written by Patrick Gaughan
illustrated by Hanna S. Abi-Hanna

If Billy from Manor Drive came over, he would want to play wiffleball, and Jerry didn’t feel like chasing the ball around the yard all day.  Wiffleball’s no fun with two people.  Tom from four doors down might be home, but he was much more interested in playing police games with plastic guns.  They would run around Jerry’s brick house, their little mouths making laser sounds, “Pew!  Pew!  Pew!,” until the inevitable argument would ensue: “You’re dead – I shot you a thousand times!”  “No way, you missed me” and so on.  There was Charlie from school, who had invited Jerry to his first sleepover a few weeks ago, but Charlie liked monster movies and Jerry almost shat himself having to sleep in the dark that night.

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Tags: fiction short story
February 7, 2009 at 12:40pm

By Lillian Pontius-Goldblatt

She was watching a science fiction TV show with her grandmother in the house on the very steep hill. The night before she’d lain on her back on top of the sheets on her bed listening to the saddest song on a very sad album over and over. She’d cried some, but not very much or for very long (though the music was up loud enough, no one would have heard; she made sure of that). This was the first time her grandma had come over; they had only moved into the small house on the very steep hill a week before.

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Tags: fiction short story lillian pontius-goldblatt
January 19, 2009 at 7:25pm