There wasn't much by way of lounging on the beach these days, not unless you wanted to end up with a serious case of hypothermia and possibly be pummeled to death, but George liked actual winter all the better. Sure, it meant tracking snow in from outside and the accompanying puddles of water that invariably got stepped in after one or the other ( Read more... )

Nita never used to hate Halloween. She'd spent so many times dressed as something else, loving that she was anonymous, wishing sometimes that she'd have a better costume, or that she'd get more candy. She remembered dressing like a witch and a ghost and a zombie. One great year, she'd actually been a princess ( Read more... )

Coraline had been thinking about what Mister Reid said now for a while 'and even a book about you.' Coraline had assumed he meant that something her father had wrote but she wasn't sure. Coraline considered the implications carefully. Then she took out her notebook and pencil and went off to explore the Compound. Very little could stop Coraline ( Read more... )

It'd been three years. She didn't even think about it until she'd heard from Kon - Kon, of all people, who she didn't talk too, who she hadn't talked to since, what, Mardi Gras? - that Bart was gone. Three years. Dairine had been here longer ( Read more... )

When all was said and done, it looked like something out of a storybook ( Read more... )

The sun went down late on Tabula Rasa, and so the sky had barely begun to slide from blue into the pink and orange of sunset when people began to gather in the clearing once more. The mud pit had dried out, the tables moved to one side, more torches placed around the stage that now drew the eye of everyone standing in its shadow ( Read more... )

When all was said and done, it looked like something out of a storybook ( Read more... )

If Alain closed his eyes, it could almost be a fair day in Gilead. The sounds and smells were all the same. There was the sound children laughing, trotted around by Glue Boy,and Jolly, getting their faces painted, and themselves entirely covered in flowers by Ilse and some of the other girls. Boys participating in impromptu footraces with their ( Read more... )

She'd been grateful for the cool breeze at 10AM. By noon, she'd started banking back her garden, protecting as much of the plants as possible from the coming cold. She'd been elbow-deep in dirt anyway, and she moved as fast as possible through the beds of flowers and vegetables. 1:30, and she was heading to New Gilead, running through the other ( Read more... )

Throughout Coraline's short life she had always been underestimated or overlooked. The Other Mother had thought it would be easy to sew buttons on her eyes, to kill her and to keep her forever. The Other Father had thought she wouldn't hurt him to escape. The Other Mister Bobo thought she could be seduced by the idea of being able to do anything ( Read more... )