwing his jacket over her knee, she suddenly felt a peculiar sensation. While threading her needle, her head started to throb as if it were going to split in two. Closing her eyes for a brief moment, she saw a fleeting image of Jacqueline and John. Jacqueline held a photograph of John in her hand, which had several needles stuck clean through.

Did her vision mean what she thought it meant? She knew about voodoo spells from Marie Laveau. Her own grandmother had told her a long time ago that you could kill a person that way. All you needed was a photograph of that person. You then stuck a needle into their chest. Your hand must not shake because the needle has to penetrate the heart directly, her grandmother had said. Furthermore, the needle must not break in the process.

“Why did this Jacqueline woman want to harm her husband John?” she thought. “Was she jealous? Had she planned to be his wife?”

She had seen this French woman around town several times in the past. In fact, it was John who'd pointed her out.

It was at that moment her neighbor, Agnes Miller knocked on her door. She'd come to visit. Sofia, in a hurry to open her door, jumped out of her chair and absentmindedly placed John's brown jacket, inside out, on a stool. She then stuck her long needle through the jacket lining so she wouldn't lose it. Agnes her good friend, had come to visit and to also pay her some money. She'd sold some of Sofia's clay pots in her store.

* * *

Sofia returned to her sewing shortly, retrieved her needle, attached John's button, and hung the jacket back on the hook.

About an hour later, when her husband returned home, he once again slipped on his favorite brown jacket. He walked outside to sit on his front porch swing when he began feeling deathly ill. He hurried back into the house gasping for air.

“What's the matter, ” Sofia cried, scared out of her wits.

“I can't breathe,” he said, his hands clutching at his chest.

“Oh my God, John,” cried Sofia, “that French woman, Jacqueline, is trying to kill you with a voodoo spell! I had a weird premonition, an omen, about an hour ago. Why does she want to kill you John?”

“I don't know,” John groaned in agony, even though he suspected the reason of why Jacqueline wanted him dead. She must have found out that Paul, the photographer, had taken a picture of her in which she was naked and drunk, and sold it to him. Now, because of that, she wanted revenge. Quite possibly, she wanted him dead!

“Are you all right, John,” Sofia cried.

John went outside, took off his favorite brown jacket, rolled it up into a ball, doused it with kerosene, and set it on fire.

“Don't be afraid, Sofia,” said John. “We'll be all right now.”

* * *

That very next afternoon, both John and Sofia ran into Paul, the photographer in town, who quietly informed them that Jacqueline Jambeaux had mysteriously died from a heart attack that same morning at the hospital. He'd personally witnessed her distress the day before. They'd both sat in her garden. He'd again taken some pictures of her, when suddenly she grabbed at her chest as if someone had stuck a sharp object into her heart. She swayed back and forth, while gasping for air. She cursed like a sailor, and fell out of her chair. He immediately sent for her doctor.

Paul could have sworn a voodoo curse had been at work. But who? He knew that Jacqueline practiced voodoo. She had told him so herself. But who would want to kill Jacqueline?

“Someone must have stuck a needle into her photograph, right through her heart, just as sure as I'm standing here,” he'd said.

“What in the world,” Sofia wailed. “Voodoo in Texas? How can that be?

I thought those kinds of rituals only took place in Louisiana, and elsewhere.”

Personal History of the story: I wrote this story many years ago and altered it slightly as I told the story to my clients.

The Lady’s Profit

Tamara Hartl

I was just passing by the saloon when her singing caught my attention. I peeked in the open doorway. The woman had a respectable voice, but she was a soiled dove, just past her prime. Still, I noted her countenance and was suddenly struck with an idea that thundered into my imagination. She is going to help me rob the local bank. All I had to figure out was how I was going to get her to agree.

I got my chance late that night after spending several hours lurking in the alleyway behind the saloon. Lurking was not an action I ever thought I would be reduced to, but my circumstances put me into a position where I was ready to do a lot worse than lurk.

A boy, around twelve or so, appeared from a back door with a pail of dirty wash water. I spooked him with a ‘phsst’ to get his attention. “Phsst,” I hissed again.

He looked at me with a rather comical expression. “Ma’am?” he squeaked in surprise. “Why in tarnation are you hidin’ back here?”

I moved out of the shadows. “How would you like to make a penny?” I asked him.

The boy looked at me with suspicion as he brushed a lock of lank brown hair out of his eyes. “What do you want?”

I moved closer, almost into the pool of light that escaped the open door, and smoothed the skirt of my heavy widow’s weeds. “I just need to speak to someone inside. Could you get her for me?”

He took a step back, looking ready to bolt. “Who you want to talk to? Most the gals here are busy right now. They get real testy to bein’ interrupted.”

“The lady who was singing earlier, is she busy?” I asked and took a last step into the light. “I’ll give you two pennies if you’ll get her to come down to talk to me.”

The boy gave a little gasp. “Wow ma’am, you’re a looker, beggin’ your pardon for sayin’ so.”

I gave a snort of disgust. Men, even at a tender age, just couldn’t see past the outer package. “Please?” I begged. “I really need to speak to her.”

He held out a dirty hand. “I’ll go see, but I ain’t promisin’ Sarah’ll come down.”

I dropped the pennies in his palm. “Thank you. All I can ask is that you try.”

Ten minutes later, the woman I sought came out the back door. Minus the heavy make-up and the hideous scarlet dress she had been stuffed into, she was rather pretty. Faded blue eyes stared back at me as she pulled her long braid of chestnut hair over her shoulder.

“Jeb said you were lookin’ for me,” she grumbled, and took a look over her shoulder. “I can get in a lot a trouble with my boss talkin’ to you. What do you want lady?”

Sarah had the hard look about her a woman in her profession tended to carry. I’d seen it before. Most would do just about anything to better their lives, especially if they worked in harsh conditions. From her nervous glances over her shoulder, a tough boss, no doubt, ran this establishment. If I was wrong about her, then I would have to make haste out of town.

“Close the door and I’ll tell you what I have in mind,” I told her. “I’m looking for a partner and I think you’re the one who can help me,” I began, tucking a wayward strand of black hair behind my ear.

Sarah pulled her threadbare robe closer over full breasts. I was pretty sure that was all she was wearing.

“What’s your name lady?” she asked, looking me up and down.

“Maddie.”

“That’s it? Just Maddie?” She looked inside once more and closed the door, and then sat on the top step.

“That’s it, until I’m leaving this piss poor excuse of a town,” I answered, still standing in front of her.

I proceeded to tell her how I’d met my husband in New Orleans and had fallen very much in love with him. “I let him talk me into moving. I left the city of my birth to come live on his small ranch, which is wedged smack in between two of the largest ranches in the area. He left me almost as soon as I had set my bags down on the dusty parlor floor to go fight for the Confederates. Not long after that, he got himself killed by some Yankee.

“I tried to keep things running smoothly, but the only hands left at the ranch were old men—and they were soon run off by the neighboring ranchers. One of them did offer to buy the place, which I assumed would be worth some decent money. But I was just a stupid female, right? I wasn’t supposed to know anything about those sorts of things. So I was offered an insulting amount of money, among other things.”

Sarah understood my sarcasm. “What about going to the bank?” she questioned.

“I was going to do just that, but the bank president expected me give it to him for next to nothing, and then he had the nerve to offer to let me continue to live out there in exchange for certain favors.”

Sarah snorted at that. “He comes in here all the time. He’s a pig.”

I laughed quietly at that and then told Sarah the plan that had come to me that afternoon.

First her mouth fell open, and then she closed it as a smile slowly bloomed. “What’s in it for me?”

“Partner’s, fifty-fifty,” I answered.

Sarah stood up and took my hand. We shook. “It’s a deal.”

After a few last words I left her as I went back into the dark alley to find my horse. In three days time our scheme went into action.

* * *

Most ranch women know how to handle a pistol, rifle, or shotgun. Between the many varmints, which might want to eat your favorite hen or take a calf that may one day fee*d your family, or the even worse—a human varmint—it’s a necessity. Men folk are always off doing something that leaves us at the homestead alone to defend it—and ourselves.

I had learned to handle a revolver before I had met my dear departed spouse. I was a pretty fair hand with a knife as well. I hadn’t bothered to fill him in on the extent of my knowledge.

Now the bank president would discover my prowess. I had not realized how much I would enjoy watching the sweat roll down his face and disappear into the fat rolls around his neck. I almost thought of telling him who it was that held the Colt that poked him in his big paunch. Especially after he had taken the liberty of groping my person the last time he had come by the ranch to persuade me to let him take it over.

Years ago, I had learned how to apply heavy stage make-up from a passing acquaintance. I knew how to change my appearance completely. A gray haired, stooped man stood in front of the bank president.

I had watched him in the past few days and knew that he arrived much earlier than the other bank employees. No one paid any attention to an apparently drunk man who staggered into the alley behind the bank: out of sight, out of mind.

It had been easy to blend into the shadows until the banker unlocked the back door. Now at gunpoint, he was filling a burlap sack with greenbacks. Greenbacks that had been just recently deposited by the neighboring ranchers after successfully selling their herds, bless their generous souls. I doubted however that they would appreciate the irony.

I made the quivering man lie on the floor and tucked my pistol in my belt. As I was tying his hands behind his back, he moved as if to resist. “Don’t,” I commanded in a low, growling voice as I drew my pistol again and shoved it none too gently into his ear.

I gagged him tightly after tying his feet, and then left the same way I had entered. I tossed the sack nonchalantly over my shoulder and resumed my drunken appearing stagger through the back alleys.

I made it to the saloon’s back door and rapped lightly on the door. It opened quickly and Sarah stared at me. She looked over my head both directions. “I’m sorry mister, but you got to be movin’ on,” she ordered, looking down the alley with some concern.

“Sarah, it’s Maddie,” I hissed under my breath.

She looked at me in surprise. “Damn, Maddie,” she whispered back as she moved and let me in. Leading the way, she snuck me into the heart of the brothel and took me down a hallway and then upstairs to her own room.

Once safely inside with the door locked, I took off the battered hat I wore and gave it a toss; it landed in a chair in one corner of the room. I grabbed a rag and dipped it into a basin of water on a table and began to scrub at the makeup on my face. Sarah opened the top of the sack and peered inside.

She covered her mouth with one hand and looked up at me, surprise and then joy crossed her face. “Oh my God!” she exclaimed with a subdued squeal. “Oh…my…God.”

I grinned back as I took the pins out of my hair. It fell to my waist with a puff of powder. I grabbed a hairbrush out of the valise I had left with Sarah the night before, and began to hurriedly brush the rest of the concealing powder from my hair.

Seeing my haste, Sarah closed the sack and helped me to transform myself back to the helpless widow. After twisting my hair into a neat chignon, I donned my black bonnet.

“How do I look?” I asked Sarah.

She adjusted the bow under my chin. “Beautiful,” she said and gave me a wink. “What a change from your ruffian friend.”

We shared a chuckle and I left to put on Act Two of my plan. I trusted Sarah to carry out her part and not leave me, taking the money with her. She knew all I had to say was I had seen her do it; she had the evidence after all.

There was quite a bit of commotion in front of the bank when I entered. I spotted the bank president seated and talking animatedly with the sheriff. I took a calming breath and approached the banker.

“Excuse me gentlemen,” I interrupted, using my most alluring voice. I hoped I could maintain the helpless female air as I looked at the fat banker. It had felt really good to have him at gunpoint earlier.

“Ma’am,” the sheriff said in greeting, touching his hat brim.

“Sheriff,” I returned. “I hope I haven’t come at an inconvenient time.”

The banker cleared his throat. I knew that he wouldn’t be sharing the early morning events with me so I got right to it while I watched him squirm a bit.

I pulled a letter from my reticule and handed it to him. “I have decided to return to my mother’s hometown. With Wiley gone, I find that I am terribly lonely and wish to return to my family. This is a letter from my attorney. He will be handling the sale of my husband’s property and will be running the proceeds through your bank. We have agreed on a sum that is a fair value for the ranch.”

The banker opened the letter while the sheriff looked on in curiosity. I felt it would benefit me even more to have a witness to the letter, of which the attorney had a copy. The visit to him had been the reason I had been in town the other day.

The banker looked up at me, his morning’s shock still reflected in his eyes. “This is a lot of money, ma’am.”

“I agree, but my attorney assured me the land and what cattle are still there have that much value. Enclosed is an address where the funds may be wired once a sale occurs.” I blinked once, coyly.

The banker gave a barely perceivable shake and then seemed to deflate. “Oh course, ma’am. Our bank would be happy to handle this for you.”

I gave him a rather blank smile. “Thank you,” I replied, knowing I probably wouldn’t be seeing any money in the near future. “Gentlemen,” I nodded to each man. “Have a nice day.”

The sheriff smiled at me while the banker nodded, looking rather sickly.

I turned and made my way from the bank and down the street to the train station. I had left what little belonging I had there, except for what I had needed at Sarah’s.

* * *

Two hours later, I sat across from Sarah on a train bound for New Orleans. She was dressed in a very conservative blue dress and was looking both pretty and calm.

She gave a pat to her upswept hair. “So, Maddie,” she began. “Now that we’ve left that ‘piss poor excuse’ of a town, I think I can ask you a few questions. After all we’re partners now.”

