Stories

He walked almost through the whole of the tiny little town he lived in, exasperated, sad, desperate! He wanted something for the two most important people in his life; it just frustrated him that he couldn’t find anything: nothing at all!

Fifteen year old Arthur Price just saw his world come crashing down. From his mysterious family troubles, to the tragic sudden death of his single mother, everything Arthur has known is falling apart. However when an unlikely hero takes him in they find they both have a lot to learn before they can escape Arthur’s living nightmare

In a small Western Massachusetts former mill town, now part of a larger college circuit, a Chinese-American high school student is suspected of selling drugs simply because he's recently moved from New York City.

The students know about it. The principal knows. The teachers and staff members have heard about it, too.

When one of the school's security guards learns too much, she calls the Waldron police, and Detective Elena Petrakis leads the investigation.

Backing her -- as in Recycle -- are Chief Owen Neland, Senior Detective Don Burris, Lt. Ike Omari, and Sgts. Jae Ryu and Rob Perez, who offer advice and support.

What if you were a witness to a crime, but didn't know it? Once the crime is solved, does what you know matter? If you put a period at the end of the sentence, does that give you a final answer?

Be careful about taking things home from the cemetery. You might bring home more than you wanted.
This was the case for a ten year old boy named Joe. A marble he found in an old cemetery opened the door to a ruined childhood. As an adult he though he had escaped his torment until he moved back to his home town.

The final Book in the Alan Damschroeder series, a fairly straight forward one, with only two characters and the usual lack of clothes.

A move to a new home in a different town leaves 15 year old Jake unhappy but when he steps in to help another boy who is being bullied at school, his life changes.

The continued adventures in sex and friendship, online and off, of Alan Damschroeder, a Cedar Rapids, Iowa, high school teacher.

Alan says, "Sometimes I think it takes a triumvirate of saints to keep me out of trouble."

These stories are written as exchanged e-mails and reading this way is an acquired taste. But the first book of this series, Web Guys, has a small, loyal following, so here's the second.

One for sorrow, two for joy, three for a girl and four for a boy.

Five for silver, six for gold, seven for a secret never to be told.

I am sure many of you, like me, learned this children's nursery rhyme about magpies. According to an old superstition, the number of magpies seen predicts whether you will have good or bad luck. Something I came across subsequently, was the existence of many variations on this rhyme, some more sinister than the children’s version.

One of those is incorporated into this short story about boyhood abuse.

Jack's grandson Steve Jr. fears his mother will reject him, just as she did his father when she learned he was gay. (November, 2010)