Biff Spork

@scrubber6620Thanks - glad you enjoyed "wiggles." ("Frottage" always sounds kind of messy. Of course it is ultimately messy, but the wiggling part is more fun.) @VBlewYes, it promises to be an interesting dinner - more interesting than anyone expects!

When Jude rang the doorbell, there was no answer. Why wasn’t anyone answering the door? It irritated Jude because it had been a long ride. He had not phoned because he thought River would hang up. Being there in person would make it harder for River to be unfriendly. Jude calculated that if he kept after River, he could get him back as a jerk-off buddy. He was easy to push around. He pressed the doorbell button again. He could hear it ringing inside the house, but there was no other sound o

@scrubber6620 and @SnowBear Thanks for your comments. @SummerabbacatSoccer comes alive when you see it played by a bunch of kids in the street in a 3rd world country. Professional soccer is relatively bland, and modern strategic play has taken a lot of the fun out of the game.

Doreen had changed from her work clothes and was heading for the kitchen when the doorbell rang. River Jameson stood on the doorstep. “Hi, Mrs. McAdam. Is David home?” “He’s not here yet.” Doreen wished David was there. During the school year, he always greeted her when she got home from work. Now he never returned from the mountain until just before supper. “He won’t be back for an hour or so.” “Okay,” said River and turned away. The disappointed slump of his shoulders aroused Do

David and Zhiv’s daily activities had formed a pattern. The boys met when David parked his bike. Then they trotted upward along a direct route to the plateau and the lake. After a swim, they breakfasted on whatever David had brought and Zhiv had foraged. Then they lay down in each other’s arms and drifted in the mara for an hour or two. David heard the mara better every day. He was learning to communicate with the creatures he met there, including Zhiv. The first time this happened, he and

Hector Sanchez ran down the trail toward the campground where he had parked his truck-camper. Angry bees had stung him several times, and a dozen pursued him. He laughed. Aggressive honeybees suggested he was on the right track. Hector collected and studied unusual interactions between humans and animals. For the last week, he had been following reports of antagonistic human-animal encounters, an unusual number of such events. The center of these happenings seemed to be the area around Jana Moun

At supper that evening, Pete described his afternoon encounter with Sol Mundy. David was so fascinated by his story that he didn’t notice the significant glances Doreen aimed at him. David asked, “When the sheriff said, ‘Are you threatening me?’ was he angry?” “Not really,” said Pete, “and he laughed when the kid said, ‘No, I’m warning you.’” “Wow!” “Yeah. That kid’s got the sheriff buffaloed — pretty well everyone else too. He’s something else, for sure. Sheriff Morgan is a

Melissa spent the morning dealing with her e-mail in-box. There were hundreds of messages to Earth-Girl about the boy who rescued the pigs. She sorted them into categories. Later she would compose a form reply to each category. Most writers wanted more information about the boy. What was his name? Why was he naked? What happened to him after he entered the forest? Many others complimented her on the video or thanked her for it and asked for more rescue videos like it. As she scanned the mes

Pete and Doreen watched the television news. The lead story was the pig rescue on Sunday. It included clips from Earth-Girl’s viral video. Pete told Doreen what he knew about the boy, his Social Services record and how he had been missing for a year. After the news, Pete settled down to watch his favorite crime drama. Doreen went upstairs to David’s room and knocked on his open door. David looked up from his laptop and invited her in. She sat on his bed near the desk where he was working.

Zhiv and David hiked to the lake. Both boys needed to unwind. The trout joined them as they swam. The lake’s cool waters refreshed them, and they relaxed under the gentle massage of a thousand silky fins. Afterwards, they basked in the sun. When they lay in each other’s arms, all worries and cares fled. David buried his face in Zhiv’s tangled golden hair and sniffed deeply the aroma of boy and forest. Both boys floated in the mara on the edge of ecstasy. The grumbling of David’s stomach brought

@scrubber6620 Thanks for your comments. It certainly does look like David is going to be well-defended from now on. And yes, that video is going to have a great effect on Zhiv's life in the forest. As for River and David - David prefers to be anonymous because he cannot see any benefit from people knowing he was in the gravel pit with River. @SummerabbacatYes, Zhiv is finally able to help some animals (pigs), though he's considered himself useless to them before this. I see this as the point where his association with animals moves to a new level, where he is more confident in his role as their human servant. Finally he is able to repay some of the care and attention he has received. He is, however, distressed that his actions may attract unwanted attention. Thanks for your ongoing commentary.

@SummerabbacatThanks for your kind words and comments. About River - yes he enjoyed imagining what might come of his and Jude's meeting with David in the gravel pit, but when he was faced with the actuality he soon realized he didn't like it, that it made him uncomfortable, that he really didn't want to go down that road with Jude. As for the effect of the mara's decision on humans I think the animals made their decision based on the idea that humanity is going to kill them anyway and they might as well die fighting for their rights, even if the chance of success is slim.