I lifted a brow at her in amusement, laughing softly under my breath. “Oh?”

“Yeah. You got to spill it now, Maddie.”

I leaned back against my seat as the train rocked. “Ask away.”

“Your name, your full name,” Sarah said.

“Magdalene Aura Reddick Smith,” I answered. I could see the wheels begin to turn in Sarah’s mind.

“There was an Aura Reddick in New Orleans before the war. Any girl who works on her back has heard of her. She had the best whore house in Orleans is the rumor.” Sarah pinned me with a considering look. “You’re too young to be her.”

I gave her a smug smile. “Aura was my mother. I met my husband there while I was, shall we say, entertaining. He quite swept me off my feet.”

Sarah gave a bark of laughter, causing several heads to turn. Once outside attention desisted, she continued, “Well, I’ll be damned. You do have a Frenchie look to you. So why are you goin’ back if your ma’s gone?”

“I’m going to rebuild the business and make it even better,” I answered. “What about yourself. What do you plan on doing with your share?”

Sarah’s eyebrows drew together as she sat thoughtfully for a minute. “You know what I would really like to do?”

I shook my head.

“I want to open up my own dress shop. The girls always came to me to make ‘em something fancy. I would get those ladies magazines every once in a while and make them copies of the dresses in there. ‘Course I had to alter them a bit so the men could see what they wanted.” She snorted at that thought.

“What I don’t understand though is why you didn’t want to stay at your man’s place,” Sarah added. “Stay respectable.”

“I guess I could have made it work,” I said and settled myself more comfortably. “But for one thing.”

Sarah looked at me quizzically. “What’s that?”

“I truly hate cows.”

Personal History of the Story: “The Lady’s Profit” is an idea that came to me when I was pondering the family history of a character from my novel, Dark Lord of Kismera. My writing process is to get to know my characters and develop their personalities by creating a “history” or biography about them, which includes their ancestors.

Magdalene Shaffer, a minor character in Dark Lord of Kismera is a feisty woman who comes from feisty stock, and I kept thinking that she might be that way thanks to one of her female ancestors. This gave me the idea to have a bit of fun with her great-great-great-grandmother: Magdalene Smith.

I’m a fan of various genres, including Westerns, as long as they have strong female characters. Magdalene Reddick Smith was born from that interest and from there, “The Lady’s Profit.”

The Vaquero Way

Juan Manuel Casas

Jake Villalba dismounted, reached back and rubbed feeling back into his behind. He’d ridden a rugged twenty-miles of stark Texas terrain to Regino Ramos’ ranch house in Lajitas. It was a ride he’d rather have not made for a couple of reasons. One, it was the hottest day yet of 1920, and two, he was there to discuss repayment of a large debt owed his father, Federico. Regino, who folks called Regi, had borrowed $1,600.00 to post bail for his kid brother, Jess who had been arrested for beating a man near to death in a bar fight in Terlingua. To everyone’s consternation, but not necessarily to their surprise, Jess was a no-show at his preliminary hearing. Federico wasted no time in sending Jake to find out what Regi planned on doing about his brother’s capriciousness. After all, it was his money that was at stake.

* * *

Upon arriving at the ramshackle house that was spitting distance from the Rio Grande, Jake noticed that the front door was full open. He walked Diablo to the shoreline and tied him to a nearby tree. He resisted the temptation of taking off his boots and guns and jumping in. Jake yelled for Regi as he skip-jumped onto the porch, spurs jingle-jangling loudly as he landed. He stopped dead in his tracks at the doorway. Startled to see Regi lying prostrate with a large crimson pool surrounding his head Jake immediately untied the straps on the hammers of his guns, and drew his pearl handled six-shooters quickly examining the surrounding landscape. He looked intently into the fiery gold and red Texas horizon for discerning silhouettes. He saw nothing alarming. Ever vigilant, he inched his way inside and towards the body. Regi was still warm; hadn’t been dead long.

By the way Regi fell, Jake deduced that he’d been shot running and reaching for his gun that remained holstered and draped over the corner of a kitchen chair. Two shots to the middle of the back and the kill shot to the back of his head. His next move was to make his way pronto to Terlingua to report the shooting to Justice of the Peace, Bob Cartledge. He said a Hail Mary-Holy Mary leaving their friend’s body where it lay.

It was a couple of hours before the sun would set over the Chisos Mountains. It was still 105 degrees, and if yesterday was any gauge, it didn’t look to cool down much below 90, past sunset.

* * *

Jake arrived at the family’s Rancho Barras to find his father catching up on some reading in his office. “Papá, I’ve got bad news.”

Federico looked up from his book. “¿Que paso?”

“Regi estaba muerto. He was murdered.”

“Who would want him dead?” Federico asked with a perplexed and sad look on his face.

“I saw proof of three horses headed south along the shoreline. I followed the hoof prints until they veered across the rio and into Mexico. We know the law isn’t about to go cross the border,” Jake opined.

Federico knew his son well. Jake was fishing for permission to take off after Regi’s killers.

“Let’s allow Cartledge and Sheriff Townsend sort things out before we make any moves.” Everett Townsend was the Brewster County Sheriff that no doubt would be notified by Cartledge and brought into the picture.

* * *

Two days later, after a proper investigation, Sheriff Townsend rode over to Rancho Barras to let the Villalbas know what he and his deputies had discovered.

“I believe there were only two shooters,” the sheriff reported.

“Wait a minute; Jake said he saw three sets of hoof prints,” Federico pointed out.

“He did, but we found only two sets of boot and hoof prints that appeared to be together. The third set of hoof prints came out of the corral at the back of the house. They all were headed across the river into Mexico. I’m thinking that one of the horses was Jess’s. The other hoof prints came later and followed Jess across the river after they killed Regi. I do believe Regi was collateral damage. They were after Jess,” Townsend speculated.

“That’s why Jess didn’t show up to court,” Federico concluded.

Sheriff Townsend nodded his head in agreement.

“You know, Regi’s got kin in Ojinaga. It’s a good bet that’s where he was headed,” Federico said.

Ojinaga is located where the Río Conchos empties into the Rio Grande. Founded by Pueblo Indians around 1200, Ojinaga was visited by Spanish explorer Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca in 1535. It was also the site of a battle between the Federales and Pancho Villa during the Mexican Revolution. These days, it was a place men hid from American lawmen.

“My hands are tied,” the sheriff admitted. “I can’t send my boys in to find them.”

“I can,” said Federico resignedly.

Sheriff Townsend hesitated for a long moment before responding. “Y’all will bring him straight to us if you find them--right?” Townsend asked.

“Dead or alive,” stated Federico matter-of-factly.

“I’d hate for there to be any gunfire,” Townsend said.

“My boys know how to use a gun. Nobody’s faster than Jake,” bragged Federico.

Seventeen year-old Jake already had 3 notches on his belt. The first came when he was barely 14. It was in self-defense, as were the other gunfights. All of Federico’s sons, as well as daughter Regina, were handy with pistols. Even so, Townsend was apprehensive about sending civilians to do a lawman’s job.

No sooner had the sheriff left when Federico asked Jake to retrieve his brothers, Chuco (pronounced Chooco), and Jorge.

“You men make plans to leave for Mexico first thing tomorrow.”

Chuco’s Christian name was Federico Jr., but so that both he and his father wouldn’t answer simultaneously each time the name was called out, they gave Jr. another moniker.

Severita, the children’s stepmother, was always up well before dawn to feed the ranch hands and her husband. Their sister, Regina helped. The women, had coffee, biscuits and jerky waiting for the brothers.

* * *

The men arrived in Ojinaga, parched and beat from the heat.

“I need some refreshment,” Jake announced.

“You took the words right out of my mouth,” said Chuco. Jorge’s smile signaled agreement.

The three found the nearest cantina and lost themselves in some very cold cerveza.

Jake woke up the next morning in a haze. He looked over to two empty bunks next to him, wondering where his brothers had disappeared to. He hastily emptied out of his bunk, washed his face, and dressed, hoping they hadn’t wandered too far off. As he exited the hotel, he was relieved to see them both across the street eating what appeared to be a bowl of menudo.

“How can you two eat anything after last night?” asked Jake, as he entered Menuderia Don Vicente and approached his brothers.

“I’m hungry. I love menudo,” said Chuco.

“Me too,” Jorge said with a big smile.

“I need a beer,” Jake declared, nauseated at the sight of the tripe and hominy soup.

“It was that sotol that did you in, little brother,” Chuco said, taking a bit of pleasure in his brother’s pain. He warned him last night, but Jake paid him no mind. He was showing off for that pretty little señorita that kept telling him how handsome he was.

“Jake, remember the guy telling us that he saw Jess here a couple of days back?” asked Jorge.

“Vaguely,” Jake answered as he lowered his head and continued rubbing his temples.

“The man said Jess was headed to Santa Elena. He also said there were two other men asking about Jess’s whereabouts. We’re going to Santa Elena as soon as we finish breakfast,” announced Chuco.

“Eat something, hermanito,” Jorge suggested. “We’ve got a long ride ahead of us.”

“I think I’ll pass,” Jake answered. “Right now I need another cerveza.”

* * *

The Villalba brothers neared Santa Elena. “What do we do if and when we find Jess?” Jake asked.

“We slap him around a bit for taking off and then bring his behind back to the ranch. Townsend can pick him up there.”

The Villalbas went directly to Los Fuegos, the ranch of long-time family friend Santiago Enriquez. He was happy to see Federico’s sons. “What brings you boys to these parts?” he asked.

“We’ve come to find and collect a friend of ours. He’s in trouble with the law on the U.S. side. His name is Jess Ramos. Might you have seen or heard of any strangers in the area?” Chuco inquired.

Santiago thought for a moment than shook his head no.

“We’ll be in town for a couple of days. If you could put out the word to your vaqueros to report any stranger sightings to us, we would appreciate it.”

* * *

Back in Alpine, Sheriff Townsend returned to his office after lunch. His secretary Christine told him that a gentleman by the name of Juan Vargas had come by to talk to him while he was out.

“Did he say what he wanted?” Townsend asked.

“Said he might know who killed Regino Ramos,” Christine answered.

That got Townsend’s attention. “Is he coming back?”

“No, he said if you wanted to talk to him, he would be at Our Lady of Peace.”

“Then that’s where I’m headed,” Townsend said as he rushed back out of the office.

Sheriff Townsend was pleased to see a man sitting on the church steps when he arrived. “Señor Vargas?” Townsend asked as he exited the truck.

“Si, cherife,” the man answered.

“You have some information for me?”

“I heard someone say that Regino was killed by a Mexican that has killed many times before,” Juan informed Townsend.

“Where did you hear this?”

“Over tequila, at a friend’s house.”

“What friend?” Townsend asked.

“I’d rather not say. I don’t want his name making its way back to the killer. And I would appreciate it if you kept my name out of it, as well. The killer is a very bad man,” Vargas said with fear in his eyes.

There was no shortage of bad men in the Big Bend. It seemed the Texas Rangers were always looking for men in a territory that provided extreme hiding places; mountains, valleys and gullies that created misdirection and confusion; a great advantage to men on the lam.

“I was told that the man was looking to get even for the beating Jess put on that kid,” Vargas continued.

“Is he relation to the kid?” Townsend asked.

“I don’t know.”

“You’re not going to give me his name are you?”

“No señor.”

The sheriff returned to his office to ponder his next move. The young man that was beat up by Jess Ramos was Lola Baeza’s son, Pedro Avila. Candelario Baeza immediately came to mind. Baeza was indeed a bad man. The only time he came over to the U.S. side was to wreak havoc and almost always under the cover of darkness. He was a wanted man in most, if not all, border cities on the American side.

* * *

After much investigation, the Villalba brothers decided that Jess was not to be found in Santa Elena. They would return to Rancho Barras via San Carlos. Their father once had a large spread there before crossing the Rio Bravo to buy nearly 20,000 acres along the Terlingua Creek. They had no inkling that they were on a collision course with Regi Ramos’s killers.

Upon arriving in San Carlos, the three went directly to the meat market and restaurant the Villalbas used to own. Federico had sold it to a close family friend, Ignacio Carrillo who everyone called Nacho.

“Don Nacho,” the three said simultaneously as they strode into the store.

Nacho looked up from the pork steak he was trimming for a customer. A big smile crept over his face. “What are you three doing in town?” he asked. He hadn’t seen the men in years.

Jake spoke first. “We’re looking for a fellow who’s in a bit of a bind on the American side. Have you seen any strangers in town?” he asked.

“Actually, I’ve seen three strangers. One last week, and a pair just yesterday. The two came in for dinner last night and again for breakfast this morning. They may still be in town,” Nacho proffered.

“What did they look like?” Jake asked.

“The first one last week was young. He was jumpy; kept looking over his shoulder. He never gave me his name.”

“And the others?” Jorge inquired.

“One is short...mean-looking, big mustache. The other, was a big guy. Didn’t talk much. El chaparro, the short one, was definitely in charge. They asked about the young fellow you described. I suspected they were up to no good. I didn’t want to be responsible for anyone getting hurt so I told him I hadn’t seen anyone.

The Villalba brothers looked at each other in surprise. Sounded like Nacho was describing Candelario Baeza. Cold-blooded sonofabitch, he was. Killed anybody that crossed him.

