20th
Excerpt
from: Quinn and the Café
It was
an ordinary night in Lawndale. Then an alarm sounded as thieves made off with
equipment from a ransacked cybercafe.
The next
morning, Quinn Morgendorffer looked at the paper as she grabbed milk from the
fridge.
Words:
37
Excerpt
from: Fear in the Future
“The only way to find out would be to actually go
forwards and find out,” Daniel said.
“I suppose.”
“So, 400 years?”
“300 to start,” Jess decided.
“Sure.”
“It’s best to do it slowly.”
“Of course.”
After dinner, Jess went to Daniel’s room.
“Are you sure you want to do it tonight?” Daniel asked.
“You’ve had a long day?”
Words:
59
Excerpt
from: Middleton and Bonnie Rockwaller’s Genie
“What a dream!” She did not remember many details. She did however
remember the emerald and picked it up as she climbed out of bed. The emerald
looked dirtier in the early morning light than it had the previous afternoon.
“I need to get the dirt off,” she said. She began rubbing it.
What happened next was entirely
unexpected. It
frightened her much more than the nightmare did.
The
Emerald lit up! Bonnie dropped it in shock and collapsed back onto her bed.
Words:
83
Excerpt
from: Spider Quinn
“Oh. Well then, never mind. All right!” Kevin then said.
Brittany was about to say something in addition but
apparently thought better of it.
“Good morning. As you know, we're here to clear up some misunderstandings
and suspicions so we can all feel better about each other and ourselves. So
without further ado, I present to you a work in progress, a solo performance I
call ‘Nothing to Lose But His Chains: The Life of Karl Marx.’ The year
is 1848.” O’Neill pressed play on a tape recorder and an exercise tape began
playing. “Oh, dear, that's my exercise tape!”
Mr. DeMartino then appeared.
“Anthony! You weren't kidnapped!” O’Neill said in
surprise.
“All right! I finally convinced those
glorified dogcatchers from Immigration that I am not
an illegal alien. But now I have a question. Who told them I was?”
Daria saw Ms. Barch murmur something under her breath.
“Maybe it was the mind control babes from space, Mr. D.,
trying to create a distraction,” Charles said.
“Who?” DeMartino asked.
“Them!” Charles said pointing at Daria and Jane.
“Um, I hate to wreck a perfectly good lynching, but you're
the ones acting weird,” Daria responded.
“Us?” Kevin asked. “Mr. O'Neill said you're out to
destroy football.”
“No! I was telling them about how communists and Martians
are the same.”
“That'll clear things up.”
“So there's no communist unfiltration?” Kevin asked.
“And there's no alien takeover?” Charles asked.
“Oh, I don't know. How do you explain that?” Jane
asked, as she pointed to where Quinn was joined by Stacy and Tiffany in
dressing in all black.”
“We're dressed this way for solidarity,” Tiffany asked.
“To help support Quinn in her grief,” Stacy added.
“That makes sense,” Daria murmured as the crowded added a
murmur of support.
“Does it?” Jane asked.
“Yes,” Daria said.
“I liked it better when they were under alien control,”
Jane groused.
“It was more believable,” Daria said with her usual
sarcasm.
“So you see, everyone? Mr. DeMartino's disappearance, all
these communist and alien worries... simple misunderstandings, all of them.
What do you say we cement our newfound unity by joining hands and singing ‘Man
in the Mirror’?”
The teens booed and hissed and left.
Later, Ms. Li called Mr. O’Neill into her office.
“It has come to my attention that you organised a rally
this morning.”
“Yes.”
“It was unauthorised! You should have come to me if you
wanted to clear up the various misunderstandings surrounding Mr. DeMartino’s
arrest.”
“I’m sorry. It was off the cuff.”
“It won’t happen again. Do I make myself clear.”
“No it won’t. I’ll call you first.”
“Good. Dismissed.”
She watched the Language Arts teacher leave. She then
went back to the reports that SpiderGirl had been sighted on campus.
That night, SpiderGirl thought about the past two days as
she patrolled Lawndale’s downtown, swinging from rooftop to rooftop. Conspiracy
theories spreading through the school wasn’t a good thing. But at least none of
them involved her.
Words:
495
Total: 674
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