Preteen or Intermediate

Yay! The final part.

Where our Heroine rediscovers the joys of snowball fights, and gets done up in pigtails and ribbons. 

What would you do if you had a chance of living your life over again? Would you correct all those mistakes hindsight told you? Use your knowledge of the future to become rich? But what if this wasn't quiet the past you remember?

Somewhere in Heaven (probably downtown where all the freeways come together, near all the other government agencies...) is an office building about the size of Mount Everest, where angels with great ledger books keep the balance of our sins. When we do or think something bad it is noted in our account summary, and when we go to confession the priest gives us the bill for whatever we declare, and as we do penance our balance is brought back to zero. The Church is nothing if not well-organized.

I knew that the key to ever being able to behold that colossal building---and all the other  monuments, rides + attractions Heaven has to offer---was in making sure you didn’t die when you were in the red. But certain thoughts and deeds of mine seemed too strange and terrible to ever admit to, so I confessed to invented sins that I hoped would be bad enough to stand in for those shameful wanting-to-be-a-girl ones. It was a pretty nifty little system I had worked out. Until that Sunday when I was twelve, when my whole clever scheme came crashing down around me! 

OUR LADY OF SORROWS==A Jackie Kaiser Story==(6 months before the events of The Abattoir)
by Laika Pupkino

It was about a month before my 13th birthday. Having come home from work unexpectedly, the Ogre---who was what passed for a masculine role model in my life---had decided to take one final stab at "making a man out of me" before writing me off forever as a hopeless little bitch...

"What the hell you cryin' for? You're a boy, nothing's gonna change that! What's that you're coverin' with your hand, huh? You think putting on a damn dress changes anything? Do you? Answer me, goddamn it!"

I stood there shivering, feeling horribly vulnerable. By now I didn't know what I was, or what would change what. I was sobbing, trying to nod my head yes and shake it no at the same time.

"For God's sake Sam, that's enough! Let him get dressed!"

"No, I want him to say it first! What are you?"

"I'm a boy," I blubbered.

"That's a start. Now put some damn trousers on and come with me..."

In a drizzle of slushy snow I was marched across the yard to the shed, where I was forced to take part in a grotesque & humiliating ritual of destruction. This was the heart of darkness.

The Abattoir
(a Jackie Kaiser story)
by Laika Pupkino

Nick finally finds the courage to venture out of the house dressed as Nicole only to return to a house on fire with his parents screaming to firemen to rescue him from the burning house. Special thanks are in order to Michelle B. for editing this for me.

What is Miranda up to? Where is Tech Sergeant Emanuel Perez? how do the events of "My Report, How I Spent my Summer" and a doctor's problem in "Safe Haven" relate to each other? Stay tuned for further chapters to this week's tale, or should it be tail?

What is Miranda up to? Where is Tech Sergeant Emanuel Perez? how do the events of "My Report, How I Spent my Summer" and a doctor's problem in "Safe Haven" relate to each other? Stay tuned for further chapters to this week's tale, or should it be tail?

The Wishers A tale full of magic, hearth breaking kindness and of course your handful of humour.

By: Alice Papillon

The front cover of "The Wishers" serial

The Wishers
A tale full of magic, hearth breaking kindness and of course your handful of humour.

By:
Alice Papillon

Thus the legend of the battle for the royal blood…

Meanwhile when everyone was busy trying to sleep Joy was having a dark sleep ruled by disasters, premonitions and magic. The land was always shifting and nothing was a steady reality, even for a dream this was nothing usual. A dark and a white figure made of nothing but light and darkness respectively were in front of Joy, by his right a voice spoke.