“Do you know where these two men are staying?” asked Chuco.

“No. You might want to start looking for them at Cantina La Perla,” Nacho suggested.

The men stepped outside to discuss the latest turn of events.

“Sounds as if Candelario is also looking for Jess,” offered Chuco.

“We need to make certain it’s Candelario, and if it is, we ask him why he’s here.” Jorge said.

Jake was the first to enter the cantina. The smell of beer and sotol, mixed with the reek of unwashed patrons and whatever else they brought in with their boots, was stomach-turning. But they were not there to imbibe. They were there to see if Candelario was somewhere amidst the stench.

Jake saw four men in the corner table of the cantina. The men had just picked up their cards and were examining the hand dealt them. The dealer resembled Baeza from behind. Jake walked up to the dealer and put his hand on his shoulder.

Without looking to see who it was, Candelario instinctively reached for his weapon.

“Amigo, you do that, and you’re dead in your skin,” Jake warned.

Candelario looked up to see Jake winking at him. “What are you doing here?” asked Baeza in a raspy, snake-like voice slowly removing his hand from the butt of his gun.

“We’re looking for Jess Ramos. We hear you’re also looking for him?” Chuco said, keeping his eye on the Mexican giant sitting across the table.

Candelario shook his head no.

“You going to introduce us to your friend?” asked Chuco.

“My name is none of your business,” the giant said.

There was a short silence before Jake spoke defiantly. “Well, we’re making it our business.”

The giant’s shoulders tightened signaling that he might be going for his gun. Before the man’s hand touched the butt of his gun, all three brothers had their weapons aimed at his heart.

Chuco took a quick glance around the cantina to see if anyone else had itchy hands.

“What business do you have with Jess,” Chuco asked of Baeza.

Candelario cast a sinister smile and said, “Nada, nothing.”

At that moment, Jake remembered that one of Regi’s killers left a huge boot print. He looked down at the Mexican giant’s feet. The boots seem to match the print.

“Hermano, I think Candelario and this piece of horse crap he calls his amigo killed Regi Ramos,” declared Jake.

With that pronouncement, the big man lunged out of his chair towards Chuco, simultaneously drawing his weapon. The man never stood a chance. Jake fired a shot from each of his guns. A scream of pain and the bar patron’s loud gasps filled the cantina air as the man hit the filthy cantina floor, dead. Jake had earned yet another notch on his gun belt.

Candelario knew better than to challenge the brothers.

Jake reached down and slid Candelario’s .44 out of its holster.

“I didn’t kill no one,” Candelario said belligerently.

Once outside, Chuco tied Candelario’s hands behind his back with a tie-down rope usually reserved for calf roping.

They set off to the American side in a matter of minutes. Shooting the big Mexican had clearly been a case of self-defense, but they weren’t going to stick around to state their case. After an hour on the trail, they saw no dust plumes to the rear. It appeared that no one followed. The search for Jess would have to wait for another time.

* * *

Sheriff Townsend sat in his office attacking the dreaded stack of paperwork.

Suddenly, his secretary’s voice cut through his frustration. “Someone here to see you sheriff.”

“Who is it?” the sheriff asked.

“You need to come out here,” Christine said.

As the sheriff entered the outer office, he was surprised to see Jess Ramos standing in front of Christine’s desk.

“I hear my brother was murdered,” Ramos said.

“Into my office,” Sheriff Townsend ordered, adding, “You know you’re a wanted man.”

“I know, cherife. I’ll do my time. Right now I want to talk about my brother’s death.”

“There is something in the works. I’m hoping we’ll have your brother’s killer in custody within the next few days,” Townsend said, not knowing that the Villalbas had already taken care of business. “Now, let’s get you processed and into a cell.”

The next day, Chuco, Jake and Jorge arrived at the sheriff’s office exhausted but beaming because they had Candelario in tow.

“This is Regi Ramos’ killer,” said Chuco.

“I told you, I didn’t kill no one,” Candelario yelled.

“You’ll get your chance to tell your side of the story in court,” Sheriff Townsend assured Baeza.

After Candelario had been secured in the cell across Jess’s, the sheriff spoke with the Villalbas in his office.

“Men, I can’t thank you enough. You went to a lot of trouble for Regi’s memory--why?” Townsend knew it wasn’t for the money.

“Well, cherife, a friend does that for a friend. It’s the vaquero way,” answered Chuco.

Personal History of the Story: While examining my great-grandfather’s personal papers, I discovered a receipt for a $1600.00 loan to Regino “Regi” Ramos. The money was to be used to bail out his younger brother, Jess for beating and nearly killing Pedro Avila in a bar fight in Terlingua. I recall thinking that $1600.00 was a lot of money in 1920. In today’s day and age, it would be the equivalent of nearly $20,000. I was intrigued by Federico‘s friendship and willingness to tie up that much cash for someone’s bail. I believe it spoke to my great-grandfather’s belief in people and to the strength of his friendship with his two vaqueros. I felt the events were worth recounting.

Clownshoes

Shalanna Collins

My brother is begging Mom to let him wait in the car.

"Come on, just this once," Tyler says.

"Don't be ridiculous." She adjusts her striped Afro wig and honks her round red rubber nose. "Besides, I need you for my bits."

"Your bits, Ma'am?" Ty goes into his Elvis voice. Making a face, he tosses his backpack across his shoulder into the back seat, where it whams my knees.

"Watch it." I kick the olive green pack onto the floor. He's into Army surplus for some stupid reason. Probably all about turning thirteen and Becoming A Real Man. There's an up-side to being eleven like me, still sane, without the hormone rush.

"CheyAnne," Mom says to me in the rear view mirror. Her warning voice. Typical: she always comes after ME for stuff that's HIS fault. "You two have to be there for the mind reading, and if I need to choose someone from the audience during card tricks." She glares at me as if I were the one who'd mocked her. "This gig pays our bills, so why not relax and enjoy it."

"And think of England." Tyler makes his voice a quavering Julia Child.

Mom ignores that, and we all slam out of the Kia. Tyler heads around to help me drag her trunk out of the hatchback. This is a birthday party, so she'll be using the full arsenal of tricks, sleight of hand, and slapstick idiocy the likes of which Ty says Jerry Lewis would be embarrassed to resort to. I don't know what's wrong with Ty lately or why he's started sneering at these gigs. I think she's the best clown around.

Isn't she?

* * *

We enter the clients' McMansion. Twenty first-graders are already sitting in a neat semicircle on the white carpet. The hostess looks like a French ballet teacher, in a white silk top and black leggings with her hair in a twist. There's also a father figure who looks too old to be her hubby but not old enough to be her dad.

Mom confers with them briefly, then cuts to the chase. "Hey, Kiddos, I'm Berengaria the Rainbow Clown! I've got a magic trick for you!" She pulls a battered top hat out of her doctor's bag and starts rooting around in it. "Now, where's that rabbit?"

Scattered giggles begin as she practically sticks her head inside the huge bag. Pulling out Koosh balls, a set of measuring cups, that twenty-yard-long scarf we used to play with, and several plastic snakes, she tosses them one by one into Tyler's waiting lap. He rolls his eyes, but that only makes the kids titter louder.

"I just have no idea where he's gotten to. Har-veeeee," she calls as she yanks out a ton of lollipops and scatters them on the floor. The front rows of kids scramble to grab them. Out of the corner of my eye I see the hostess looking a bit panicked. Some of those kids will overdose on sugar and might be climbing the walls by the time we leave. But that won't be Mom's problem.

"Harv's invisible, you know." She milks the gag as more of them laugh. Laughter is contagious, as is applause, which always works in her favor. Yet I am immune. I've heard it all before.

What I never realized until now was that her act is a little dated and lame. I've always been kind of proud of her, but today I'm seeing it through Ty's eyes, and maybe he's got a point. I smile and try to look happy, because I don't want to ruin the vibe. After all, this does pay the bills.

Tyler starts picking at his nails, gouging out ancient dirt and wiping it on his shorts. He doesn't look up, even though I know Mom wants him to be ready to catch his cue for "the number you are thinking of is--thirty-seven!"

Everyone knows that, don't they? That if you ask a random crowd to choose a number arbitrarily, most people will pick thirty-seven? It's a safe bet. The same goes for "think of a geometric shape inside another shape" (triangle inside a circle), "a wild jungle animal" (lion), "a circus animal" (elephant). It's all very scientific, but seems magic.

Okay, it's a little more complicated than that. "Think of an odd number between one and fifty where both digits are odd and not the same" results in ninety percent of people going with thirty-seven, whereas if you say, "Think of an even number between fifty and one hundred," the vast majority will think of sixty-eight. This has all been proven and written up in some study somewhere. Mom researched it all before adding Mind Reading to her act. I used to think she was some kind of genius for doing that. But today she just looks like, I don't know . . . like a clown.

She pulls her head out of the bag, wig askew, and scans the audience. "Maybe Harv already got out. Any of you seen him? Well, you wouldn't SEE him. Feel around between you and your neighbor and see if you hit something furry!"

This line is vaguely vulgar, but nobody has ever said anything. Now she's doing her "bloodhound" routine, sniffing the floor. She waves a magnifying glass the size of Pittsburgh as she slaps the Sherlock Holmes deerstalker on top of her wig. "I know what. I'll sniff him out!" She starts around the perimeter of the audience on her hands and knees, pretending to examine the kids at the edge of the crowd as she passes. Kids always get a real kick out of this, and they sometimes kick her for real, but she soldiers on, grinning no matter how humiliating the circumstances. It's as if she really likes this. Doesn't that mean something? It should.

She squeezes a hidden trigger, and the many pockets of her yellow overalls start leaking gumball-machine toys packed in dinky hamster balls. The toys roll all over the place and the kids scuttle about grabbing them. Feeling ornery, I snap up a couple of glittery vampire figures and stuff them into the pockets of my denim jacket.

Mom's padded butt is in the air, her nose is against the floor, and she's patting down the carpet when out of nowhere one of the kids makes a farting noise, really loud and unmistakable, and everyone bursts into laughter.

"Berengaria" rears up and stares at her butt--Mom's great at improvising to take advantage of the situation, I'll give her that--which brings the hilarity to an irritating level. Even the hostess covers her mouth, and the presiding father figure almost chuckles. Mom palpates her fanny wildly as they howl. She's really pushing the bounds of suggestiveness with kids this age, but hey, it's her show.

That whoopee-cushion noise was really close by.

Maybe it was Tyler who made that noise. I look over at him. He looks completely unconcerned, as if he isn't paying attention.

Mom wiggles her butt again and whacks herself on the side of the head. This triggers the hidden bicycle horn. "Cancel everything. The cards are calling!" Leaping up, she runs to the front to start the card tricks. The cards came from a magic shop and are the size of magazines. I don't know how she holds on to a handful, let alone uses sleight-of-hand. You've got to admire her dexterity.

A small dark-haired girl who reminds me of that anime character with her hair in two buns stuck on either side of her head turns around to stare fixedly at my brother. He makes a fascinating study, apparently, in his crappy torn Moldy Pearjam shirt and denim shorts that cling precariously to the edge of his butt. Not to mention Ty's hairy legs and the size fifteen gunboats on his feet. Her worship seems to bug him, because he gets up and circles around to the back of the room, where he leans against a credenza thing that looks pretty old and delicate and crosses his arms and legs like Joe Cool.

Mom shoots me the stink-eye (even THOUGH I have done NOTHING, once again), but the crowd is getting restless, so she presses forward. She actually doesn't look bad as a clown. Her makeup is styled after the great Emmett Kelly's. She runs through the usual set of tricks and gags, using me instead of Tyler as the plant. I almost forget how we do the mind reading, but I manage. The other stunts go flawlessly, even the folding unicycle gag and having the group sing a silly song as she plays the tin whistle. We're nearly to the balloon animals when it happens.

"Hey, laaaayyddddeee," Ty shouts. The children twist to see. So does Mom, mouth falling open and eyes wide. This isn't part of the routine. "Wanna see me do a cartwheel?" He leaps on top of the antique credenza, knocking something off with a crash.

I didn't know he could do gymnastics. But he hits the floor rolling with several cartwheels, limbs flipping like spokes in a wagon wheel, heading down the center aisle towards Mom. He stops JUST short of knocking her over, but he does punch her pretty good in the stomach with his feet, using her for a backstop as he kicks his way vertical, lifting his hands in triumph. He even pulls a couple of jumping jacks as the kids cheer and wave their approval.

"Very nice," Mom manages, gasping a little. "Guess what you've won?"

She can punt. I'll give her that--she can hold and regain the crowd's attention. Not everybody has stage presence and can cope with disasters on the fly.

The elegant hostess, on the other hand, is over there freaking out over whatever ceramic thing Ty broke. Out of the corner of my eye, I spy her carefully picking up and cradling several jagged pieces.

Mom has an emergency-exit scheme. It works because people cut clowns some slack, and also she gets her money in cash up front when she first arrives (because we HAVE had people who thought they could pull a fast one, since you can't exactly repossess a performance.) She reaches into her Magic Bottomless Drawstring Tote and brings out handfuls of coinfetti.

Gold-wrapped chocolate coins. Gelt. Like we get at Chanukah and like the stuff they throw at Mardi Gras. Except the one time I went to Mardi Gras, we grabbed up a metric ton as they tossed the coins off the floats, and later when we opened one, they turned out to be condoms. Yuck.

