Category: Young Adult & Children’s Lit

The green rippling ribbons of light in the sky look like the swirling skirts of dancing Valkyries. The moon shines, waning, but it’s still large enough to see the birch grove and my unborn sister’s tree that Father dedicated to the gods for her. The three-colored cord hangs from its boughs. I hung it there to dry after I dyed it, just as Old Aud directed, according to her dream.

Because I know everyone there—and there
are no Mockingbird-reading poets to speak of—
so I draw a mental map around my coffee shop.

This isn’t one of those cheesy stories where the dog dies, and everyone cries, and then at the end everyone’s happy for one reason or another. In fact, the dog’s already dead. But why dwell on the past?

When she finally comes down the escalator, I feel like flushing myself down a toilet. I knew she was going to be pretty, but not that pretty. People standing around the baggage carousel follow her with their eyes like flowers turning toward the sun.

Lorna had never had a single sleepless night or nagging intuition about Clairmont. For as long as she could remember, she couldn’t wait to turn thirteen, so she could go there. She’d hop on a plane in New York City. Step off in Switzerland. And head to the old Abbey her great-grandmother turned into a school, high up on a cliff above Lake Geneva.

When Theresa Miller told her mother that she’d almost been kidnapped, the neighborhood went nuts. She told her mom who told the police who told all the moms on our street that a scary man with a spiky purple mohawk, yellow eyes, tattooed arms, piercings, and a gold medallion around his neck had tried to get her into his convertible by offering her candy.

The bus is on fire.

No, wait—before that.

It’s 5 AM and I’m in a panicked scramble for my duffel bag.

[av_hr class=’custom’ height=’50’ shadow=’no-shadow’ position=’center’ custom_border=’av-border-fat’ custom_width=’100%’ custom_border_color=’#33999′ custom_margin_top=’30px’ custom_margin_bottom=’30px’ icon_select=’no’ custom_icon_color=” icon=’ue808′ font=’entypo-fontello’ admin_preview_bg=”] He was waiting there as I finished my jog, just standing on the corner, acting like he was out for a walk or whatever, but I knew he was looking for me. “Hello,” he said. Steve Wilkes, my across the… Continue reading Steve

Jaramy Conners

I fly. Here in the white air I am not Catherine George, invisible sister of Invincible Ivan, champion skier. I am not Dear Catie, accommodating daughter with yet another weekend alone. And, I am not Klutsy Kate, fifteen-year-old ditz who totally bombed her first real kiss. Up here in the air, I am Cat, Crazy Cat, daredevil dame of the mountain, red hot chillin’ explosion of white air.

[av_hr class=’custom’ height=’50’ shadow=’no-shadow’ position=’center’ custom_border=’av-border-fat’ custom_width=’100%’ custom_border_color=’#33999′ custom_margin_top=’30px’ custom_margin_bottom=’30px’ icon_select=’no’ custom_icon_color=” icon=’ue808′ font=’entypo-fontello’ admin_preview_bg=”] Chapter 1 It was June, the middle of the day I was supposed to quit being a boy. We were all of us sitting in rows watching Miss Pipe chalk out a problem on the board, a problem I wasn’t… Continue reading An excerpt from Tornado

Susan Hill Long

Winter was almost over, but deep in the woods where old Jess lived, the nights still grew cold.

One evening, as the sun slipped through the trees’ fingers, she gathered twigs for her fire. Tying them into a bundle, Jess thought she heard someone sigh, or maybe groan.

The snow fell hard that night. It fell hard and fast and quiet as if it were trying to hide not just everything that was happening, but everything that could be about to happen. It didn’t need to bother. Except for James Hephaistion Alexander and a few others, nobody was awake to notice what was going on.

It was the kind of morning when the sun hung weary in the sky and the grown-ups, surrendering to its incessant rays, baked and blistered in lawn chairs, cooling themselves with fat pitchers of Aunt Vera’s lemonade. Even the birds were plain tuckered, sticking to the leafy parts of the trees, their morning songs dulled by the swelling heat.

Mama’s breath hovers over me in the frosty air. “Get up, little Lynx.”

Light pushes through cracks in the boarded-up windows, reminding me how the buildings shook and the glass shattered during the Nazi air raid only days ago.

The girl with apricot-colored hair sits on a dock the color of driftwood, her back against a stone wall retaining the land against the push and pull of the sea. Buoys bob and clang.

It was almost lunchtime when Bartlette Blue sat down on her front porch to watch the gnats swarming over the lake. Taco, her dog, sat with her.

Three days. It’s been three days now and people are starting to ask questions. David Jones is no longer a name on an attendance sheet; he’s no longer a member of the computer club; he’s no longer one of the blank-faced rabble that pass through the corridors of Hederton High in preparation for a lifetime of obscurity.

