The Shine came on Tuesday and left late Saturday evening.
But how many days or weeks had passed between that Tuesday and Saturday?
Some claimed it had been years, decades or possibly centuries. “Think of Snow White,” they said.
Others pooh-poohed any idea that more than the usual Wednesday, Thursday and Friday had slipped by.
“Look,” they said. “No flowers faded while we were in the Shine. Someone has Continue reading
That Cedric and his horned serpents!
But then he’s always been an odd one. Those eyes! One green, one white!
Is it true that means he’s a witch? Or half-witch, seeing as only one eye is white.
The girls go mad for him. I don’t understand it. He’s nothing but an uneducated lout who likes playing in the dirt.
And that punk hair! The stupid hat!
Those serpents drive me crazy. Why couldn’t he have rabbits or guinea pigs like any normal person? I have to call him twenty-five times a day to come and get them out of my vegetable garden.
You wouldn’t believe how arrogant he is, the way he struts about town as if everyone has nothing better to do than look at him. Well, he’ll find out soon enough he won’t always be a pretty face (if you’re the sort of person who thinks that kind of tough watch-me-climb-out-of-the-earth face is pretty).
The chief of police is insisting Cedric undergo the witch test.
Cedric says Continue reading
I know Oliver claims to have been the first to see the ghost man, but in fact it was Tommy.
Tommy was heading home for breakfast with two brook trout he’d caught in the stream that meanders through the town when he caught sight of the ghost man emerging from the forest.
He’d wolfed down two helpings of french toast before he thought to mention the ghost man to his parents.
Word spread in no time. By elevenses there was quite a crowd in the park where the ghost man had installed himself on the bench beneath the big old oak.
No, that wasn’t the ghost man. This fellow was far too solid to be a ghost man. But if not the ghost man, then who?
“The mushroom man!” said the mayor.
Of course! Of course!
The first thing they all noticed about the mushroom man was obviously that he was extraordinarily pale.
Of course he’d be pale, they told each other, with the forest so dense and tangled that no sunlight could penetrate. (But really, how would they know? Which of them had ever dared venture into the dark, dank, silent forest?)
The second thing was that he looked at them with eyes that saw more than they were comfortable with.
The third thing? That Continue reading
Susi Lovell 