Jailhouse Gets Empty, by Britainy Fitzgerald

September 19, 2008

“Come on, Brit, we gotta go!”

“Aright I’m comin', dude, hold on!”

I ran towards the door, one shoe in hand and cell phone attached at the ear. All seven of us piled into the escort. I don’t know how all seven of us managed to fit, but then again, I’m pretty sure we were all too preoccupied to care. I scrunched myself into a ball on the floor in the back of the car. I puffed away at my cigarette, flicking the ashes into the cup holder up front, next to Demi’s arm. She turned to look back at me. Her eyes bugged out of her head. She threw her long black fro into a ponytail on the top of her head. She proceeded to give me a quick slap at the back of my head.

Push, by Kristen Thompson

"You have to be kidding me!" Ann yelled.

She had just found another bat. This made it the sixth bat she had found. She had just rolled her big prego belly out of bed, and was walking to the bathroom, when this huge black bat flew by her. She quickly ran into her bathroom and shut the door. She heard the front door open and shut, and then her husband, Max, yelling.

"Stupid bat. Hindu let go of the bat. Damn cats."

After a few minutes, there was a knock on the bathroom door. Ann opened it to find, Max, standing there, dripping sweat from his head. He was a very tall man with dark hair and brown eyes. For being such a big man, he had the kindest smile and he was more like a teddy bear than a big bad corrections officer for the local prison.

As Ann, stepped out the bathroom, she started going off on Max.

"I am so sick of these bats. I want to move back home. I cannot do this anymore. I can't be afraid everyday of getting bit by a bat, or tick. You know I found another tick on Hindu, yesterday! I have had enough."

What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Stronger, by Josette Treasure

“What doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger”

Everyone has their fair share of scars. Me on the other hand, well, I have more than others, ten alone just on my knuckles. Everyone has their stories; me, I prefer not to tell mine, but this has been bottled up inside me for six years now. I think it’s funny, I always see these movies where the good girl always gets pushed around by some guy and everyone always says, “That doesn‘t really happen in real life.“ Well,. to me it did. I must tell my story from start to finish, leaving out no details.

I Won't Say I Hate You Back, by Gayle Gibson

Late fall, 2004

“Gayle, come here! Nick has something to tell you.”

It was my junior year of high school, and I had just settled into my spot at the lunch table. Luckily, most of my friends and I all got the same lunch period, so we could all sit together. I sat with a few girls I had grown up with, and my best friend, K. She and I shared a lot in common; especially our love for the 1940’s and 50’s. We even got the same exact lunch: a pretzel with cheese, and a salad with no meat, because we were both vegetarians. It was a typical afternoon at Oswego High School, K and I were discussing plans to go shopping for the semi-formal that was coming up. I wanted a black dress and she wanted a red dress. During the middle of our conversation, I was interrupted by a boy I had been talking to for a few months. I watched him sit down and laugh with his friends. I was waiting patiently to talk to him. We talked every day at lunch; he was very shy and every time he wanted to talk to me, he would have one of his friends yell to me to come over. I always thought that it was really silly, but I always went over when they called me. Soon after he sat down, one of his friends called my name. I got up and walked over. “What?” I said. “Nick has something to ask you”, said one of his friends in a giggly voice. The whole lunch table erupted with teenage boy laughter. I was beginning to get annoyed and started to walk away. “Wait!” someone yelled. I walked back over and looked at Nick. His olive skin turned pink with embarrassment. There was an awkward silence until I heard him ask, “Will you go out with me?” in a shy, coy voice. He ran his hands through his jet black hair and looked down at his feet. I looked at everyone’s face at the lunch table; they all looked like they were going to explode with laughter. Boys are so immature, I thought. “Sure. Yes.” I replied, and walked back to K and the rest of my lunch table. I heard everyone laugh and rolled my eyes. Duh.

