The buses idled along the curb as they wrapped the length of the roundabout as students loaded their bags into the large compartments under each bus. A few small groups were gathered outside of the buses, laughing and joking with their friends who were riding separate buses. Derek had already loaded up his gear onto bus number four, but he was stalling boarding until the very last moment.

While the field trip involved the entire junior and senior classes, the popular kids always rode bus number four and wrote all of the rules of the bus. The stories that survived each class were legendary: Kim and Tammy making out for 30 minutes, smoking electronic cigarettes without the chaperons knowing, and the ecstasy party. Those were only the good stories though, the ones that made every junior want to get onto the bus. The trouble was, you could only be invited onto that bus, and when you arrived, you had to succumb to the initiation.
Continue reading →

The line at the door wrapped back and forth three times between velvet ropes outside of Hillary’s favorite breakfast bar. She walked directly up to the bouncer and spoke, “Hey Lenny.” She smiled brightly as Lenny stepped to the side and let her walk through without hesitation.

The bar was full of laughter and upbeat music, packed to the gills as usual for a Saturday morning. She slipped off her thin coat to reveal a red dress that barely reached to her mid-thigh, cinched by a rich brown leather belt. She noticed her friends standing at the end of the bar and made a beeline for their location.

The top of the bar in front of her friends had a small appetizer plate of breakfast burritos and a pitcher of orange juice; they had started without her. Hillary was feeling amazing, “Last night was totally worth it.”
Continue reading →

The doorbell rang loudly, followed by a knock at the door a second later. “He’s here! I’m not ready,” yelled Madison as her bedroom door slammed shut. The squeak of the dining room chair being pushed back answered the doorbell’s chime as Sean stood up and headed towards the front door.

Sean had picked out his favorite “Semper Fi” shirt so he could make his presence that much more impactful when he met this boyfriend his daughter was having over. He casually strolled up towards the front door, but as he was within arms reach of the deadbolt, Stephanie’s voice rang out from upstairs. “Sean, can you get the door?”

“Yes dear.” Sean unlocked the door and pulled it open wide to find a young man with curly brown hair that lay just over the tops of his ears. His mother’s car was still running as she waved at him from inside the car. Sean gave her a polite wave and stepped to the side. “Greg? Please, come in.”
Continue reading →

“Did you say, one penny?” The woman stood dumbfounded, looking directly at the counter clerk.

“Yes ma’am, that’s the remaining balance on your layaway,” replied the clerk politely. The woman’s eyes quickly welled up and tears began flowing down her cheeks. She stumbled out a few words, “How did this happen?” To that question the clerk smiled. “An anonymous donor wanted to wish you a Merry Christmas and covered most of the remaining balance,” she paused, “except one penny.”
Continue reading →

“Triple kill baby! Suck that you bastards,” yelled Theo into the microphone dangling in front of his mouth. The sound of gun fire and recorded voices spilled out from the headset and into the rest of the room. Kaylee was pouring over some calculus homework at the kitchen table, her books and papers spread out and covering 90% of the available surface area. She looked up with an apprehensive look at the coach where Theo was sitting.

“Boom, got another one!”
Continue reading →

Tara poured over all of the details of the map, one inch at a time. The light from the flashlight gripped in her teeth gave off a focused cone of light, shedding very little extraneous light. The sound of moving water was echoing through the chamber around her. Tara grabbed the flashlight out of her teeth, swallowed, and looked up at the ceiling above.

The glowworms brought the stars indoors with their shimmer. After traveling from the Isle of Man to Machu Picchu, she had stopped briefly at Cape Horn before realizing she was at the wrong location and catching the next flight to the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa. Even after all of that traveling, she hadn’t bother to look up at the night sky in the last few weeks. Now she was in the heart of New Zealand’s north island, at the Waitomo Caves looking at the larvae’s version of the night sky.
Continue reading →

Penny threw another shirt onto the pile on the bed. She was pacing back and forth between the bathroom and closet mirrors like a squirrel collecting nuts. She curled out her bottom lip and exhaled quickly, sending her bangs into the air for a moment. She looked into her full walk-in closet, “There is nothing to wear!”

Penny grabbed a navy blue dress with medium white polka dots all over and pulled it off of the rack, laying it flat against the rest of the hanging clothes. “Too flirty.” She tossed it toward the bed and pulled out another dress for scrutiny. “Too shiny.” She selected and then disregarded another 5 dresses before returning to her pacing. The decision was tricky; she didn’t want to seem to anxious, but also wanted to still draw some of his attention. If it was just a normal date, she would have chosen the polka dot dress and known that she would have had his full attention. The trouble was, this wasn’t a normal date, it was an invitation to a group outing. She wasn’t sure how many people would be attending, but she still wanted to get his attention. After all, she was sure that she wanted him.
Continue reading →