CIRCLE IT ON YOUR CALENDAR   WHY? DON’T FORGET TODAY IS THE DAY Eva woke up slowly and glanced at the clock.  6: a.m. almost time to get up.  She stretched and noticing the cool air, pulled the warm quilt back around her shoulders.  Today is Saturday, she told herself.  Today is the day, well, evening, for our Old Girl’s Club meeting.  I really look forward to those monthly evenings when I get to spend time visiting with so many long time school friends.   We reminisce about the old days and speak of plans for the future, anything that is current in the news and often get to make a new friend, if a guest is brought by someone.  Tonight Kira is bringing her visiting cousin to my house for our regular   Club meeting.  She’s a California girl, like the rest of us, but joined the Army right out of High School and has spent her life in the military, according to Kira, living all over the world. What was her name?  I think she called her Bella.  She was younger and not in our class, so I knew of her, but not like a close friend, but any friend or cousin of one of The Group was a friend of everyone’s. This set Eva wondering what she should prepare this morning to serve the group tonight.  Not an easy decision.  A couple were always on a diet, three were vegan, at least they were last month, but who knows, women are so flexible about their various diets.  The others just wanted something rich and delicious  to enjoy once a month on this special day  The group had once voted to be catered and then to have a Pot Luck.  For two...

IT WAS A DARK AND STORMY NIGHT… And Kelly was being made aware that it was.  He was trying to sleep in his own warm bed, in his own little room and sleep was being made impossible, as he could hear that outside in the fearful, darkness the wind blew so hard that it slammed against the window in his room and made it rattle.  Each sound set him to wondering what or who was trying to get into his house. He was frightened, so he hid under the bed covers, just in case it was one of those terrible night monsters that often scared him even when the wind was calm. If he got up the nerve to look out of the night dark window, he was sure he could see some things moving about in the shadows… monsters maybe. He had seen pictures of them in books and on television. Kelly felt safer under the blanket where they would not see him. Suddenly a loud bang of something hitting the wall made him peek out from under the quilt.  He saw nothing. But heard the bang again and again. “Don’t come in.”  he called out trying to sound braver than he felt.  “I’m trying to sleep in here.” In the twin bed across the room his sister, Rory, turned over without waking.  Poor girl, she didn’t understand what could be out there and slept without a care. His mother came in quietly and asked him in her soothing, night voice, so as not to waken Rory,  “Did you call me, Kelly?” “No I was telling those night monsters to stay out.  They knocked on my wall to come in.”  Mother gave a soft laugh. ”That wasn’t anything but the Peach tree branch...

A BRIGHT MOON LIT NIGHT Kelly left his bedroom very late one night to go out into his back yard to get a better look at that especially bright Moon.  He had not been out late at night since he made friends with the Shadow Boy last year in a story called “A Dark and Stormy Night.  That Shadow Boy had gone away with the rest of the shadows when the Moon was gone from sight to shine dimly during the day. “Yet he was sorry that the Shadow Boy never returned.  Kelly blamed it on his Dad’s newly installed yard lights, put up to make their patio more useful. That former darkness had once made it possible for him to see and learn about even more of the Stars and their Constellations, which Kelly found very interesting.  After the patio lights went up, his Father showed him how to find all of those things on his computer, so he had been studying the sky without leaving the house ever since.  It was warmer inside and he could even work in the day time after school. So he didn’t even complain about losing the Shadow friends. But tonight the Moon had called him out as it hung for a short while right in his window beckoning.  It was after midnight, so he put on a warm sweater against the chill.  Then he found the air to be strangely comfortable by the sheer brightness of this Moon and took off the sweater, throwing it on the back of a patio chair. As he sat on the comfortable chaise looking up at the clear sky, he wondered why the Moon had called him out. And what it wanted to tell him. He leaned back and waited...