Adding small trinkets to the mix, Mom heaves handfuls of bounty over the audience's heads. The rainbow rain sends the crowd into a freakout. "Thank you, and happy birthday, Cayla! Bye now!" Chaos ensues as everyone scrambles for the candy.

In the service of a quick getaway, all three of us grab armfuls of Mom's supplies and heave them into her trunk. Hefting it overhead, we hustle out. These people could change their minds about charging us for whatever it was that Tyler shattered. Other than any chance of getting another job through them, that is.

"I didn't appreciate that spontaneous bit you did without warning me," Mom says without looking at Tyler. She's all casual while we hustle down the front walk, as if what he pulled hadn't had the potential to hurt somebody. "You should always tell me if you're going to try a new bit. But hey, it worked. Didn't it?"

Amazing. She can spin anything. It's a defense mechanism, or she's in deep denial.

We take our usual places in the car, and for once I don't care that he rides shotgun and I get the nausea-inviting back seat. Mom lets out a life-sized sigh as she pulls out onto the big road. "That went well, actually. Overall, I think it was a hit. We'll get lots of referrals from that." Nobody says anything. "Didn't that go well? Overall?"

Tyler flicks the radio on.

Out of nowhere her arm flies out and the back of her hand connects with his cheek. "Answer me, dammit! I'm tired of this teenage angst. And turn that noise off."

For once, he listens to her.

* * *

On Monday, she's late picking us up from school. I assume my usual station on the brick retaining wall around the middle school's scraggly plantings, and start reading my anime while Tyler hides behind the sparse bushes with some fellow seventh-graders and smokes. Today, though, he emerges from the brush soon after I arrive.

"Where's your jacket?" He doesn't look at me as he lands on the other end of the bricks.

I don't want to tell him that the mean girls took it at lunch. I'm about to say, "Left it in my locker," when some angry-looking eighth-grader shouts from the doorway, "Hey, Snotberg!"

Tyler glances back. It was a reflex, I suppose, because he looks as if he wishes he'd ignored the call.

"Stein-burger." The guy heads our way. He looks like a redneck with that haircut, looming large in a Wildcats football jersey and torn jeans. He wedges himself between us, exuding the stink of sports practice. "Heard something about yo' mama."

Tyler says nothing.

He edges closer. "My little brother was at some party this weekend, and he said you were there. Said they had a clown, and you were part of the act. Said you did cartwheels all over the room and yelped like a little retard. Claims the stupid clown is your mom. That true?"

My cheeks are warming up. I'm not sure where this is going. Actually, yes, I am.

My brother shrugs. I'm waiting for him to say, "No idea what you're talking about."

"And she, like, farted." The kid snorts. "Right in the middle of the show."

Surely my brother will at least claim, "That's part of the act."

Tyler starts picking his cuticles. "So?"

"You work for a clown! Your mama's a clown!"

"What's wrong with being a clown?" I hear myself squeak out. Where did that come from?

The bully whirls on me. He sizes me up and apparently decides I'm too little to beat up. "What's WRONG with it?" he echoes dumbly.

I still don't know where this monologue of mine is coming from. "You think it's stupid to do card tricks?"

"Yeah." He blinks.

"Nobody but a loser would be a clown and do kiddie parties." I have no idea why I'm egging him on.

"Yeah." He starts laughing.

Because I don't know what else to do, I join in. "Really lame."

"Damn straight. Who'd do that except some kind of retard like your mom?" He and I are really guffawing now. "No wonder your dad walked out."

Tyler manages something I've only seen in movies: one second he's perfectly still, and the next he has both hands clamped around the big guy's throat. And for a minute, it looks like the bully's actually struggling. They sway backward, and their heads crash into the bushes, flushing out the smokers. Both combatants are panting heavily, and it seems as if my brother won't let go until the idiot is dead. Which one is the actual idiot becomes clearer in a moment when Tyler's grip fails him--probably because he never gets any exercise other than thumbing a video game--and the guy jerks loose with a giant shove against my brother's chest. He stands there a moment as if marveling at the David/Goliath gag, then looses his fists. And that doesn't mean he "loses" them, either.

With a blow to the mouth he knocks Tyler to the pavement. I start to freak about what he'll do now that my brother is powerless, but the monster only kicks him in the ribs a few times and then takes off towards his bus, which is evidently the one pulling up at the stop, because he jumps right on.

After a moment I reach down. Wordlessly Ty lets me help him to his knees. "Are you okay?" He won't say a word. Maybe his lip hurts too much. It's bleeding, and he has gravel on his cheek.

I try to brush off the debris, but he smacks my hand out of the way as he struggles to his feet. "Get your hands off me."

"I'm only trying to help."

"Too late for that. You should've done something before. Other than shoot off your mouth."

What could I have done against that gigantic bully? Seriously. Turning away, Ty hugs his arms to his chest and assumes the Joe Cool posture against the bus stop sign.

Mom, naturally, goes wild when she sees his inflated lip. She pokes her ridiculously wigged head out of the car window and goggles at us. "What happened?" She's fully decked out in her clown regalia, and my heart sinks when I realize we're stuck this afternoon going to another idiotic revel. Maybe she's just come from one instead. I wish, I wish. I'm just not in the mood.

Neither is Tyler. He slouches into the car after me and ducks his head, fiddling with his MP3 player that has miraculously survived in his jacket pocket. "Nothing."

She looks into the rear view questioningly.

"He fell. That's all." I fold my arms.

She doesn't look convinced. "Tyler, is there something you need to tell me?"

He doesn't answer.

"Tyler, answer me." She twists around. "CheyAnne, what happened?"

I suppose I could try to smooth this over. But the sixth-grade mean girls clique is headed this way, having finished pep squad practice. This is now an emergency.

I flail my hands frantically and shout, "Go! Go! Let's get out of here."

She looks perturbed, but finally she takes her foot off the brake and we roll forward. Thank God, they're still far enough away.

I don't want them to get close enough to see me with her.

Not ever.

Personal History of the Story: I was inspired by an episode of "Newhart" in which a woman is treated well until people discover she works as a clown, and their attitudes invert. I began wondering how the clown's children might start out thinking their single mom is cool and her job is wonderful until they reach an age at which their peers begin to jeer and make fun of her. We all find out the hard way that others love to hurt you in your vulnerable spots; here, the younger child still believes in her mom and defends her--until she sees what happens to her older brother when a bully finds out. I feel sad that people don't or can't just say, "So what if I'm fat/short/gay/Irish? I don't care what you think." But social survival is important at that age, and sometimes parents are hurt by their children's actions. So it goes always.

Grave Betrayal

Katelyn Lydon

Panic seeps into my bones as I sprint through the dense forest. Foot deep snow makes it impossible not to leave tracks. A bright waning moon slices through the thick, eerie fog, casting silvery streaks across the shimmering snow.

“Raven, I know you’re out there!” Anthony’s frustrated yell rings out, causing fear to surge through me and I fight the urge to freeze. I have to keep running. Crunch. Crunch. Crunch. The Nightmare slowly emerges from the shadows, small crystals crushing beneath his black boots. The man, with an insane glint to his eyes, smiles as if it’s the best day in the world. My breath hitches in my throat and my face begins to pale. Finally, after years of hiding and running in solitude, I have been found.

I feverishly look around for the best escape plan. Trees crowd around each other, making a barrier of impenetrable wood. I’m trapped. I snarl at Anthony, sharp teeth showing in a futile attempt to scare him. Despite my angry and formidable appearances, I’m terrified. He’s the worst person I’ve ever met, besides Edward. Edward was my old boyfriend who made me what I am today, a cold, heartless daughter of the night. Because of him, I’ve become a disgrace to my family, a fear to humans, and prey to the military.

Anthony draws his signature burnished knife from his belt, made from the only metal strong enough to penetrate a Werewolf’s flesh besides tooth and claw. Silver.

Growling lowly, I morph into a large, terrifying beast of darkness. My black hair turns to white fur, my nose lengthens to a muzzle, my back and arms elongate, a tail sprouts from my lower back, claws erupt painfully from my nail beds, and countless other internal organs transform to fit this body’s shape. Standing at five feet, I’m just as tall as I am in my human form. I truly snarl at Anthony now.

“Oh, little wolf, don’t even attempt to scare me.” Anthony laughs coldly, his sharp blue eyes almost glowing in the dark. I scrape my claws against the snow in anticipation. This is the man I’ve feared for years, and now, I finally get to end the running.

“Werewolf hunters are fearless.” As soon as those words come out of his mouth, he lunges at me. I leap as well and we collide in midair. Being the largest and strongest of the two of us, I’m easily able to push him to the ground. My sharp talons penetrate his thick jacket and I feel the skin beneath my claws shred. He barely gives it a second glance. Suddenly, a piercing pain erupts in my ribs and I cry out. I look to my side and cringe at the sight. Anthony’s knife is plunged to the hilt in my torso, blood seeping out. Drops of crimson quickly stain the once-pure snow. Fire burns around the deep wound and I try my best to ignore it.

I flex my claws, each one as long as my human fingers and as sharp as blades, on Anthony’s jacket. He winces and inhumanly pushes me off him, causing me to crash into a nearby tree. How did he do that? I shove the question to the back of my mind and rise to my feet, focusing on more important matters. Anthony is nowhere in sight. Flicking my ears, I listen for a sound. Only the light twinkling of the snow blanketing the ground and camouflaging the bare tree limbs is heard. All of a sudden, something screams from behind me. I turn too late. Anthony pushes me on my side and plunges a knife into my ribs once again. Squealing, I panic and flail, trying everything in my power to get him off me. It’s useless.

“Goodbye, Werewolf.” He whispers and pulls out a gun. This is the end. Truly the end. Though I despise Anthony, it’s survival of the fittest, and I’m obviously not the fittest. It’s the circle of life, except once I die, I won’t sink into the Earth. Instead, I’ll become the snow. Being a Werewolf, I was destined an element after I was bitten. I became water. I will sink into the snow and become one with the world.

I lean my head back and let my howl take away my pain. A deep, sorrowful voice of darkness erupts out of me. The last thing I remember is a loud bang and the cold of the snow soaking into my bones…

“Raven…” A wobbly voice echoes, disturbing the peaceful darkness that I’ve become accustomed to. “Wake up, please!” You mean I’m not dead? I force open my fifty pound eyelids and I make out the worried face of Daniel, my boyfriend who also happens to be a Werewolf. How did he get here? I haven’t seen him in almost three months due to Anthony finding my location.

“Daniel? What are you doing here?” I try to speak, but all that comes out is a weak whimper. I must still be in wolf form. The expanding of my lungs to make the small sound pushes the muscle and tissue around the knife wounds in my side. The pain is minimal compared to what I’ve been faced with before, just a dull throbbing. I glance around Daniel and I see an old fashioned jail cell. Bars line one wall and gray cement walls paint the other three. A window above me lets in golden sunlight making Daniels face look brighter than the rest of the room. If I didn’t know I was alive, I would’ve thought he was an Angel.

The dank scent of the dungeon fills my sensitive nose and the dusky light makes it hard to see. The ground is made of stone and covered with a thin layer of dirt and dust as if someone forgot the cell was here. I shift human and double over in pain, my jaw clenched. I didn’t think twice about having the fur sucked back into my body and everything shrinking to almost half their size. It hurts enough without stab wounds.

“Are you alright?” Daniel helps me into a sitting position, concern etched into his handsome face. Blue-green eyes and brown hair add charm to his slim face. His cheeks are sunken as if he’s been starved, which I have no doubt about. Mud and blood is smeared across his face, giving him a rugged look. “Raven, are you alright?” He repeats, knocking me out of my daze.

“What on Earth are you doing here? I left you so you’d be safe!” I wheeze darkly, my golden eyes glittering dangerously. Daniel knows that when I’m in this mood, I’ll probably punch him if he doesn’t answer immediately.

“I was caught. Soon after you left, they found me and asked if I knew you. I said yes since they seemed like pretty good guys.” He shrugs as if it wasn’t a big deal and scoots over next to me.

“You’re so stupid,” I mutter and shake my head, intertwining my hand with his. This small act of closeness relaxes me; I know Daniel won’t let anyone hurt me. I glance down at my knife wound and sigh. My shirt has been covered with a thick layer of cloth in a vain attempt to staunch the bleeding. Perfect. Not only am I bleeding, I’m likely to get an infection in this disgusting place. That is, if I live long enough to get one…

“I know. So how’d you end up here?” I stiffen as all the memories surface through my mind that I tried to forget.

“He caught up to me in some forest near Virginia. He stabbed me a couple times and shot me in the head. I have no idea why I’m alive.”

“It must not have been a silver bullet then, or else you’d just be a little snowball.” I snort at his remark. Daniel’s element is fire, so when he dies, he’ll burst to flame. I guess it’s a better element than mine. Mine can get your shoes wet, while his can catch his enemy’s pant leg on fire.

“Daniel, follow me.” A man dressed in a police officer’s uniform appears at the bars and unlocks the door. The squeal of the iron door creates causes me to cringe. A growl rumbles in my chest, but the man barely spares me a second glance, only looking at Daniel as he pries his hand from mine. He gets up without hesitation and doesn’t rebel when the man slaps a pair of silver handcuffs over his wrists. They quickly leave and I’m left alone. Not for long though.

