Words by Grace E Hall

It started on a wet and dreary Monday morning, the first day of October, and everything was grey and brown and damp. The mat of brown leaves on the sidewalk squished under my shoes as I walked, and the equally brown rosebushes draggling down the neighbor’s fence dripped with leftover rain. I smelled wet air and felt a muggy breeze on my arms.   Going to school was a prospect that matched the discouraged landscape perfectly. Sitting in a stuffy classroom with whitewashed walls and dusty windows to learn all day did not appeal to my young and active mind; I thought I deserved to run and play. Why, even animals could run about as much as they wanted!   I trudged up the slick lane to the one story brick building with the bent and moldy tin roof, labeled with the imposing label of “Murdleville Middle School” and the subtitle reading, “Where Your Child Learns the Love of Learning”. So far, I had not learned the love of learning and doubted I ever would. Maybe I coul...

“If I get lost, call down the cave and I'll know where to go.” Gary said, looking back hopefully at Beach. “Let me see what this thing is down there.” “Alright,” said Beach, who was more curious than she'd have liked to admit; “but come right back after and we'll eat.” “Yay! I'll be back!” Gary scrambled off on his hands and knees. Clattering sounds issued from the crevice. Beach sighed and leaned her head against a rock. “Hope you don't mind the delay, Jingle.” “It's okay.” Jingle was still thinking about the yellow liquid. “Why’d you think that yellow stuff hurried off so quick?” “Well, it's like water when you leave it on the ground; it goes away after a time. Don't ask me how. What I'd like to know is why your rock shifted.” “Maybe the bottle was too heavy,” said Jingle doubtfully, remembering all the times she herself had sat on the rock and it'd never budged.   “I couldn't tell you. It's awful weird. Anyway, when's your ma...

“There is bread to be baked, employee's emails to answer, grocery shopping to be done, and I don't have the time for this.” Bakery owner Carly Charger looked up from her hastily written to-do list and gave her friend the former Jill Grey of the respectable twenty-seven years of age, now reduced to the most inconvenient age of three and a half, an exasperated look. The innocent toddler bounced past without noticing.  “Look, Jill. I know it was something about that book you were reading. . . But it would be nice if you'd change back now, thank you very much.” Jill cocked her head up at Carly, smiling a puzzled smile. She had to admit, the kid was cute. Jill in her grown up state had been tall and thin and awkward, but Jill at three was round, pink-cheeked, and sparkling-eyed. Her hair, which Carly had grown accustomed to seeing dark and scraggly, was now light brown and curling in attractive, feather-light wisps about her soft face. However, much as Carly wished to the ...

Still was from Lakia. He had, according to his own account, been taken to my home world of Loma by mistake having something to do with disrupted flight schedules; once the landing had been made and the mistake discovered, the space-ship director refused to take him back due to cost and time delay. A day later I found him virtually dehydrated, wandering the desert in search of a settlement, and had taken him to my house where I hoped he would recover quickly. Soon however it became clear that he would not be able to survive on Loma for very long; the air being too dry and the climate too harsh. I was going to have to take him back. . . Myself, the self-respecting Emerald Long of Highland Sands, who had never ventured beyond the Sixteenth Parallel.  What else could I do? There was no way that Still could pay for a passage back on a commercial Bistack [passenger/long distance space-ship] and I was in the ownership of a small Dartslide space-ship, though I was unable to fly it wit...