Kelly had spent the whole morning, when he would have preferred to be off playing baseball with the guys, trailing around behind his mother as she gathered some odd things she seemed to think she needed.  He wasn’t particularly interested in her market basket of assorted things from this grocery store.  But he soon began to notice that they were not the regular, oh, milk and bread and veggies and stuff like that. There were several cartons of the same old eggs though, just lots more than usual.  That might mean she was going to do some baking.  Hmm, who’s birthday was coming up.  Not mine its months away.   Suddenly the cart got interesting.  Mother dropped in the king size bag of jelly beans and followed it with two boxes of chocolate covered, egg shaped,  peanut butter cups, and some food dye. Easter that’s it!  Now let me think. Just when is Easter?  That fun day with egg hunts and baskets filled with goodies doesn’t stand still in one spot like other holidays do.   Kelly began to look around the store and noticed shelves full of bunnies, stuffed fluffy rabbits, painted porcelain ones, balloons with Easter rabbits wearing happy smiles bouncing on sticks, above the expensive, fancy, boxed chocolate rabbits standing on a table all alone.  Yes he was right.  It was almost Easter! As soon as they got home he dashed into his bedroom and sat at his computer to Google up Easter and find out when it would be here. According to his first screen info, Easter was on the first Sunday, after the Paschal, pronounced Pas-kul, moon following the Vernal Equinox., sometime between April 4th, and May 8th and it repeats every 19 years!   With all of that...

All ten of the determined college girls marched in lock step to the tall, brick,  building , just across the Lane from the City’s big popular park known as Green Brady Park.  They paused outside the largest building  for a few seconds, then in one quiet row, no longer in marching mode, entered and stood in the wide waiting room outside of the elegant restaurant’s busy dining room entrance. An attractive, young woman behind the entry desk asked what she could do for them and all nine women looked at the tenth, Sal. Sal, their apparent leader, turned to speak to them. I believe we will have a much better impact if one after the other of us at a time goes in to see the owner and requests nicely his permission to use their large Banquet Room for our monthly meetings. At hearing that, the young woman behind the tall reservation desk interrupted to let them know that the owner was not in today and offered to help. Sal looked disappointed mainly because she had called to ask if Mr. Ben Brady would be available and been assured he would be.  Sal was told that the man who owned the restaurant also knew his way around the kitchen almost as well as the Chef and would be the only one who could give that permission. So no, she didn’t think this young lady could be of much help. “I called first.”  She told the girl.  “I suppose something just came up and he had to leave.” “Oh are you Sal, the one who called for a personal appointment?  Mr. Brady said to tell you he was down by the Boat yard and if you wanted to, you might see him there.  Just tell...

Jake left his bedroom very late one night to go out into his back yard to get a better look at that especially bright Moon.  He had not been out late at night since he made friends with the Shadow Boy last year in a story called “A Dark and Stormy Night.  That Shadow Boy had gone away with the rest of the shadows when the Moon was gone from sight to shine dimly during the day. “Yet he was sorry that the Shadow Boy never returned.  Jake blamed it on his Dad’s newly installed yard lights, put up to make their patio more useful. That former darkness had once made it possible for him to see and learn about even more of the Stars and their Constellations, which Jake found very interesting.  After the patio lights went up, his Father showed him how to find all of those things on his computer, so he had been studying the sky without leaving the house ever since.  It was warmer inside and he could even work in the day time after school. So he didn’t even complain about losing the Shadow friends. But tonight the Moon had called him out as it hung for a short while right in his window beckoning.  It was after midnight, so he put on a warm sweater against the chill.  Then he found the air to be strangely comfortable by the sheer brightness of this Moon and took off the sweater, throwing it on the back of a patio chair. As he sat on the comfortable chaise looking up at the clear sky, he wondered why the Moon had called him out. And what it wanted to tell him. He leaned back and waited patiently for an answer.  The...

The path one travels everyday grows to be so routine that it begins to seem monotonous, so even though the walk from my house to the beach was a tiny journey and I enjoyed it very much, I soon neglected to take it unless I had other reasons to do so. Time passed and I looked out the window daily until once it came to me that I had no idea how long it had been since I walked down the fifty stair-steps and small leap to the sand at the stairs end to stroll on the lovely little cove beach I looked down at from my sun-room window for hours every single day. Suddenly I was driven by a need to go down there myself and put my feet into that probably cold ocean, but my ocean, just as my way of claiming it,  Simply loving it from the top view and enjoying the changes it made every hour around the clock was not enough to own it.  I must step in the salty water in person.  Fifty steps should not prevent me from doing so. I left my shoes in the house and faced the steps for the first time in a very long while.  Oh I had some very good excuses but they didn’t matter now.  Now I must step carefully down them and even climb back up… today and hopefully more often from now on.   I had not yet reached the sand when I spotted a rock I must take back up with me.  It was small, but unusual, so I reached for it lifting it from the sand first thing, thinking that next time, hopefully tomorrow I would bring my magnet so as to test for possible meteorites....