“Miss. Raven Night. Fancy meeting you here.” Anthony prowls up to the bars, the shadows cover his face, making him seem even more sinister than he already is. Only his piercing blue eyes stand out. He unlocks the door and steps through, completely unafraid of me.

“Where am I? Why didn’t you just kill me?” I hiss, shaken by the fact that he’d actually kept me alive for who knows what.

“Patience, I will answer all of your questions.” He holds up a hand and I sigh impatiently. “You are in a secret military compound where no one will ever find you. And I didn’t kill you because… You’ll see in a little bit.” A sneer filled with nothing but malice and insanity tugs at his lips and I involuntarily shudder.

“Just tell me! You had to keep me alive for something!” This man is not only lethal, he’s infuriating! “Fine, if you won’t tell me that, at least tell me why you’ve wasted the past four years hunting me.”

“Werewolves are unnatural and extremely terrifying creatures, especially that half-breed your Daniel is. The mind of a human and a wolf is much too dangerous to allow to live. We need to kill all of you for the sake of humanity.” He shrugs as if killing innocent creatures is acceptable.

“Do you think I wanted to be this? Do you think I wanted to trade my life for… for this?” I throw my arms in exasperation. “I’m a Werewolf whether I want to be or not. Get over it.”

“Good. I’m glad you’re at peace with yourself.” Why the sudden change in attitude? I didn’t think Anthony could even think a word of kindness, yet here he is, saying he’s happy about something, for me. “Because you’re going to die tomorrow on the full moon. Wouldn’t want you dying in your wolf form without conciliation with yourself.” Oh, now that makes more sense…

Anthony quickly exits in a fit of maniacal laughter before I can make any move against him. Not that I would, though. He’d just kill me sooner. “You coward!” I scream, but he’s already disappeared. I start crying and huddle into a little ball against the far corner of the room as the last slimmer of sunlight fades from the window. My life has never been the most pleasant, especially after I was bitten, but at least I was alive. The more pain you’ve experienced, the more joy you can contain. I haven’t felt the happiness, but I hope to eventually feel it. It’s almost as if a flower has gotten too much water and needs more light. Then, the bright rays of the morning sun warm the ground. The bud, once a murky brown, opens up to reveal golden petals swathed in warm sunlight.

I eventually fall asleep, because when I wake, weak rays of sun leak through the window. I rise unsteadily to my feet, my side not hurting at all. Daniel still hasn’t returned, but I keep calm by thinking the guard put him in a different cell. I spend the entire day pacing the four corners of my cell, anxiety eating away at me. As the last spark of life leaves the day and the full moon emerges, I close my eyes and embrace the creature that has become me. I shift painlessly into my beautiful wolf and wait for Anthony to come and seal my fate. He does, not two minutes later.

Without a word, he puts a silver collar around my neck and connects it to a silver chain that burns my skin. He pulls me out of the cell and as I look back, the moon is directly out the window. Goodbye, I murmur and blink for a long minute before Anthony drags me down the hall.

We wander down the endless white halls until we come across a door with number ninety-nine in gold cursive letters on a silver foundation. The door opens and I growl softly, disbelief echoing within me. I feel my heart rip into millions of pieces and fall into the depthless shadow of my life. How could he do this to me?

The room is pure white with nothing but a faint translucent light on the ceiling. Daniel stands at the head of the room, shaking all over. Being a half-breed, Daniel can remain human during the full moon, though he has some characteristics like that of a wolf. Gray pointed ears, claws, elongated nose and fangs. A gun hangs from his taloned hand.

“Please understand, Raven. They said I could live if I did this.” He pleads, but I press my ears flat on my skull and flex my claws, my tail flicking dangerously. Agony flares through me at the betrayal.

He raises the gun, his arm quivering. I growl softly and he nods, understanding my message. Make it fast and make it painless. I hope he complies.

“I’m sorry.” He whispers and closes his eyes.

Personal History of the Story: Grave Betrayal started out as an English assignment in eight grade and was by far one of the best works that I had written at the time. Seeing its potential, a family friend told me about this competition and I decided to give it a chance.

Cool Penny

P. G. Shriver

The chilly, early morning wind seeped into the seams of my worn clothing as I pressed my back into the cold brick in the alley, thinking about all that had happened to me the past year. Wrapping the stolen coat with the broken zipper tighter around me, I ducked my head into the hood and wished for warmth. The past year had been so unexpected, repeatedly painful. Memories twisted my thoughts throughout the night, awakened me every hour, and filled me with anguish. My pocket held a flask of brandy, also stolen—the lady who’d carried it lay a few streets over, gone from this world; I reached for it, took the last swig, glanced at it, tossed it aside. Mom’s fading disappointment no longer stopped me from my bad habits. Blinking hard, I tried to push her recent death out of my mind.

I did that all the time lately, blink against the horror that had become my life.

Squeeze my eyes closed.

Turn my head away.

Loose the odd noises strangling out of my throat.

Certainly, the living who saw me on the streets assumed I had Tourette’s syndrome.

Forcing back the bad, I searched for the good. I searched for anything that didn’t hurt, just like my roadside therapist—who reminded me of Lucy and her five cent sign—had told me to do. “Remember the good,” she would tell me. “Stop dwelling; start living,” platitudes found their way to me from everywhere, even on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram—friends sent me crap all the time about being happy... back before this, before my phone died along with everyone I knew.

What did they know? Really?

Remembering the picnic brought a smile. The family picnic for my great-grandmother’s birthday in October had been a blast.

I closed my eyes and remembered all of my family gathered in one place, family from all over the States, just to celebrate Great G-ma’s birthday.

* * *

She-Mom-entered the kitchen, picked up the fork and tested the boiling potatoes on the stove.

“Ah, they’re done!” she exclaimed, turning off the burner and hefting the pot to the sink.

“Why are you making the potato salad this time, Mom? I thought Aunty always made it. Is it because he likes her potato salad?” my head jerked toward the living room, where Miles sat watching NASCAR on the TV, the loud thrum of motors and announcers making it hard to speak in normal indoor tones.

“You hush! Your aunt is busy with teacher grading stuff right now. I told her I would make it. Don’t worry, I have her recipe right here!” she added with a glare.

Nobody, and I mean nobody in the world, made potato salad like my aunt. Everyone loved her potato salad, even people who didn’t eat potato salad, like my friend Terri.

“Can Terri come along, Mom? She’s at home alone today.”

“She’s fifteen,” Mom gave me that wide-eyed-look, that she-causes-too-much-trouble look.

“But ...”

“No! I leave you at home all the time. She—just, no! Not today.”

Mom thinks Terri does drugs.

She thinks I do drugs when I’m with Terri.

Mom’s not wrong.

Moms are never wrong, are they?

Bracing myself for a boring picnic, I frowned and volunteered to help.

“Well, you can measure out these ingredients,” Mom handed me the list, then finished straining the hot potatoes, steam roiling about her head.

Mayonnaise

Miracle Whip

“Mayonnaise and Miracle Whip?” I crinkled my nose and tilted my head.

“Don’t give me the rabbit look, Bugs, just measure. If that’s what the recipe says, then do it.”

“Okay.” I shrugged, pushing up from the chair to gather the ingredients while Mom peeled an onion, cut it in chunks, and tossed it in the Ninja.

She didn’t even cry when she peeled onions.

How did she do that?

I measured all the ingredients on the list into a bowl and placed it next to her on the counter. She cut kosher dill pickles into chunks and dropped them in the top. She put the lid on, attached the motor, and pulsed the button several times.

“Will Jennelle be there? Are you making her go?”

“Your sister is an adult. I can’t make her do anything.”

“So she’s not going to be there.”

Mom sighed, “I don’t know. I told her; she said she would try.”

“Great!” I returned to my chair and watched the amazing Ninja do all of the hard work.

“Stop frowning! It’ll give you wrinkles!”

“Not according to the beauty magazines,” I V’d my palms and put my chin between them.

“This is going to be so good! For once, I’ll be the potato salad queen!” Mom scraped my ingredients into the Ninja and licked stray mayonnaise, or Miracle Whip—whichever—off her finger.

“Ick! You’re not supposed to do that, Mom!”

“Says who? Wait! Never mind, I know who it was... Rachel Ray Homemaker, Jr. She has to be the only teacher you listen to. Okay, I have to let the potatoes cool. Come with me; I got you something yesterday when I went shopping.”

That brought wrinkles.

Mom bought me something when she went shopping? Did we win the lottery? Miles hadn’t worked in a month and money was always tight!

Skeptically, I followed her into her bedroom.

She hunched over her bed when I entered, rattling a Dollar General bag. “What is it?” Her taste and my taste were not the same anymore.

When she turned around, she held a pair of lavender Converse with white soles. Purple peace signs in various sizes covered the canvas. “I thought we could do your nails in purple with peace signs for Grandma’s party. Whaddya think?”

A little much, maybe.

“Uh, thanks?” I hung them from my fingertips by the knotted shoestrings as if they were someone else’s stinky shoes. “I’ll do my own nails, Mom.”

She inhaled deeply and sighed loudly. We were at that difficult stage in my life, she was about to repeat for the nine thousandth time...

Taking the shoes to my room, I dropped them on the floor, plopped onto my bed, and stared at the ceiling. The shoes were sort of cute, though I had outgrown the peace sign look months ago.

I understood.

Really, I did.

She was trying to keep me young, at the fun age. I was trying to grow up fast, but that didn’t mean I wanted to be around a bunch of old people. This party was going to be such a bore, but I couldn’t have been more wrong and it all began with the potato salad—irony at its best.

Tons of people were there... old people, cheek pinchers, hand shakers, shoulder huggers. How many times did I have to hear those words?

“Oh, you’re all grown up now!”

“Just look at you!”

I wanted to vomit.

Literally.

All over their Dr. Scholl’s loafers, Keds sneakers, and WalMart sandals.

Ugh!

“Come on, everyone! One last picture before the food is ready and on the tables. Let’s get this party started!” My only comfort was Jennelle squeezed between one of my great aunts and me, who happened to be squeezed into Mom. Miles hung back with a beer in his hand, out of the picture... loser. I wasn’t allowed to say that aloud, but he was a loser. I missed my dad and wished he were here. Everyone here loved my dad... everyone except my mom.

“Cheese!” the photographer shouted over the chatter.

Somebody in the back said, “Shit.” That was my mom’s family. Jennelle and I grinned at each other. The flash went off and that’s how the last picture captured my sister and me, smiling at each other.

Everyone shuffled toward the food, forming two lines. Mom was in front of me, Jennelle behind me. “Get a little of that,” Mom pointed at a bowl. “I hate beans, Mom!” my loud retort drew the attention of cousin May, the creator of that nasty three-bean salad she made for every gathering. “M&M!” That’s what Mom nicknamed me, because of my first and middle names beginning with M. Well, it may have had to do with the candies, too.

Mom’s eyebrows raised in caution.

“I’m sorry, May.”

“S’okay, beans aren’t everyone’s favorite. Heck, I didn’t like them until I was... twenty somethin’?” she winked at me.

I passed on the beans. Mom’s potato salad was coming up, and for some odd reason, I really wanted to try it; perhaps the competition between Mom and her sister drew me into the judging.

Aunty was just about to dip the spoon into the potato salad. “Well, did you get it right?” she asked Mom across the table.

“We’ll find out, I guess.”

The tips of two black plastic serving spoons disappeared into the half-demolished salad and...

Splat!

They dropped straight out of the sky.

My eyes searched the treeless view above.

The two lines of hungry guests grew silent.

Mom and her sister stared into the bowl, bottom lips hanging open, eyes wide, one a mirror reflection of the other when they glanced at each other.

Of course, when my attention returned to the bowl, the same look masked my face until that bubble of laughter crept up my throat.

Jennelle bit her lower lip to stifle hers, but I couldn’t.

I couldn’t stop it!

I needed it, and the more I thought about those false teeth nestled right side up between the two spoons in the potato salad, the more the laughter needed to leave my belly. Within moments, my empty plate lay in the grass next to me as I rolled on my back laughing so hard tears streaked my face.

Jennelle laughed and shook her head at me in warning.

Somebody yelled, “Hey, who spit their teeth in the potato salad?”

A chorus of, “I got mine!” drowned out my hysterics for a second, only making it louder in the silence that followed.

The teeth didn’t belong to anybody at the picnic.

They literally fell from the sky.

* * *

I could count on that memory to bring a chuckle. Absently, my hand swiped a happy tear as it traveled down my cheek.

Jennelle had died recently... diabetes.

Mom had been gone a month... cancer.

I couldn’t find Dad; he wasn’t around, not in this place.

I had no way to contact him.

I had no way to contact anyone. I reached for the dead cell phone in my pocket, pulling it free from its prison. I don’t know why I kept it. I couldn’t even listen to Mom’s voice anymore. The phone was dead, like her. My wrist bent in effort to Frisbee it across the empty street into the wall of brick across from me, but back in its safe nest it went, just in case I...

My fingers gripped something smaller, colder, and I brought it into view.

The penny.

Even through the worn gloves, its surface was cold to the touch.