When Melissa awoke, she checked one of the video sites, eager to see if anyone had watched the pig rescue video. She started to cry. The counter read over 80,000 views, and while she watched, it jumped to 90,000 and then 100,000. The meter started ticking over so fast the numbers were a blur. There were thousands of comments, and her e-mail in-box was full. The animal rights group she had traveled to the river with phoned her. They were overjoyed. Their membership had tripled overnight. The

Jude’s mother tipped calamine lotion onto her fingers. Then she dabbed it onto the swollen wasp stings that stippled her son’s arms, neck, and face. “You boys should know better than to play with a wasp nest,” she said. “We wasn’t playing with nothing,” protested Jude. “They just came outta nowhere and started in on us.” “How about your friend; did the wasps get him too?” “Yeah, he was getting stung, same as me, but he ran off and left me, so I came home alone.” “That’s too b

@scrubber6620Yes, David is now fully accepted into the mara by the animals. When Jude and River attack him, he is the first to benefit from the mara's decision that animals will work together to defend each another. Thanks for continuing to read and comment.

@MattyboyThanks for your comment. Yes, it seems that River has bottomed out. But he's got a long climb to make.

@scrubber6620Thanks for your comment. Your reading of the situation is pretty accurate. Various story arcs are starting to come together. @Jjeffalch Thanks for your comment. Yes, Doreen is uncomfortable being unable to share David's secret with Pete. You're right about the mara being protective of Zhiv. He has given himself completely to the animals and they love and respect him for that. @SummerabbacatI'm happy you are finding bits of humor in this story. I do. Pete's reflections on Charlie's fate are dry and unemotional because I imagine many police officers grow used to the outcomes of violence in their daily work. I think they often have to be objective in order to gather evidence or otherwise deal with situations that would put the rest of us into shock. The emotional scab or callous they may develop is dangerous, but it can also lead to a kind of black humor. Thanks for your reflections on Melissa's experience in the chicken barn.

@bundu_stThank you for your comment. If you have a taste for mysticism you should enjoy this tale.

The dark of night lingered when David rode away from his home on Saturday morning, and he was thankful for the strong headlamp on his e-bike. Dawn light silhouetted the mountain when he turned onto the logging road. As he rounded the last hairpin turn before the park boundary, he felt a sound in his head like rushing wind. Zhiv was nearby! The sun inched over the mountain’s rim and bathed David and the road ahead with light. Hundreds of starlings surrounded him and flew alongside. He recogn

Deputy McAdam looked around the yard in front of Charlie Baxter's house. Nobody had touched anything since Charlie had been taken to the hospital. His condition had not improved overnight. The crows had removed his eyes, but they lacked surgical precision. There was collateral damage to his brain. A plastic deck chair lay on its side on the lawn. A nearby drinks cooler held a couple of empties and two unopened cans of beer. Pete felt them. It was a well-insulated cooler; the cans were still

@re2I'm happy you are re-reading it. There's been about a thousand little changes since the version that was published elsewhere, and I think this version is much better. Thanks for your comment - made me blush.

@Summerabbacat Thanks for your comment. Yes, it's nice to see David and his father getting along well. Pete may seem a bit blunt but I suspect he was raised in an environment where males didn't express their emotions and is only now discovering that it is okay to do so. Your reading of River as is the way I see it. All the boys in this story are in the grip of the storm of puberty, but none so helplessly as River. Jude's diet - mostly junk food. River's diet is not much better - very heavy on fried foods and meat. There's a great documentary called "Super Size Me" about a man who ate nothing but junk food for a month, and the damaging effects such a diet had on him. (It took him 14 months on a vegan diet to recover from his experiment.)

Really? Heh heh.

On Monday morning, Deputy McAdam drove up the valley to investigate a Social Services report of a theft. He had already met the victim, Mrs. Richard Wilkins, whose husband had died the previous week, trampled by his horses. Her Rhode Island Reds, six hens and a rooster, had disappeared on the day her husband died. When Pete arrived at the Wilkins’ hobby farm, the widow took him to the empty hen house. “You keep them in the coop all the time?” Pete asked. “No, generally I let ’em out in

Zhiv and David trekked through the dense forest to reach a green plateau above the tree line. The brisk mountain air smelled clean. Distant rocky outcrops were as crisply defined as if seen through a lens. The boys climbed a low rise and paused on the top. Before them lay the floor of an ancient caldera carpeted with grass and alpine flowers. A thread of a stream trickled from a nearby copse of aspen, their leaves trembling in the sunlight. Zhiv took David’s hand and said, “This is my favor