It began as usual just as the sun rose above the distant dark blue foot hills.   Kira had been awake for several minutes, but stayed in the warmth of her small bed until the sun broke through her east window and pierced the sheer curtain. “Time to get started.”  She said aloud, even though there was no one present to hear her.  She had discovered that even hearing her own voice now and then seemed to break the loneliness that occasionally overwhelmed her after the children left and she found herself living in silence, a peace and quiet she once even longed for. She couldn’t blame them for aloneness now.  They had each found their own separate and different calling and were busy making good in them.  She could only watch and wish them well, and she did have her own job to go to, so she better get going and go there.  Ho Hum though it was. Maybe she should be looking for a different type of work, a thought she often had but didn’t follow through on as her present job, such as it was, ate up her time. A loud noise interrupted her musings.  It was coming from the empty lost next to her small cottage home.  Almost dressed but not quite she pulled on yesterday’s jeans and sweatshirt with her old tennies to go out and investigate. The helicopter which sat on the empty lot was, with motor running, creating the noise and a great deal of dust.  On seeing her, a young man obviously the pilot jump out and ran over shouting over his noisy chopper. “Are you a nurse or a doctor?”   Kira answered, “ Not really, I do have some medical training, yes..” “Then jump...

And Then Some A non-fiction complaint by Beverly Mosier My husband my son and my grandson all say it can’t happen.  That no matter what I say, my computer does not have a mind of its own.  It cannot make decisions or have an opinion, it only does what the operator drives it to do. Well! Excuse me… but I disagree.  My computer not only has opinions, it has unreasonable opinions and acts upon them without me doing anything that should result in the various and unexplainable actions which it takes on its own. I have been writing stories on it for years and I can give many examples of the computer taking things onto its own abilities, I suppose I can’t call it hands, for if it was something done by hands, the blame would fall back upon me for these odd results, which I didn’t want and certainly didn’t need, but that computer stepped in somewhere and somehow changed things. And for a machine it is very talented but often misguided, I must say.    For example I have about forty five stories of different subjects and lengths that I can send to another person whenever I want to.  That list contains maybe twice that many more, meaning half, forty five stories or subjects I don’t want or need.   I have tried forever to delete them and make the list shorter and thus easier to find the thing I may need any given moment. However the computer apparently doesn’t allow that.  It seems to think, there’s that word “think,” that everything may one day be important.  To whom?  The F.B.I.?  The I.R.S.? Certainly not to me, or I would not be searching for the route to delete them.  I gave up...

And other things. One of the first Earth men, one called, Jack, by his few wandering fellow hunters, stepped out of the cave in which he had taken shelter from last night’s raging storm.  The cave had done its job and as he was still dry and a lot warmer than when he slept in a tree, which did nothing but protect him from night roaming four legged creatures, and only somewhat discouraged the climbing ones, he found that he liked the cave better. Much better, because he found flint rock inside on the walls, and small wood pieces that had blown in against the walls, so he had even succeeded in building a fire at the opening to keep other animals out. How to find it again after the day’s bright sky light went away over the sea and down into it, might be a problem,  He stood at the nearly hidden entrance and looked around.  Seeing a small log a few feet away, he dragged it over and stood it up next to the entrance.  He pulled a few small heavy rocks around the bottom to keep it in place.  It seemed rather bare and difficult to spot, so he took a smaller short branch from a hillside bush and laid it crossways on the top of the log.  It had a few green leaves on it and even some rather sweet, bright red flowers.  Ahh, now he could look for the Red Flowers to find his new home.  It became the first address… Red Flower Cave. He looked at the sky to try to figure out how much time he had before he must return to be in his cave before the sky was raging with wind and water again. He...