The only significance it held was bringing me here, to this point in time, to this weird place in life. Other than that, it was just a reminder of my grandmother’s desire to pick up every penny she found. “Find a penny, pick it up, all day long you'll have good luck! Put the penny in your shoe, and good luck will come to you!” I could hear her voice, echoing and distant, repeating the words as she bent forward for each little round coin.

I searched the penny between my fingertips, turning front to back, but it was what it was, a small, round, piece of copper-coated zinc.

It wasn’t even shiny, or old.

Maybe taking it from beneath my irritated foot just before the teeth caused all of those things to happen. Maybe I should have never picked it up the day of the picnic.

I was not a superstitious person, though most of my family believed in some form of good luck charm. Mom had all sorts of talismans. My aunt had good luck on Friday the 13th. My grandmother had good luck with pennies, at least until I picked up this one. Grandma showed me that she had found a 1943 copper penny once, and she told me where she kept it in case it was ever worth anything. I always thought she kept it because of the year being the same as when she was born. Turned out, it was about the money.

It was always about the money in my family.

Life seemed to be about money.

Now, this was all the money I had, this one, cold, little zinc penny. After months in my pocket, you’d think it would warm up, but it never does. It was warm out the day I picked up this stupid coin off the street, the day I humored my grandmother her silly superstitions, the day I removed this annoying bit of metal from my shoe and my peripheral vision crumbled, that was the day Grandma picked up her last penny, too. That day she stood beside me grinning at my find. After the relocation of the penny, the crumbling of my world at the party, she was gone. She bent to pick up her own penny and was hit by her cousin’s car, which had spun out of control on a stretch of wet road in front of the park where some kids had opened a fire hydrant during the October heat wave—not a rarity in Texas. She rushed away in the back of an ambulance, never to pick up another penny.

One bad event of many in that other world.

Once I saw a post on Instagram that said, “Pennies on the ground were thrown there for you by an angel watching over you.”

What a load of crap!

If anyone tossed this penny to me, it was more likely a demon. I can’t believe any angel would send me a penny that would stick me here, in this God-forsaken place, with nothing, no one—cold, alone and empty inside.

Thoughts of the party, the picnic, the domino effect of bad that started with the false teeth, the burning cake, Grandma’s death, my angry first attempt at riddance, because of this... this stupid cool penny!

Pinching the dirty copper circle, my teeth ground together, my anger rose, and I turned my face away, flinging the cool penny as hard as I could into the brick wall opposite me, hoping to lose it in the pile of old cardboard boxes and decaying, homeless bodies.

Clink!

It struck the brick, making its final noise before the wall shook, bits of mortar cracking, crumbling, tumbling to the ground below, showering the dead with more gray.

I hated this world. I hated this place that stole my sister, my mother, my grandmother. In that other place, my world where the picnic continued, my world where I removed the penny from my shoe and placed it into my pocket, they were all still alive... well, I hoped so anyway, because I desperately wanted to go back. I didn’t know how much time had passed, didn’t know reality from weirdity these days. Who knew what would be waiting when I entered that black hole in the wall left behind by the penny?

A certainty, one I could count on no matter how many holes that penny left in my worlds, the penny would be waiting for me when I passed through that hole.

The decision lay before me, again. Leave this world of death that had stolen my family and climb through the new hole in hopes of returning home, or remain here—where all was rot—just give up...

Die with the others.

It was only my third time to rid myself of this penny, each time thinking I would return to the party, only to find out that I had to watch my family die, again.

“Three times a charm,” Mom’s voice called from inside the jagged, dark hole in the brick.

Somewhere, my great-grandmother’s birthday party continued, everyone laughing about the potato salad... everyone drinking beer and playing cards... maybe looking for their false teeth. That boring party filled with old people who said “Shit” for the camera, old people who pinched my cheeks and squeezed my shoulders and cheated at poker. Is that what I would find on the other side, in that darkness, or would I have to watch them die again? Would I suffer their loss again? Would it always go from good to bad and never return to good, the kind of good that I once thought boring?

I feared the never-ending loop of life I would see on the other side. I feared never returning. I feared the holes in the bottoms of these lavender peace sign sneakers where I would never be able to replace the penny without it falling through.

I feared climbing through that hole in the brick and seeing the penny there, waiting for me to reach down.

I feared that cool penny and the changes it might bring.

Is there life without fear?

Raising from the damp alley, climbing over stiff bodies, through the hole I fell, following the rabbit of superstition.

Laughter, potato salad, false teeth, old people and I watched as it began again, the wrong world.

I couldn’t do this over.

Spinning on my heels, I reached upward toward the already shrinking hole.

Too late.

Stuck in this world, I turned, bent, picked up the cool penny, replaced it to my pocket and leaned back into the wall, watching, hoping, praying as I rolled laughing in the grass.

You want to tell me this is all about the drugs, the drinking.

I know you do.

I hear you, “Young lady, this bad dream you’re having should teach you a lesson!”

But you would be wrong.

It’s this damn cool penny.

Superstition stole my world.

Personal History of the Story: The inspiration for this story actually came from a Facebook communication between myself and fellow author, Regis Auffray. He commented on my Facebook post, and I replied, “That sounds like a good short story title!” Oftentimes, my inspirations come from my real life events. As “Cool Penny” began with an idea for a title—something that should never happen, right?—it turned into a plot much closer to home. In fact, all of the characters from the story that the teenage girl suggests are dead have truly died. I guess this story, though beginning with an innocent conversation, turned into a bit of an autobiography. An autobiography of a time in life once taken for granted… a life that will never be as it once was and that the teenage girl can never return to.

An Average Homeless Man?

B. Alan Bourgeois

It’s five in the morning as he begins to wake up. It’s cold in the room that he calls home. He swings his feet off the cot he uses as his nightly bed, the cement floor is cold to the touch. He grabs the plastic 32 oz. bottle, stands up naked as can be, opens the top of the bottle and inserts his penis into the hole to begin his morning ritual. This is a normal morning for him, though on some mornings, he gets to sleep in, but that is rare and only due to a holiday. Holidays and Sundays are when the staff of the storage facility he lives in doesn’t arrive until 10 a.m. or later. It’s those days he doesn’t feel the rush to get dressed and get out of the unit as quickly as possible.

The fear of being caught sleeping in the 10 foot by 10 foot square box, his makeshift home is always on his mind. If caught, they could lock up his unit and only allow him access during their working hours, or have him removed. That is not a possibility for him; there is absolutely nowhere else to go. No friends or family in the area and no other shelter that will accommodate his working hours or give him access to an office or work space he constantly needs.

He gets dressed in his gym clothes and packs his gym bag with the clothes he will wear at his day job. Within 15 minutes of getting up, he is heading out to the gym to begin a long day.

The gym serves two purposes: a place that he can use to work out at when he has the mental mindset and physical energy to do so. He hopes to keep old age and poor eating habits from consuming his body. The second purpose and most important to him is to have a place to shower and clean up. For less than a $30 per month in membership due, he has access to the facilities at any time, day or night.

The storage facility he lives in has no running water or gas. Electricity is the only saving grace for him, as the unit he has lived in now for the past three years, has a faulty ‘sleep’ switch that allows the power to remain on 24 hours a day. He knows how to tap into the system safely, allowing him to run a mini-refrigerator, computer system, television monitor and heater or fan, when needed. He calls this space he goes to everyday, ‘home’ though he really doesn’t want to.

When he first became homeless over four years ago, he started off sleeping on park benches. Thankfully, that only lasted one week. The money he had been waiting on to pay his rent had finally started to trickle in, but it was too late to get his rental space back. He had to look at alternative living arrangements. That’s when the first concept of a storage unit came to mind. He had to place what little possessions he owned into a safe place, thus a storage unit was a good opportunity. He choose a space that he could afford and had a little extra space to lay out in during the night.

That first unit measured 10 foot by 5 foot and the closest electrical outlet to his unit was across the hall, four feet away. That outlet was on an automatic shut off system that needed to be reset every eight minutes. The running of electrical cords had to be late at night when the facility was closed to avoid people seeing the cord. It was at that time, he began the cat-and-mouse game with the property employees.

During the first year and half, living in the storage unit was also the most intense situation he had ever experienced. In that time, three separate break-ins occurred to various units surrounding his. His unit was never touched which was a blessing. But it was the last theft that got his heart racing the most. As he slept in the unit, he was awakened by the sound of clanging metal. As he lay there, listening carefully, he could hear people walking in the aisle behind his unit, and the dropping of metal onto the floor. Quietly, he called 9-1-1. As he was on the phone, he pondered what to say as to why he was there and how to avoid being considered one of the thieves. He told the 9-1-1 operator he was working late and his unit was closed to stay warm. He gave the female emergency operator his unit number and remained on the line as he quickly got dressed. When the police arrived and opened his unit, he was sitting still in a chair. As they talked, one of the officers recognized him from a previous call a few months prior, a thought of comfort in one aspect, as he would not be considered as a possible suspect, but also a thought of fear, not knowing how it would look in the police report. That simple statement could lead to the possibility of him living on the property.

The thieves broke into 10 units, but easily escaped due to the lookout man who was sitting in a getaway car with the engine running, carefully watching for the police. This was the last time a robbery occurred on the property, as shortly after, he purchased a vehicle and always parked on the lot. A small factor he believes is helping to deter thefts.

The first year of his homelessness was a year of growth and determination for him on many levels. He already had many negatives working against him that contributed to not being able to find a well-paying job. Add into the mix, a business that had consumed all of his funds and the economy still in a nose dive, he was left with no option but to shut it down. His debts were too much to recover from, so he was forced to file for bankruptcy, something he thought he would never have to do. It would be a year before he would get a job of any length. Working part-time jobs was the best he could arrange during that first year. But through the gift of a friend, he was given a contract job paying $9 per hour when he started. Now, 18 months later, he earns $10 per hour. The job is a contract job, so he can work as many or as few hours as he wants though he tends to work nearly 50 hours a week.

A couple of months after getting the job, another friend then offered to sell him a car. All he had to do was take over the payments and cover the additional cost of insurance. The car was another great gift, allowing him to continue to work and invest time in a non-profit organization he had started just weeks before his situation arose.

In his third year residing in a storage unit, where the temperature has dropped from a sweltering 90 degrees or more in summer down to 40 degrees at night during the winter, he learned to deal with the seasons. The temperature didn’t fluctuate much from night to day in the steel unit, so it actually takes a week or more for the temperature to go rise or fall in a measureable amount.

This past summer was one of the worst seasons. He not only had to fight the weather in excess of 90 degrees during the night which led to mild heat stroke that lasted for a week, but also the bed bugs that arrived in early spring and continued to linger into late summer. He feels grateful there aren’t as many as there was in the beginning. Thankfully, the hot summer helped kill the bed bugs or at least brought their numbers down to a small amount…a bearable amount.

Along with the cold weather, comes the holiday season. His desire to have a good ‘holiday’ meal is limited to a variety of simple sources. At first, the meals came from The Salvation Army kitchen, where the meal had the usual fixings and twice as much food as meals served elsewhere. During the second year, he ate meals at the HEB holiday dinner, which was just as good as The Salvation Army’s except with a lot more people. The meals were not served on the actually holiday, but usually a week earlier. On the actual holiday, he usually worked in his storage unit finishing up paperwork for his non-profit, or if funds were available, he would enjoy a simple pleasure and go to the movies.

While he misses the enjoyment of having a holiday meal with family and friends, he is always grateful for the things he still has. Now, with the larger unit, and a non-interrupted electricity source, he enjoys the use of a mini-frig and microwave oven, both of which allows him to eat a variety of frozen meals, including a turkey dinner. During the first two years, he was forced to eat as cheaply as possible, which meant going to the soup lines and buying very cheap frozen dinners, when possible. Both options had downsides, but he learned to accept them and make the best of what he has without complaining. Now that he earns a bit more, he is able to eat at fast food restaurants from time-to-time, and on rare occasions, he allows himself to go to a nice restaurant for a sit-down meal. He misses being able to cook a meal on a stove or in an oven, but they are simple pleasures among many he yearns for.

Going to the bathroom is one of those simple pleasures. When he comes home from his day job, he is forced to use a plastic bottle he empties daily into a larger plastic bottle, which he then empties out every three or four days into the local sewer during the very early morning hours when no one is around and darkness shields him from being seen. At times, he feels like he’s cheating on something or doing something wrong, but he is only adjusting to what is available in such a harsh environment and situation.

His worst moments regarding his bodily waste, were when he was sick or had minor food poisoning. A simple small trash bucket lined with a trash bag has taken on the job of a toilet. With each use, he ties off the bag to cut down on the pungent smell. Over time, his body acclimated to a normal cycle, waiting for the morning shower at the gym or at work.

While he has been living in the unit, his life has improved slowly over time. He started off with few possessions; no car or refrigerator, just a personal computer and monitor, which was able to receive TV signals. . He has had to replace his pillows and bedding at least once due to the bed bugs, but he is grateful to have the money to be able to purchase replacements.

After filing for bankruptcy and losing his business, he has worked hard to build his credit, which nose-dived to the mid-500s. He was not prepared at how difficult it would be to build it back up, but eventually he hit the mid-600s. The car purchase did not help, since the payments were given to a friend and not a finance company. Though, he was able to purchase a new laptop on credit from a store which has given him the ability to improve his credit score and forming his non-profit.

