“I just don’t understand what this has to do with me,” Tina said grumbled in her mother’s general direction. Both of them avoided eye contact.

“Your cousin texted me – you know how hard it is for him to reach out to people – and specifically asked if you would be there,” Tina’s mom replied, as if she was explaining this to her daughter for the first time.

Tina’s cousin Darryl hasn’t mentioned ...

Dutchess Zonia did not plan to stay at the Festival of Rings long. The official programming went until 3am and the unofficial programming likely lasted until after breakfast.

But Zonia knew if she stayed too late, she would be required to take an amnesia shot, and she needed to remember everything that would happen at the King’s Feast.

While it’s called the King’s Feast, the custom is for the Ki...

Not long ago, sunflowers bloomed here by the thousands every fall.

You can still occasionally find their seeds, usually between the teeth of tiny brown rodents with long tails. I forget their scientific name, so I just call them carls (they look a lot like my childhood hamster Carl).

Carl would not have been able to survive in these conditions, but the carls do just fine. Those freaks can surv...

Christina’s pair of black high top Converse had been through three summers of walks and bike rides across town. Their most common destination: a house with high ceilings that always smelled like lemon Clorox, courtesy of the live-in maid Angelica.

Christina went to that house almost every day to pass time with her best friend Maisie. Last summer, the two of them painted their best attempt at the...