Or Andrew solves the mystery Fiction based on a GRAIN OF TRUTH The time has come thought John as he pumped his bike up the last and steepest street that led to his home at the top of the Mission Viejo hill. He had been waiting what seemed like ages for this last, but very important piece. The weight of it in his backpack made the climb that much harder, but the thrill of finally having it put a twinkle in his blue eyes and made the work more worthwhile.  Now I can finish, He thought, finally. The three months since he first got the idea seemed like a life-time ago.  Strangely the time had also passed really fast. Now he worried that he did not have enough time.  He rested the tip of one scruffy tennis shoe on the street to steady the bike while he paused for breath. As he wiped the sweat from is freckled face on his sweat shirt sleeve and brushed his short sand colored hair from his forehead he looked around. The street was quiet.  It always was this time of day, with most everyone at work or school.  There were no cars in sight, other than a worker’s Pick-up  parked about a block further on.The homes that lined the street were all big, nice and new.  Mostly two story and painted a variety of whites and beiges. Most of the residents had lived here long enough to have finished their front yards and lawns with small new trees and shrubs, as a courtesy to their neighbors, although several had piles of sand and gravel in the street or drive way, indicating a rear yard under construction. Appreciating the quiet empty street he whispered, “Good Deal.”  He was...

Every tale about the daily lives of a human family doesn’t need a tragic ending.  Most people only require just a little more Time…

The sun was out but it was not too hot or bright, in other words a perfect day for working in the yard.  Betsy thought briefly about going back in to change from her new stretch Jeans into an older pair.  But as she was not sure exactly what she might do today, she decided to just be a bit more careful and she could keep these new pants clean.  So she took up her bucket which holds the garden tools and stepped slowly around looking for something that called out to be done first.  Almost everything did need some sort of attention as she had been recovering from a surgery and had been house bound for much too long to suit her Texas Lifestyle. She stood a moment taking in the fresh air just appreciating the chance to be out in it, when a bee buzzed close by her face and slid by her ear with a loud zzz sound.  Betsy covered her ear as the bee zipped past but not before she heard it say, “Zzee Aspen tree!”  Did she really hear that?  Did the bee actually speak to her and say, The Aspen tree?  What about the Aspen tree?  Their yard had many, many, trees, but only one Aspen and it was so far back in a spot behind the Hanger that it was not even visible from the house.  She began to walk into the rose garden because they always needed something if only dead heading.  But the bee zzoomed back and past the other ear. “zzee Aspen tree!”  It zzsaid to the other ear.  Then it zzzoomed up and out of sight over the hanger.  She wouldn’t have been able to see where it went except the sun had...

On the very first day of the New Year, the three friends sat drinking their morning hot chocolate and deciding whether or not to each make one New Year’s Resolution. “Not” was winning for the first few sips until the heat of the drink began to awaken the still groggy brain cells. It was not that they had partied too much last night. To the contrary, all three had been active until the wee hours, tending the children of the other party goers. All three young women were in need of money to make their dream of traveling together after High school graduation and before college actually come true. They have been planning this event from the day they first all three met in the third grade of Elementary School. Kelly had been attending school there all along, starting in kindergarten. Sara arrived in the third grade when her parents moved to California while her father was stationed with NASA at the Cal. Tech. Facility. Ellie’s dad had taken a new job and moved, without his family, to somewhere in the far east, so Ellie’s mom had taken an apartment in a big building in Pasadena where Ellie started this new school and met Sara and Kelly. On that very day the school had held a program in the auditorium and they sat watching a travel film of three friends, young men, who had made the movie as they toured the world, This amateur travel documentary was fascinating to the three little girls who sat and ate lunch together for the first time right afterwards and got acquainted by discussing the boys in the movie and their daring trip. “Boys are more daring.” Sara conceded. “Girls can’t do things like that.” Kelly disagreed. “You...

ESPECIALLY FOR BEVERLY NEMETH TO CELEBRATE HER 8TH BIRTHDAY To be the last of anything is likely to be the loneliest and the last tiny green elf living high on the hill top in Laguna was exactly that.  He lived among the grasses and wild flowers that grew on the rolling slopes overlooking that vast blue ocean called Pacific. There were sometimes bright orange California Poppies and sky blue Lupin on the hill top, but mostly tan and brown with wispy green for a few days after rain.   Like some lizards and chameleons this elf could change his color at will.  He learned the secret of that skill while swimming in the ocean one day and came upon a young octopus with his small, but very long, body draped across two flat under water rocks.  He noticed that the octopus was partly the color of one black volcanic rock, but changed right in the middle of three of his eight arms to the light sand color of the other rock.  The elf watched in amazement as the arms of what was very large to him, but still a small baby sea creature, smoothly blended to match whatever was under them. “How do you do that?”  The elf inquired.  “I’ve seen the chameleon change and wondered about them, too, but they won’t explain it to me.  I’ve asked and asked to no avail.” “Why do you need to know?”  Octopus asked, politely, as that is how the young learn about things.   “For the same reason as you always do it.  I would like to become nearly invisible.” “Well, I can tell you that this knowledge is important to me, as it often saves my life.”  The octopus answered.  “Big fish can’t try to eat...