All of these are small wins for him, but they can’t compare to the larger wins he experiences from the non-profit work. It is this work that keeps him moving forward, keeps him grounded and sane. While the type of work is unimportant to the overall aspect of life on earth, it does have value for thousands of people in small ways. It does help improve people’s lives and inspires them to do better, to reach for their goals, to live a more fulfilled life. It is for that purpose that he doesn’t complain or walk around looking like he’s homeless. It’s the joy of helping others that makes his situation bearable for him. No one else needs to know about his homelessness, nor what brought him to that point. That information is not relevant to who he is.

It is what he knows about himself that is important to him, not what others think. But he also knows that he just can’t scream, “I’m homeless,” as people really wouldn’t understand. People are quick to judge other as he has learned the hard way. They don’t want to find out why the situation exists, they just find it difficult to understand that it does. Though, as the years have gone by, and with more and more people becoming poorer day-by-day, he knows his situation is not unique. He knows others have also lived in storage units on the same property as his, for short periods of time. A couple of whom had been discovered living in their unit and had been kicked off the lot.

His personal love life doesn’t exist, though he would love for the right person to come along one day, but until he has a home, he doesn’t want the situation to come up, where he would be asked to come over and spend time together. He simply tells those who ask, that he has a roommate and they agree no one is to come over at any time. People usually understand and accept it. It’s a lie he doesn’t like to tell, but it has become all too easy to say with each passing day. He believes that keeping a wall up from getting too involved with people in a romantic way, is the best thing to do for now.

He has just turned 55 and this was not how he envisioned his life when he was a young lad. He dreamed of the typical home and loving spouse, maybe kids, and a dog or two; a good job, a life of happiness and joy. While happiness is something he does have even now, it was something that he has learned to accept and understand as he dealt with his situation. The home, spouse, kids and all, are great, but as with personal belongings, none of that matters if you do not love yourself first and foremost. It is that lesson of life that he began to learn many years ago and finally came to terms with when he became homeless.

He believes that no matter what your situation is in life, if you truly love yourself, you will get through it. You will not only survive, but become a better person for it. How you choose to deal with the negative thoughts and actions by others all depends on the ability to love yourself. Your faith in yourself and balancing the good and bad makes all the difference. For one to be grateful for the good things in life is all so easy to do, but to be grateful for the negative things is a challenge that most are unable to accomplish. It is the bad things in life that make or break you.

While he has never thought of himself to be better than anyone else, he knows that how he has chosen to deal with things has also kept him from becoming the tortured soul, the broken person seen sleeping on the streets, living a life of hopelessness. He has become more and more grateful for what he has and what he receives on both ends of the spectrum. He is grateful and thankful for when he finds a penny on the street or a friend reaches out with an incredible offer of help.

Each morning as he rises, he knows where he is, but he is grateful for what he has. When he heads to the gym to work out and take his shower for the day, he is grateful for what he has. When he gets to drive to work and earn a small living, he is grateful for what he has. When he is able help other through his non-profit organization, he is grateful to be of service. When he hears of accomplishments made by those he helps, he is full of joy for being able to be a part of the experience. He’s no saint, and when he forgets to be grateful, life reminds him that his life could be worse.

He only hopes that what little that he does, in turn helps to inspire others to do better and overcome their obstacles in life. He doesn’t see himself as special, just an average guy dealing with each situation life brings him the best way he can.

Personal History of the Story: Unlike many of the stories submitted in this contest, mine was one of the most truthful and honest of stories. My life as a homeless man started in 2011 and as of the publication of this book, continues on. While I was discouraged from telling my story due to the work that I do, I believe it needed to be told in some form, even in this small glimpse of what I have gone through. My goal has always been to be a positive inspiration to others as they deal with their life and its tribulations. No matter what you go through, it can and will get better if you have the right frame of mind. I hope to have my autobiography written and published very soon.

Did He Have a Sister?

B. Alan Bourgeois

On the computer screen was an e-mail message with a subject line that simply read, “Call Me About Your Sister.” It was an e-mail from the private investigator who he had hired to find her. He sat motionlessly as he looked at the e-mail whle the thoughts running through his mind merged into strong emotions. Did he want to know what the PI found out? Was she alive? Was she dead? Was she happy? Did he want to re-connect with her? It had been nearly 30 years since he last saw her. Did she have a family? What…? So many questions and feelings were stirring inside him as he re-read the e-mail header. Finally, he decided to call and find out what the PI had discovered.

Sitting at his office desk, he picked up his smartphone inserted his head phones into the phone so he could have more privacy in the office and called the PI. The PI answered the phone, he began the conversation by identifying himself.

“Thanks for calling me,” the female voice began on the other end of the phone. Her tone seemed hesitant and subdued, which was uncharacteristic of her. “I wanted to verify some information that you supplied to me, is that okay?”

His heart dropped, she only wanted to get more info, and she didn’t know anything new. At the same time, a sign of relief swept over him. At least it wasn’t bad news.

“Sure, what do you need?” he said in a more relaxed voice.

“You gave me the hospital and date of birth, your mom’s name and what you believed to be her father’s name, correct?” Her voice wasn’t relaxed and cheerful as he had remembered it. He wondered if something else was going on.

“Yes, and the accident information I had, along with the high school I believe she graduated from,” he paused, wondering where this was going. “I don’t have anything else - all my papers and belongings had been lost years ago.”

“Well, I did a search in the databases I have access to, and well…” her pause was too long. He began to dread the worst, his sister was dead. “I can’t find any information on her at all.”

“I’m sorry,” he said confused, trying to understand what she just said.

“I can’t find a birth certificate, any legal information, no social security number, nothing for her. Are you sure you give me her full proper birth name?”

His mind was confused at how she could not find anything on his sister. He knows he had a sister, she drove him nuts for the nine years they lived together until he moved out of the house. “Yes, first, middle and both of the possible last names she may have been given at birth.” His mind couldn’t make sense of why she was coming up empty. He was confused, frustrated and annoyed all at the same time.

“I checked everything. I even tried the courts where your mom’s lawsuit was held and I can’t find anything pertaining to her. I found tons of stuff about you, but nothing about her.” She paused and took a deep breath before she continued on. “I have had this happen once before, and I wasn’t sure if this might be the same case, but I had a friend of mine double check his system and he came up with the same thing.”

“What are you saying?” he asked in a tense voice.

“I believe your sister is in protective custody.”

“What?” he asked, not believing what he had just heard.

“The last time I saw this, my colleagues said this kind of thing only happens when someone is placed in a witness protection program. Everything about their past life is wiped clean in the computer systems for their protection.”

“Are you serious?” still not sure he was understanding what she was saying. My sister in protective custody? My God, what had she gotten into now?

“Yes. It’s rare for this to happen, but after double checking and going through all of the databases I have access to, which is a lot, she simply doesn’t exist.”

He sat back in his chair thinking about what she had said. His sister didn’t exist? He had lost himself in thought for a moment as he thought back to his life and every aspect she had been a part of. It was impossible for her not to exist.

“…hello…you there?” he heard the PI asking.

“Yeah, sorry. This is a bit strange to say the least.”

“I know. I wish I could give you more, but that’s all I have.”

“Thanks,” he said wanting to get off the phone now. “I appreciate what you did. If I find any more information, I will pass it on to you. Maybe it may help find her.”

“Sure, no problem.”

“Thanks again, but I need to go now, this is too weird,” he said, as he discounted the call.

He sat there in total disbelief that his sister could be in protective custody; that she no longer existed. This was worst then her being dead, at least then he could learn more as to what had happened, how she died. But, to never exist was another issue all together.

He was amazed at how the government could totally erase someone’s life. He thought, well not completely erase, he has his memories after all. But even then, he didn’t have any pictures of her or his mother anymore since they had been lost years ago. His memory was all he had, but for how long? He was getting older, and memory issues were becoming a problem. Would he one day wonder if he ever had a sister, or was it just a dream?

It took him a couple of days to process what he had been told. During that time, he called his aunt, the only living relative who he was still in communications with, and told her what he had learned. She, too, was amazed by the turn of events relating to his now non-existent sister. She brought up the issue of pictures, and the fact that in school yearbooks she would still be shown. He agreed with her, that not everything could be wiped away.

The thought of some pictures of her still existing gave him an idea: why not use them to scan the internet for possible connections. With the help of his aunt, he was able to get a couple of pictures of her and scan them into his computer. Then with the latest computer software, he ran a search for her on the Internet. But nothing came back. She did not exist in the world of the Internet. Was the witness protection agency that strict? Probably, after all, they were given the task of giving her a new, safe, life.

He was beside himself with theories and plots…like the true writer he was, he created more stories and illusions from his mind then what were more exciting and probably not true. Still, it was the fact that something had happened to her that made him wonder what ‘it’ was. Did she witness a murder? Marry the wrong man? Commit a crime herself, and snitched on others? There were tons of possibilities, and not knowing just drove him crazy with anticipation and thoughts.

At this point, it didn’t matter if she was alive or not. He knew it would be best to just let it go. After all, it took him 28 years to even get to the point of wanting to really know what had happened to her. He didn’t have that many years left in his life to worry about it.

As weird and painful as it was, it was best for him to consider her as deceased, gone from his life in complete and utter existence. To wonder, to think about the fact that she may still be alive would only drive him mad. He had to move on with his life and be at peace that all is well for her now. He was never one for funerals, so this made it a little easier.

It was the aspect of not really knowing what had happened to her that kept gnawing at him. It wasn’t something that stayed in the front of his mind. No, it was more like a festering wound, or an injury that you know is there, but you ignore it most of the time. It was those few times that it did come up to the top of his mind that drove him mad. He had to let it go, his sanity was at stake.

But he couldn’t….

While time had passed from days to weeks, and even a few months, he would go back to that moment when he was told his sister didn’t exist. He remembers her clearly and wonders what had happened to her.

What was her life like now? Was she happy? Was she alive? So many thoughts about her and her current status. But also about the strange loss he has suffered.

It was bad enough that she chose to disinherit him and the family. That was strange in and of itself. Yet now, it was more than formal, or was it?

He tried again and again to find her only to come to the same conclusion - she didn’t exist.

Months moved into years, and every so often he wonders about that moment he found out she didn’t exist…it still haunts him to this day. Was she alive or dead? Was she happy? Were there nieces and nephews he would never know about? So many questions - too many left floating around in his head. It was the unknowing that slowly made him mad. It was the unknowing of the truth that would forever haunt him.

When he died, years later, he was found in his bed holding the only picture he had of her. It was the one from her high school year book. On the back it had her name and the words, “Where are you?” and “Who are you?”

Personal History of the Story: With any family there is always a story behind what happens or didn’t happen, and there is one heck of a story relating to this. But, for now, the reality is that I did go through these thoughts when I attempted to find my sister and was told that she did not exist. I struggled with trying to write how I felt about this discovery, and at times I know I did not do it justice. To know of a family member to have passed on is one thing, but to be told they never existed is another concept that is hard to comprehend let alone to put into words.

Amy McStern: Kid Detective

Jay Simone

Hi. I’m Amy McStern. And I’m a detective. Me and my friend, Robert, solve all the mysteries in room 121. I was sitting at my desk while Mr. Girton was babbling about how Walter had gotten his whole math test wrong.

“5x5=25! HOW IS THAT HARD?!” he yelled at him.

Brrrrrringg!

Finally, it was time for lunch. When we got in line, Robert told me that he brought his lucky rabbit’s foot. So, when we bought lunch, we got free ice cream.

When we got into the cafeteria, the other detective team, Call Us, Solve Us!, came up to us and asked, “How’d you get ice cream?”.

“Rob’s got a lucky rabbit’s foot.” I bragged.

Felicia, the team leader, put on a huge grin. I had no idea what she was thinking but I could tell it was mischievous. Instead of solving mysteries, Call Us, Solve Us! usually caused mysteries. I knew there was going to be some kind of mystery because the 5th grade dance was coming up. All of a sudden, my little sister called “hi!” all the way from the other side of the room.

I felt like just yelling ‘shut up’ to her. But instead I yelled, “STOP YELLING!!!” Just when I said that, the principal walked into the room.

She gave me a dead stare. Then, she walked over to my table. “Ms. McStern. Come with me.” She said.

On the way there, I told her I prefer being called Amy. “Well, too bad. I will now call you Amelia Taylor McStern.” She replied snobbishly.

Oh my gosh, I felt like punching her! No one EVER used my full name. I told her the reason I yelled, she told me not to do it again and then let me go. When I got back Rob told me who he might want to go to the dance with. He said he wanted to go with Mia Fonbegger. She is in Call Us, Solve Us! but everyone loves her. I said we might not get to because we’d probably have a mystery.

He said, “Well… who’d you go with?”

I said no one. I don’t like any boy in my class except for Rob (as a friend). I couldn’t help but overhear Felicia telling all the Call Us, Solve Us! members that she bets a dollar she can get Tyler Mavator to be her date to the dance. She also said she bets another dollar she can get Tyler to fake a mystery and they’d solve it. Everyone (but Mia) agreed. I told Rob and he said not to worry and asked if I was going to eat my hamburger. Rob loves to eat, but doesn’t gain a pound! How lucky is he?! Then lunch ended. I gave him my burger and hurried to get in line.

