Graeme

When your paramedic arrives by bicycle...

Melissa really is heartless. She's willing to destroy her brother to get revenge on Brad. A really sad person... I found it interesting in that first encounter between Brad and Kyle that Brad's teammates were trying to stop him. Now, that could be because they didn't want him to get into trouble by doing something out in the open, but it could also be that at least some of them knew what he wanted to do was wrong. Unfortunately, we don't know if the football players who supported his actions after school were the same ones in the earlier incident, or if Brad went looking for like-minded teammates to help him out. Being generous, I'm hoping it was the latter. On a happier note, I'm still not convinced that Buddy was actually asleep during History. I thought the timing of his snoring was actually a sophisticated critique on the quality of his group's play. It's just too much of a coincidence, otherwise

Thanks, Sammy! A few other people have been thinking about that place, too. You'll just have to wait to see who buys it...

Real life 'spider-man' saves boy dangling from Paris balcony

4 year old Harry can't walk, but he's kicked his first footy goal

Thank you, @Rndmrunner. As you may recall, the issue of married gay men with children is something I'm very familiar with, being in that situation myself. In my case, my wife and have stayed together after I came out, but it was touch-and-go for awhile. As it is, I've just passed a milestone -- I have now spent half my life married to a wonderful woman. I'm 55 and I've been married for 27.5 years, and been out for just over half of that time. @impunity, I understand and appreciate your comment about Jeremey's "as a little gay" statement, but as you've guessed, it was to reflect the casual homophobia that exists. Indeed, from Mason's lack of reaction, you can assume that either he's used to it, or he didn't even pick up on it being homophobic. The word "gay" used to mean "happy". Then it meant "homosexual". Today, for many young people, it means somethings else again. Yes, the new meaning is derived from homophobia, but I believe a lot of them don't realise that. It's only because it also means "homosexual" that it impacts on us.

Ah... @Timothy M. Let's see what I can respond to... Okay, done. I hope you found that informative. Seriously, though, Tim, thank you. As always, I look forward to your speculations.

Thanks, @BlindAmbition. I agree that it would be better for Mason's parents to tell him the truth, but his father has decided otherwise. He thinks he's protecting Mason, and now that Mason's safe, he doesn't see any point in mentioning it. Not the best approach, but Mason's father is clearly an old-school type who believes he knows best and it'll take a lot to make him change his mind once it's made up. The Australian press is generally pretty good about keeping names out of things when appropriate. There was an incident a couple of years ago where a young AFL player was catfished, and the nude photos he thought were going to a girl ended up on a gay website. The name of the player and the club he played for were never mentioned in any of the Australian media as far as I know, though I believe at least one USA media outlet mentioned both. One of the things in Dave's favour is that there are very few media companies in Australia, and none of them would like to be blacklisted by a major sporting organisation such as the AFL, especially as in a case like this, the other major sporting codes would probably follow suit with a blacklist. Yes, Neil is still fragile. He's a lot better than he was, but change can be traumatic, and moving to another city, a long way from almost everyone he knows, is definitely traumatic.

Nineteen hours after Sydney celebrated the New Year, it was time for Los Angeles to do the same. Mason was with his friends from school at a party as they waited for midnight to approach. The majority of attendees were Hispanic, with most of the rest being African American. Mason was one of the handful that belonged to both groups, though given some of the pairings that were occurring that night, it was likely there would be more in the next generation. “Yo, dude,” Mason said as he approache

Almost the same for me, except I was considerably older than 16 when I read them. Like more than double. They're good, simple escapism. They have some nice twists, but overall I didn't think they were special enough to re-read (unlike a number of other series I own). If you enjoyed the first two, I would recommend reading the rest of the series. I'll leave it up to you as to whether your borrow or buy the extra books.

Kyle's life is looking up, or at least a little better on the home front, but Buddy's life is close to rock bottom. He sees no hope for himself, no future, and is contemplating if it's worth going on. Even so, seeing Kyle has had an impact. All we can do is hope it's a positive one.

If you want to check a potential "before" case, the second chapter of Leopard Hunt was originally posted as unpublished, and sometime later I edited to put in a publication date of this coming Saturday. You can check it's current status, and then use that information if it doesn't appear in the story update list to work out why.

Thank you @Dr. John NYC

A sad chapter where everything goes wrong. Kyle is outed, even if it's with a fake picture. Buddy's in trouble with Aubrey for losing the bag of weed. Kyle is about to find out who his mother is going to side with, and Buddy is going to be paying the price for being jumped. The only good news is that we all know Ron generally likes happy endings, so I hope things start to get better soon...