Sometimes things just don’t go as planned.  Pamela thought she was learning that fact the hard way. She had been heard complaining, “That is not the way I planned it!”  Finally I actually heard her best friend, Bren, snap back with the tart reply, “You planned this?” “Well yes, I planned something, but not this or anything like it.” Pam informed her friend.  “ Sometimes I believe there is a little group of Trouble Trolls who are constantly on the look-out for anything that seems to be going smoothly and faultlessly, who are standing around, doing nothing, prepared to step up to the plate and switch this for that or that for this, whatever will put a kink into anything that was, until they arrived, doing fine. For example, If you are baking a first class birthday cake which you promised to take to the party and you use all of your eggs and butter to make your special Birthday Cake.  When it is finally in the pan and ready to be baked for 40 minutes, and the timer is set, as soon as you walk away the Trouble Troll will sneak over and turn off the oven.  The timer will work perfectly and in 40 minutes it calls you and you open the oven to find the pan full of wet batter sitting in a cold oven., with no time left to wait another 40 minutes. And what about those naughty rascals who were the children of the Trouble Trolls who hung around the ice cream parlors for the fun of tipping people who left eating ice cream cones, so they would stumble and lose a scoop or two from their cones to the side walk., which would leave the walk so slippery...

The first to see it was, Pete, the man standing in the crow’s nest on top of the mast. He called out but the wind swallowed his words.  Before he could signal it was gone.  He scanned the water with binoculars but found nothing.  Had it been his imagination?  Bill was not the kind to imagine things, nor a drinker who saw pink elephants.  However this was pink and as big as an elephant, though even an elephant was tiny on the vast Pacific open ocean.  So it wasn’t the size, it was the color. Whatever it was, or had been, was a perfectly round ball of brilliant pink.    Not the usual color of a creature one spotted on the high seas. Today it was Pete’s job to stand this mast top watch and report everything he saw, but now that he wasn’t even sure he had seen it, what should he do? He continued his watch as usual.  If it was real it would surely surface again.  If it did, he would… what?  He couldn’t photograph it.  He didn’t have a camera and he couldn’t draw it he didn’t have anything actually, except his binoculars.  Maybe he would just hope it was gone for good.  At the end of his watch he returned to the deck and began a swift walk around the rails of the ship.  Anyone who had been in a position to see it and was out there at the time, he questioned casually, just to feel them out.  If they had seen anything unusual they would know what he was asking about, if not then not! “You mean that big giant pink thing?”  He was almost amazed to have found someone who described it exactly.   “Then you...

Once upon a time… when the sky was blue and the clouds were white. John and Kira went for a short but challenging hike up into the craggy granite mountains of Arizona. They each carried supplies for two days and an over-night in that especially beautiful green forested section of the lower mountains. They parked their car close to the rest rooms in the public lot provided by the Forestry Department and stopped in at the rustic, wooden, cabin where the Rangers advised visitors and gave them maps of the various hiking trails along with some pamphlets to instruct the beginners and regulars alike of the ‘Considerate Hiker’s Rules’ to help benefit the people, wild animals, and the mountains alike. The couple stood before the giant colored wall map and discussed the planned route. They were not green-horns but healthy regulars to these mountains with an idea of which new unexplored, by them, path to take this time. John ran his finger tips lightly along the trail dots as they appeared in red and Kira agreed. So with that in mind, off they went into the fresh cool, pine, breeze. Down by a cold water brook a large granite boulder marked the start and eventually the end of the trail they intended to travel today. They had left home in the dark to arrive here early and as they scanned the mountain ridges for the one that was to be today’s destination, they noticed that the morning sun was still hiding behind the mountains, and although the sky was light blue, in this section anyway, it was still before sunrise. A good start. They began slowly, walking the well pounded path beside the brook and up the gradual grade slowly so as to be...

