Trouble and Strife

Chapter One

“I’ve messed up Sis, really badly.”

Shelley was on the telephone to her sister, Marie, in Cornwall.

“What have you done?” asked Marie.

“Well, you do know how much I love Charlie. I don’t know how I’d cope if I ever lost Charlie, I miss him so much that it hurts even when he goes away overnight on one of his business conference things.”

“I know, I don’t why but I do know. But why is loving Charlie a problem. Apart from him being such a wuss.”

For the rest of the week, Saige continued to hang out with Tony, Olivia, Bailey, and Stephanie. During that time, Saige got fully acquainted with her new girl body. She could take a shower, change her clothes, and brush her hair without help from her mom or Olivia. She even got rid of all the boy stuff she used to have and bought some new things to satisfy her new, girly interests. Now her room was painted pink with a Justin Bieber poster hanging on the wall. Saige was surprised to find herself liking Justin Bieber now. As a boy, he had HATED Justin Bieber.

Oliver sat in the police office, awaiting his fate. A lot of things had happened in the past few days. Oliver had came home from a friend's house to find that his house had burned down. Oliver soon found out that his family had died in the fire. The firemen had done everything they could to save them, but they were not able to.

Hal Jordan encounters a dying alien but initially refuses to accept the power of the Green Lantern. Instead, his boss and friend Carl Ferris takes up the job only to be kidnapped, changed, and brainwashed by the Violet Lantern Corp. Now, Hal Jordan must take on the difficult task of protecting the Earth from his best friend's wrath.

The Muse dropped this on me tonight. There wasn't time before Halloween to edit it after a waiting period. I hope it worked all right anyway.

"You'll look like Angela - in a mirror!"

How often does something REALLY unexpected happen in the average life. Once? Twice? Never?

"It's just you copying what Angela does - as if in a mirror. You've got to be a look-alike, y'know. You can do it," Ashya insisted.

An AP-500 story

Jacky is forced to undergo painful conversion therapy to make her a straight woman. Meanwhile, a sinister personality works behind the scenes to destroy Jacky and Jill in one swift stroke. Can Jacky resist the treatment? Will Chris save the day? Jacky's childhood trauma is finally revealed.

I curtsey for the audience as the thunder of their applause breaks over me, a pounding, re-echoing surf so deep you could drown in it. I keep a bright, happy, grateful smile fixed on my face as I do so. I'm Ireland's sweetheart after all, the songbird of Kerry. My shows are sold out, my albums top the bestseller lists ,I'll be appearing at the Abbey Theatre as Kathleen Ni Houlihan at this year's festival and I'm tipped to be the next Rose of Tralee.

There was nothing but pain. Jane's chest hurt, her head hurt, her arms and legs hurt. As her senses returned, she noticed the outside world. The room still reeked of excrement. Water dripped from stone making a rhythmic ping, ping, ping. Something scuttled over the stone.

Petticoat Acres
by Jennifer Sue

Benji was small and slender for his age. On top of that he was a late bloomer, looking more like a ten year old than his true age. As a result he was a frequent target for bullying in middle school. Now fourteen year old Benji Joe Carson forlornly sat in the seat of the World War Two vintage twin engine DC3 airplane. Three weeks after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr, his parents had died in a car crash in Chicago. With no nearby relatives he’d been temporarily placed in an orphanage until they were able to reach his great uncle, Joe Carson. While he’d been bullied in school, the orphanage had been far worse. Fortunately Benji Joe was an ace student, so when he was pulled from his suburban school they gave him passing grades for the year. As a result the orphanage didn’t try to enroll him in their local school.

Now here it was June 1 and he was on the flagship aircraft of Trans Pixley Airlines heading toward their main hub, the Pixley International Airport. Having flown out of Chicago Midway Airport he was leaving the upper middle class Chicago suburbs that had been his lifelong home. He’d never heard of Pixley. It sounded like some place in the Neighborhood of Make-Believe on that new kiddie show, Mister Roger’s Neighborhood, that had debuted in February on the National Educational Television.

They arrived at the restaurant. It was a little Italian place. They both ordered a pasta dish. They talked for a while, and as they talked they found that they had more and more in common. They had the same favorite movie, comedian, and more. Suddenly Adam said something odd.

“It’s like you never existed until the day I met you!”