I’d tear the ceiling from the sky
to grow taller; dove-tail,
pigeon-tail and rip its bonnet
smaller…

There is blood all over the battlefield, the broken bodies of warriors and weapons. Spirit shadows rise like mist from the ground, and among the fallen soldiers rides Yama, the god of death, upon his mighty buffalo. Dark as a rain-cloud, with eyes of burning flames, he brandishes a noose and spear in two of his four hands. Newborn babes in Bharat are never given names too early, lest Yama call them to him. And until they are old enough to protest, mothers mar the cheeks of their sons with black spots of kajol, so that the god of death is not tempted by their beauty.

From high in the sky, above the pathways of parrots, above cloud lines, above the blue—where the moon and the sun take turns shining over rivers and valleys, oceans and forests, towns and cities and farmlands—from here you can see things.

Trudy was riding a city bus, trying not to inhale. The passenger next to her smelled of sweat and garlic. Someone had let out a fart.

[av_hr class=’custom’ height=’50’ shadow=’no-shadow’ position=’center’ custom_border=’av-border-fat’ custom_width=’100%’ custom_border_color=’#33999′ custom_margin_top=’30px’ custom_margin_bottom=’30px’ icon_select=’no’ custom_icon_color=” icon=’ue808′ font=’entypo-fontello’ admin_preview_bg=”] My father would not get out of bed. Well, he did sometimes, usually to go to the bathroom, but other than that, he pretty much lived in bed. Although he didn’t get up, he moved around a lot. Sometimes he’d… Continue reading The Stage Manager

Jennifer R. Hubbard

It was April and all Monticello was stirring, but in their cabin
Mama had just put baby Maddy down to sleep and she told
Beverly and Harriet to be still. Beverly did not want to be still.

Be nice. That’s the second rule. Even when they’re being assholes, or putting you down, or leering at some other girl—be nice. That’s Gospel, according to Janice, who hasn’t been a virgin for a year and a half now, because there’s nothing guys dislike more, she says, than a disagreeable girl.

I’m a loaded gun.

Henry knows. He thinks he and Jesus can save me from myself.

In her Young Adult piece, “Monsters”, Jennifer R. Hubbard looks at the different types of “monsterhood” in the world and what it’s like to live like one: “There are other monsters. So many, and of so many different types, that sometimes I wonder who draws the line between monster and non-monster.”

Marshall steers the lumbering station wagon past the edge of the pull-out behind the cactus and scrub cedar. He turns off the car and opens the windows. He knows no one can see his car tucked back here. Especially at twilight. It’s like the gathering shadows swallow him.

There were three of them. Otto was the oldest, and the oddest. Then there was Lucia, who wished something interesting would happen. Last of all was Max, who always thought he knew better. They lived in a small town in England called Little Tunks. There is no Big Tunks. One Tunks was more than enough for everyone.

Summer was going to be perfect:
the mall, the beach, the computer,
no Kevin whenever he was at camp,
which was all but one week this summer.

“Unbelievable,” Mr. Wortz said, holding my twin sister’s file in one hand and mine in the other. He set them both down on the desk and ran a hand through his beard.

I hop out of bed and pull open the blinds. Snow. Thick flakes fall onto the backyard topiary that’s Mom’s masterpiece. About five inches on the elephant’s head. Not enough to call off school. I slip past my parents’ door to the kitchen and grind my organic Kenyan coffee beans. Wonderful, everyday normalcy.

The stones would skim across the water, hopping lightly, like rabbits. The record was five hops before the stone sunk. When we got bored with that we went swimming in the lake to cool off until our bodies turned into wrinkled old prunes and we had to lie in the sun to plump back out.

The fat body of a hornworm hit my pail and Elsie dashed to catch up. I don’t know why she was rushing; it’s not like there weren’t plenty to go around. Each plant was alive with hungry mouths tearing at the leaves; the ground was littered with the dark pellets that come out the other end.

Where was I when it happened? Like a lot of kids, I was in a classroom watching the clock with its slow, indifferent hands. It was almost time for lunch, and no one was paying attention to Mr. Maynard, who was trying to teach us about fault lines.

Finn’s baggy trousers hadn’t been able to hide his trembling knees. But no one called an O’Reilly a coward. Finn had bristled and accepted the challenge. Wherever Finn went, Ida followed. She’d had to accept the dare, too. Family honor depended on it.

“Watch out now, Granny.”

I had a sheet of wrapping paper spread across the living room floor. It was Christmas Eve and I was busy wrapping up a present for Mama.

It’s tough, living in the shadow of a dead girl. It’s like living at the foot of a mountain blocking out the sun, and no one ever thinks to say, “Damn, that mountain is big.” Or, “Wonder what’s on the other side?” It’s just something we live with, so big we hardly notice it’s there. Not even when it’s crushing us under its terrible weight.