“THE RING WITH THE BRILLIANT RED STONE” A hungry black crow was pecking through the sand on a rock and sea weed strewn beach hoping to find enough food to fill her empty stomach and give her the strength to keep searching until she had food to fill her three just hatched babies.  She could hear them even now, high in the eucalyptus tree nest crying for her to come feed them.  She was not having much luck, but she kept pecking, she was not the least bit choosey, she would be happy with sea critters that were often buried in this sand, or a worm hiding in the sea weed, she also often found potato chips, half eaten cookies, or bits of hot dog fallen from the hands of a child, rushing to get back to playing in the surf. The weather must have been dull as she was not finding any people foods either.  With no other choice she carried on.  Then ahead she saw something shiny and thin like a worm with both ends poking into the sand.  She hurried to catch it in her beak before it escaped.  Grabbing the exposed middle she pulled and found herself with a very hard worm indeed.   The shiny thing was a gold ring.  It slipped from her beak to the sand and she saw the front held a blood red stone.  It glittered and winked in the sun and she was so taken with its beauty that she decided to keep it anyway.  She slipped her right foot through the loop and pulled the blood stone until the ring was hanging loose on her leg. Still hungry, she went back to the hunt.  Things quickly, almost magically, got a lot better as...

A very nice rainbow arched the low dark blue waves.   There was no rain so the air must have been very heavy with that potential.  The rainbow’s colors lit up the western sky with the morning sun as it first peeked over the eastern range of still dark hills.  It seemed to pause as if holding its breath while deciding on the type of day it would like to present. Those of us observing waited impatiently for that crucial information.  It would very much color our plans one way or the other. If it was to be as clear and peaceful as the low waves suggested, it was one thing.  But if the rainbow was a precursor of coming rain, and the heavy clouds and thunderous sky the rain often brings with it, then it was of course another. If it was clear and smooth high in the sky, Cliff would take his first flying lesson today. Cliff was no longer a child at this point.  He had in fact just passed his 27th birthday on April 19th… but he had not yet become a man either. He had worked at that intermittently, as far as a casual onlooker could tell, by enrolling in and even sometimes attending college. Starting very young, he took up one musical instrument after the other including his voice and always showed great potential for each and everything he attempted, but not the necessary drive. From as soon as he could climb upon one without adult aid, Cliff had taken to horses.  When he rode in jumping competitions, people in the viewing stands stopped conversing mid-sentence just to watch him. All around was quiet as that boy rode into the arena.  It was as if the boy and...

OH NO! NOT ANOTHER MOVE The little boy named, Kelly Christiansen, was born in the hospital at the Air Force Base in the desert of California on September, 30, 2006.  He knew as soon as he could walk that the empty desert was very useful, for their daddy.  He was an Air Force Test Pilot, who flew mostly big C-130’s and that huge, dry, desert had miles and miles of room for Edwards, Air Force Base.  And even better, there was plenty of sky space for him, and the other pilots, to fly their different airplanes without worrying about towns under them.  Sometimes mom would point daddy out to him as his plane passed over their house. because she knew how to tell his plane from the others. It’s a fact that when your Daddy gets married while stationed at that large Air Force Base in Little Rock Arkansas and has a son born, while stationed at Edwards, in the middle of California, followed by a daughter, Lorelei Lally, born, June 1, 2010, half way around the world in England, close to the giant rocks of Stone Henge, you know for sure that you are going to have an interesting life, always moving from place to place. Still you cannot imagine how exciting it could then become when you leave England for Alabama, a United States southern state on the coast of the Gulf of Mexico, only to almost lose your English accent and not quite acquire a southern accent to find that your daddy has been transferred to work in the great Pentagon Building in our country’s Capitol, Washington, District of Columbia.  And even more confusing, he and mom bought a house in another different state.  Virginia, Kelly was pretty sure he heard...

It really shouldn’t have happened at all! It’s just that some creatures seem bent on making mischief and causing trouble for themselves and all about them. The Ogres are just such creatures. And the intended victims of the Ogres pranks seemed to have been the people of the village of Rivertown. No one knows for sure why the Ogres decided to wreak such havoc on the Rivertown folks, who were very pleasant and friendly. Maybe, it was true that the Ogres wanted to chase the Rivertown folks away, so they could take over the lovely little village. It really was a lovely village, nestled in the cool green woods near the winding river. Yes, maybe the Ogres wanted the the area to themselves. Maybe. But the fact is, they suddenly began to act very mean. The river ran swiftly between the tall mountain cliffs, creating a small valley, almost isolated from the rest of the country-side. This was Rivertown. Although the people had nearly everything they could want, it was often necessary for them to go by wagon to the big city, far on the otherside of the river. So they built a sturdy bridge across the river and a road that connected to the city highway. Some of the people, who crossed the bridge, soon noticed that a Troll had taken up residence under the bridge. Toll the Troll was his name. He had built himself a rather cute little house, with a small door and a single window in the front. No one really minded that Toll the Troll had built his house there, until the bad things began to happen. First, Willie the woodcutter, taking a load of logs to the city, had his wagon upset, and lost his entire load in...