The Car, by Kyle McIntyre

The office smelled like milk that had been left out in the sun. Flies buzzed on fluorescent lights making small 'tink' sounds. Cigar smoke permeated in the air, circling above an obese, balding man. This was Ace Roberts owner of Ace's Garage the only junk dealer within miles of the city. Ace had built up a reputation of being the most hard nosed junk dealer in the county routinely swindling his customers out of deals. Ace enjoyed preying on the weak and when he saw the kid enter his office Ace lit up like a Christmas tree.

“So tell me kid” Ace took a puff of his cigar “why do you want to sell this fine piece of machinery?”

Nick Connors was a boy of seventeen. His shirt was wrinkled and untucked and his jeans were worn to the point of holes. Band logos decorated his attire and his shoes were ragged. He had a hint of fuzz on his upper lip and dark circles under his eyes. He had gotten few hours of sleep in days.

'Good' Ace thought 'he's tired and not even old enough to shave. I'll take him to the cleaners.'

Nick shifted uncomfortably in the chair “We'll, it's like this,” Nick shook his head “this is going to sound stupid, but,” Nick's gaze fell to the floor.

Balloon Carnival, by Courtney Seymour

There was once a girl who loved balloons. Nothing in the world could make her as happy as watching a balloon float over her head and into the unknown sky. Nothing could cheer her up when she was sad and nothing could make her day brighter more than that magical, colorful, bouncing circle. One day, she was outside laying on the grass, looking up at the sky and making shapes out of the clouds, when a red balloon drifted into view. It flew straight across the barking dog, and through the splashing fish and behind the oak tree in her back yard. The little girl jumped up and ran to the other side of the tree to get a better view of the red balloon, but it was gone. She could not see it anywhere in the big blue and white tie-dye sky. Saddened, she turned around to go back to her comfy spot in the grass, and there, right in front of her, was the red balloon. It was no longer high in the sky, nor was it popped and lying on the ground. It wasn’t stuck in a tree branch or caught in the swirling wind. It was just settled right in front of her, bobbing up and down, up and down in the empty space between her and her grass bed.

Siblings, by Renee Blasier

One night, when I was about twenty-one my brother, Charlie, who was fifteen months younger than I, and a bunch of his hoodlum friends, were having a party at our house. My parents were vacationing in Florida. I was pretty much there to supervise and make sure nothing happened to any of my mother’s stuff. The house had an open floor plan with a small kitchen and an island that separated the kitchen, living room, and dining room.

We were all sitting around the table having conversation and drinking; I believe the game we were playing was quarters, you know, that game where everybody sits around the table taking turns bouncing a quarter into a glass of beer. Every time you get the quarter into the glass of beer you have to drink the beer and remove the quarter. Everybody always seemed to get pretty messed up from this game.

Andy sat at the other end of the table from me. He was a tall, skinny, almost dorky kind of guy. He was one of my brother’s friends, and he was picking on me.

A Girl's First Kiss, by Elizabeth Painter

I’ll always remember the first time I saw her. She stood in the break room at Hermann’s, the town’s grocery store I had been just hired to be a cashier at. It was my first day, and I was sent into the break room to wait. She stood alone at the time clock, reading a magazine left for employees to use. I was instantly drawn to her pixie like qualities and fine soft features. Her short dark hair was streaked with red, and her small body filled her khaki’s as though they were made just for her. This threw me off, because I had never had this reaction to a girl before. I quickly identified my reaction as envy - envy that she was so cute and that her perfect little body had all the perfect parts attached to it - unlike my gawky, awkward appearance that sported the usual pony tail and loose fitting clothes. My reaction had nothing to do with attraction. She looked up at me and smiled, and I quickly looked away. I didn’t have too much time to dwell on my thoughts. Moments later I learned that it was her first day at the store too. We were the two hired to take the place of graduating students moving on. Our trainer came in to introduce herself as Tina, and in the process I learned that my new coworker’s name was Cassandra, but she preferred to be called C.J. I did my best to focus on being a diligent new employee and tried not to make any kind of contact with Miss Perfect.