When we got in class, Mr. Girton announced that it was recess time. Before I went to Rob, I hid by Tyler Mavator’s desk as I watched as Felicia asked Tyler to the dance. He said he already asked Mia if she would go with him and she said yes. Felicia got so mad, I thought steam would come out of her ears! I went to Rob and told him everything I just saw. Then, he got disappointed.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

With tears in his eyes he said, “I really wanted to go to the dance with Mia.”

I had totally forgotten about that! I tried to cheer him up by focusing on his rabbit foot. Maybe we could take it into the bathrooms to see if they had gold toilets. He loved the idea and forgot about Mia.

He looked in his desk. “IT’S NOT HERE! AMELIA TAYLOR MCSTERN IT IS NOT HERE! MY GREAT GRANDMOTHER GAVE THAT TO MY MOM THEN TO ME!” he said in his whisper-yell voice.

Suddenly, things started to make sense. Felicia took it! That’s why she smiled at lunch! I told Rob my idea and he agreed with me.

Then, all of a sudden, Mr. Girton yelled, “LINE UP! WE’RE HAVING AN ASSEMBLY!”

Great timing, Mr. Girton.

When we got to the gymnasium, the principal, Ms.Hickaford, was standing on the stage. “I have heard from you students that some of you are creating clubs to figure out people’s problems. Well that will stop right now,” she said. I couldn’t believe my ears! “If you have a problem or have lost something please tell your teacher. If any of you have a problem with this please see me after I am done,” she continued. I nodded at Rob and he nodded back. “I am done. You may go back to your classrooms,” she finally said.

Me and Rob went up to the stage. I was surprised to see Call Us, Solve Us! up on the stage. Ms. Hickaford didn’t seem the least bit surprised when we went up there. “PUHH-LEEZE! I need to do this! My mom wants me to do Poptropica but we have no internet so she told me to solve people’s problems!” Felicia lied. I know because my older brother, Josh, is Felicia’s older sister’s boyfriend.

“Don’t worry. You can keep your clubs… but on one condition. You have to work together,” Ms. Hickaford said. “WHAT?!” we all screamed except for Mia. I couldn’t believe it!

Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrriiiiiiiiiiiing!!! Finally, school is out!

When we got to my house, Josh was lying on the couch watching T.V and eating chips. He was watching the SyFy channel. The SyFy channel has a bunch of scary movies he loves to watch.

“Is dad home?” I asked.

“Nah. You got Abi?” He answered.

Abi popped up from behind me. “Here I am!” she said.

“Me and Rob are going to do some homework and I’ll put Abi in her room and turn on the T.V.” I told him.

He said ok and we went upstairs.

Instead of doing our homework, we talked about what Mrs. Hickaford said today. “Ugh! I can’t believe we’ll have to work with Call Us, Solve Us!, or more importantly, Felicia!” I ranted.

Rob nodded and said, “You know, working with them might not be so bad.” I looked at him crazily. NOT SO BAD?!

Then, I realized why he said that. “You’re right! This way we can go undercover to get some more info on the rabbit’s foot mystery! Rob, you’re a genius!” I said.

Rob sighed and said, “Yeah, that’s why I said that…”

I called Felicia.

Felicia: Call Us, Solve Us! Here! What can we solve for you?

Me: You can solve the mystery of why you’d think I was calling for a mystery!

Felicia: Ugh, Amy, what do you want?

Me: I want a million bucks, but that’s not what I called you for.

Felicia: (sarcastically) Ha. Ha. Ha.

Me: I was calling you to let you know that I have a mystery that we need to solve.

Felicia: Oh, do you?

Me: Yeah, earlier today, Rob’s lucky rabbit foot went missing.

Felicia: Oh.

Me: Um, is there a problem?

Felicia: Oh, no. It’s just that for once I thought you had a real mystery. You probably got your little friend Roy to fake this one for you.

Me: First of all, Felicia, his name is Rob. R-O-B, ROB. And you’re the ones faking the mystery! Is it just ‘pure coincidence’ that Mia happened to ‘misplace’ your phone?!

Felicia: Whatever, we’ll look into your little mystery, okay?

Me: Yes, and we can report our findings tomorrow.

Felicia: Okay, whatever.

Me: Bye.

Do you see what I have to deal with 8 HOURS A DAY for 5 DAYS A WEEK?! We were finishing up our homework when Dad came home. He called us down. “Rob, your mother is here.” He said.

“Aw, Dad! Can’t you just tell her to leave or something?” I whined. He gave me a dead stare. YEESH!, I thought.

That night, while we were eating our Ramen, my dad sighed a huge sigh. “Joshua, Amelia, Abigail…” he started.

“IT WASN’T ME!” we all said at once.

He chuckled sadly. “No, it’s not that. It’s… I got laid off again,” he said.

A lump formed in my throat. No, not again. They said if he got fired one last time…, I thought. I got up and started to hug him. Abi got up and started hugging him too. Even though, Josh is not the sentimental type, he started hugging Dad, too. I could hear Dad’s muffled crying.

“I-I don’t want to lose you guys…” he said.

The next morning, I was late because I didn’t get any sleep. All I could think about is what would happen to us if my Dad didn’t get a job by the end of the week. When I got to my seat, Rob could definitely tell something was up.

He passed me a note. What’s wrong? Tell me at recess, ok? Circle Yes or No.

I know, I know. Rob’s handwriting sucks. But, hey, we’ve all got our flaws! I circled yes and handed him the note. I tell Rob everything. When it came to be recess, Rob and I met at our secret hideout, on the tire swing. We always meet on the tire swing because everyone else thinks it’s muddy and gross.

“Rob, we’re going to have to postpone the rabbit foot mystery!” I told him. “My dad got laid off again, and if we don’t help him get a job by the end of the week, Josh, Abi and I will have to go with Ms. Gruffles again!” I shivered at the thought of going to the home with Ms. Gruffles again. Rob thought for a minute.

He started to cry. “But we won’t get to work with Mi- I mean Call Us, Solve Us!” he wailed.

I grabbed a hold of his shoulders and shook him. “Get yourself together, man!!!” Then, Call Us, Solve Us! Walked up to us.

“We didn’t find much on Roy’s rabbit foot. What you got?” Felicia asked.

“Again, his name is ROB. And we can’t solve that mystery with you. We have bigger problems.” I told her. Felicia narrowed her eyes. “Like what?”

I fidgeted. “It’s classified detective business.” I said.

“Oh, please. You’re as much a detective as I am ugly!” she said, closing in on me and Rob.

“So, I’m the best detective in the world? Thanks Felicia!” I shot back.

“Tell me!”

“No!”

“Tell me!”

“No!”

“TELL ME!!!” she shrieked

“Amy’s brother has, um… sister-itis??” Rob said quickly.

I turned around to Rob. “Really?!” I said, exasperated.

Rob shrugged.

Felicia threw back her head and laughed. “What the heck is sister-itis? Oh, I know! It causes you to have the dumbest sister in the world!” she said.

I blinked back tears, and ran to the bathroom.

“Amelia Taylor McStern?” said a voice.

I had no idea who it was. At first, I thought it was Ms. Gruffles, coming to take me away! Then, I realized Ms. Gruffles didn’t know where my school was.

“It’s Ms. Hickaford. I demand you to come out immediately.” Ms. Hickaford said.

That just made me cry more. What I did then, was SUPER CRAZY, but I guess I was delusional from the putrid smells of the bathroom. “Ms. Hickaford, can I tell you something?” I asked.

“Um… sure,” she said.

“A long time ago, my mother died after she had my sister. My father was not with us at the time. They brought us to my father and I learned he had a record. But we bonded with him. Then, my father was in super rough times and started drinking again. An evil caretaker by the name of Ms. Gruffles, took us into a home with many kids who had problems. Worse than ours. It was horrible.” I told her.

“Um.. w-why are you telling m-me this?”Ms. Hickaford stammered.

I unlocked the bathroom door and smiled kind of sad at Ms. Hickaford. “So you won’t be surprised when I’m taken away soon.” I said and left the bathroom.

When I entered the room, everyone stared at me for a moment. I went back to my seat next to Rob. I wrote him a note.

I told Ms. Hickaford everything.

Really? Are you crazy?!

For some reason it made me feel good.

Are we still going to go help your dad?

Of course! But since Call Us, Solve Us! Is having a meeting, how about we help Dad for 30 minutes and go see what Call Us, Solve Us! Is talking about for 30 minutes.

Okay.

* * *

We found nothing. Absolutely nothing. About halfway through, Dad got a phone call. He sounded really excited, but told me it was nothing. Then Josh and Abi started helping and that was our cue to step out. Mia’s house was in a gated community, so we just waited at the stop sign at the end of Poppy Lane. About 5 minutes later, a white Mercedes Benz SUV pulled up.

Mia was in the front seat. “Hey, Amy. Hey, Rob. Come in.” There was nobody in the back seat.

“What about Felicia, Yasmin, Serena, Kaitlyn, Daja, and Andrea?” I asked.

Mia laughed and said, “Silly, Amelia! They all live on my street! They’re already at my house!”

“Figures.” I said under my breath.

When we finally arrived to Mia’s huge 4-story house, Rob had already talked her ear off about false stories to make himself seem manlier, when we all knew that Rob was about as manly as those princess pony shows that Abi watches.

Her house was even bigger on the outside, with white tile as soon as you walk in. “Come on, we’re meeting in the den!” Mia said.

We followed Mia into a big purple room with the furriest purple rug and a pink couch with more furry purple pillows. There was a clear pink coffee table with popcorn and candy and the new movie Eclipse 3: Ella’s Rude Awakening.

“Finally, Mia! We’re ready to start the movie!” Felicia said. She popped in the movie, and grabbed some sour gummy worms and sat on the couch. We reluctantly sat on the couch. About halfway through the movie, when it was getting really good, Rob whispered to me, “Let’s leave. I’m bored.”

I sighed. “Come on now, Rob! The movie is just getting good!” I whispered back.

“But I agreed to come because I thought I’d get to spend time with Mia! But all she-and you-have been doing is watching that sappy mess of a movie!” he pouted.

I just swatted him away. “Well, then, go find something else to do! I’m trying to watch the movie!” I whispered, grabbing some more popcorn.

“Fine! I will!” Rob whispered. He tiptoed out and I went back to my movie.

When the movie ended, they all started saying their goodbyes. Then, I realized, Rob still wasn’t back!

“Guys, I need your help to look for Rob!!” I said.

“I thought he was in here with us!” Mia said.

“Well, it’s only a 4 story, 7,000 square feet house! How far could Roy have gone?” Felicia said.

I rolled my eyes and ignored Felicia. “Quick! What’re the rooms in your house?” I asked Mia.

“Well, um… My room, 4 bathrooms, the den room, the living room, the kitchen, the dining room, the grand dining room, the arcade room—,” she said.

“Ah-ha! The arcade room!” I interrupted her. We rushed to the elevator, but only Mia, Felicia and I could fit. While we were there, I asked Mia a question, “How can your family afford such a great big house?”

“Both my parents are doctors, and my oldest brother is a lawyer. What are your parents?” she asked me.

Just as I was about to answer the question, the elevator dinged. I rushed out, in a hurry to find Rob. Sure enough, he was blasting his fingers away in the arcade. I grabbed him and we went home.

The next day at school, before Mr. Girton started teaching, Ms. Hickaford entered our room. “Do you all remember Mr. Peters?” she asked.

“No,” we all said.

“Well, he was your janitor!!” she said, getting a little angry. She calmed herself down. “Well, he got a job at… yeah. “So I would like to introduce your new janitor, Mr. McStern!!!!” she said.

My dad entered the room with a gray suit with brown stains and a mop bucket. I ran up to him and gave him a big hug.

Felicia stood up and said, “AMY’S DAD IS A JANITOR!!!” All the kids in my class started to laugh.

I hung my head down. I guess that was a sort of crummy job, especially compared to 2 doctors.

“HEY! You all shouldn’t be laughing! How would you feel if you’re family was in tough times, and you didn’t know where your next meal was coming from? It wouldn’t be funny then!” Ms. Hickaford boomed. Then, she patted my shoulder and said, “Anything you need, you can come to me.”

Felicia went up to me. I cringed. “So, that was the big, classified, mystery you were working on?” she asked.

“Well, no mystery here, just good news.” I answered.

She put out her hand. I shook it. “You’re alright, Amy.” She said and walked away.

Then Mia came up to me. “If you’re family’s in a pinch, just talk to me. I’m sure my parents can give up their scuba diving lessons!!” she said.

I laughed. I sat back down at my desk. At the beginning of my story, I misjudged Ms. Hickaford, who knew principals had hearts! Though, this story didn’t have the mystery you were expecting, it was a story worth telling.

Signed,

Amy McStern

Personal History of the Story: When I heard about the contest, I looked through my old stories and decided to complete and enter this Amy McStern, PI. I began writing this story in the 3rd grade after reading a book in the Cam Jensen series. I really enjoyed reading this series and thought it would be fun to write a mystery. I was going to make this story about an actual mystery, then I decided to make it about a real life situation. When I began writing about Amy’s dad getting laid off...I knew I had to make that the problem that was solved in this story. I felt like that was more important.