“Hot dogs, potato chips, punch and cake. Did I forget anything?” asked Grant, chewing on the end of his pencil thoughtfully. “That sounds great to me!” answered Robert, shifting around on the floor for a more comfortable position. “We haue been working on this party menu for an hour. Let’s not change it again.” He leaned over and looked at the page Grant had been working on. Popcorn was scratched out. “I do think we should have popcorn, though, that’s my favorite!” “O.K. Popcorn. Andrew likes it, too, and it is his birthday party. I sure hope you can keep a secret so we can surprise him.” “Me! You’re the one who told Dad about his surprise on Father’s Day!” “I only told him once! And Father’s Day was a long way off. I thought he would forget by then. Besides, he said he was surprised.” Grant argued. “Sure. Well keep Andrew’s party to yourself and let’s see if we can pull it off this time. Mom said it was all up to you and me and John. You can see how interested John is.” They both looked up from their floor work place, to John, who lay fast asleep on the bed.  Grant leaned against the bed and picked up the pad and pencil. “We’d better plan some games or something now that the menu is finished.” “You call that a menu?” said a voice. “I can’t believe you two! Planning a two elf party! “John?” said Robert softly. John was still asleep. Then he saw a little light on the pillow next to John’s face. The light hopped over to the foot of the bed next to Grant. And there stood a tiny elf. He had his hands on his hips...

In a cave beside the road there lived a fox family. Daddy fox went out hunting everyday to try to bring home enough food for his family of Mama fox and five little foxes. It was hard work. Sometimes they had enough to eat and sometimes they were very hungry.The baby foxes waited impatiently for Daddy fox to come home each night to see if there would be dinner to eat. If there was, everyone was contented and Daddy played with them after dinner and all were happy. If Daddy found no dinner, he came home late and was too tired to play and they were all hungry. One sunny day Little Peep, the chicken, was walking along the road, when something hit him on the head. He looked at the ground. There was a tiny pebble. He picked it up and ran until he came to the big hen, Dumb Cluck. “Look!” he cried out. “A pebble has fallen on my head. What can it mean?” Dumb Cluck looked at the pebble. “Oh dear,” she clucked this looks like a piece of the mountain! We must go and warn the others that the mountain is falling. Jerky Turkey will know what to do.” They ran to Jerky Turkey. “Little Peep has been hit on the head by a pebble! We think the mountain is falling. What shall we do?” Jerky Turkey looked at the pebble and gobbled. ” We must run and tell Dull Duck. They ran to Dull Duck and showed him the pebble. “The mountain is falling!” They all cried. “Hurry!” said Dull Duck. “We must hide in the cave, before the mountain falls!” And they all ran into the cave at once. Inside the cave sat the fox family. They were...

One cold winter, twin bears were born, deep in a warm cave. They stayed in the cave with their mother, as long as the snow was on the ground. On a lovely spring day she led them out into the world. The mother bear looked out across the lovely green pasture, wet with the morning dew. The twins sniffed the cool air and looked out toward the blue mountains. The world was a beautiful place, indeed. To the first born, and biggest and gruffest of the twins, she said. “I will name you Pasture after the spring green meadow.” Then to the smaller quieter bear, she said, “I will call you Dew, after the sparkling drops glistening on the pasture wild flowers.” Pass and Dewy. They nundged each other playfully. “Someday when you are big.” Their mother said, “You will own all of the lands you see, from here to the tall blue mountains. You will have to divide them one day, of course, and each rule an empire of your own. But for now you must stay by me, while I teach you about your lands. Today we will go down to the stream and I will teach you to fish,” And off they went, tripping over the rocks and sniffing at the flowers. Pass and Dewy were friends and played happily together, although they were very, very different. Pass would challenge every animal he met. He chased the birds and frightened the baby foxes and wolves every chance he got. “They must learn.” he said, “That I am the master of these lands.” Dew, on the other hand was good natured and loved to have the other animals about. He loved to listen to the birds sing. Sometimes they came right down...