Happy Birthday! Just remember, no matter how hard you try, you won't catchup to me in age... 😛

While Kyle is obviously going to have trouble with Melissa, and Buddy is receive trouble from Brad, it was Buddy giving up that scared me the most. While I don't like drugs, Buddy exchanging sexual favours for weed is much better than my initial thought of what he had planned. Buddy's still at risk, but I'm hoping Andre is enough to keep him alive until he and Kyle can connect.

Congratulations!

@Myr, I understand. Don't go to any trouble for me. I was just curious.

For curiosity's sake, only, I wouldn't mind seeing the same data presented with the genre combinations as separate slices. I've seen a lot of romance/drama stories, so I suspect the pie chart is overstating those genres because of the double counting. Simply because I'm curious, I would like to see a chart where each story is only counted once.

Thanks, everyone! I re-introduced many of the characters for exactly the reason you mention: it's been quite a while since the last book and not everyone will remember all the charcters. However, given the sheer number of characters in the previous books, I couldn't introduce everyone. I know what you mean, but Ithink I had more than enough characters being re-introduced already. A few of the others will appear in upcoming chapters, but I'm not going to try to re-introduce everyone -- they would be too overwhelming. I'm always cautious with introducing new characters. They have to have a reason to be interacting with the Leopards. We can see Ben's motivation: a club known to be supportive of a gay player would be attractive for a closeted footballer. We're yet to see how Mason will fit into things...

Thank you!

Brad is the one that interested me in this chapter. His reaction to Melissa isn't the one I expected from someone with a reputation as a player. Either he's actually fallen for Melissa (though still being unable to keep it in his pants around other girls), or in his mind he has to be the one to break up with the girl, not the other way around. I'm inclined to think it's the latter, but I could be wrong. At least Kyle and Buddy have no met, even if it's just in one class, and they were very tentative with each other. It's a start...

LOL -- yes, I know. That's why I've scattered summaries of previous events through this and latter chapters. But I also need to keep the story moving forward, so it's a balancing act, as so many things are. I've only been to one NYE party at the Rocks and that was over 30 years ago, but I still remember a lot of details. Things have changed since then, but there are some parts that are still the same. Thank you! To get the most out of this series, you really need to read the novels one after the other, but I'm also trying to make the stories understandable for those that don't have the time to go back and re-read the earlier novels. And oops on Ollie's surname 😞 It's actually not that unlikely for all of them to get into the University of Sydney. University entrance is easier and simpler here in Australia than it is in the USA. There will be more details in later chapters, but in effect, all Year 12 students (seniors) in Australia get a summary score called the ATAR for their studies. Each university course has an ATAR score associated with it. If your score exceeds the ATAR score for the course you've applied for, you'll get in. There are exceptions (fine arts also requires a portfolio, some universities require an interview for medicine, etc), but the majority of course acceptances are simply done through the ATAR score. The uncertainty comes in if a course has limited places, plus the students only see the ATAR score that was required the year before. The current year's ATAR score requirement may differ, though generally by not a lot. In summary, Neil, Liam and Clarissa know what their ATAR scores are, plus any subject prerequisites (such as doing sufficiently well in English and one of the mathematics options to get into Engineering), so they can be fairly confident as to whether they're likely to get in. Liam didn't do well enough to get into Engineering purely on his ATAR (he could still get in because universities can give subject bonuses to students who did well in certain subjects, or bonuses for non-academic issues such as a rural background, disabilities that could've affected their ATAR score, etc), so he applied for additional courses for which he does have the requisite ATAR score.

Thank you! Sorry about the time delay between chapters, but I want to make sure I can post regularly. I would prefer to post weekly, but if I did that, I would run out of chapters before I would finish the story.

@Timothy M. you know I can't comment on most of what you said, but I can clarify one point. Yes, this is set between the last chapter of Leopards Leap and the epilogue of that story. To remind the other readers, the epilogue of Leopards Leap occurred mid January, 2015, so this chapter is set about two weeks before that. However, the prologue of this story is around June 2014. It was set against the USA mid-term election primaries, and well before the actual election (which was in November 2014). It;'s the one that was set back in time and that time gap is why I made it a prologue rather than as the opening chapter. Ben's role in football hasn't been mentioned so far, but I saw him as a midfielder (the same as Jim and Dave). That's another reason for having Charlie as his mentor, since Charlie is also (now) a midfielder. However, it's not a requirement that the mentor have the same football role as the rookie since the mentor's role is more about fitting into the club culture and settling in as part of the team, rather than about their football skills.