When Genesis' grounding was over, her parents let Jesse come over. When Jesse came, he sat right down with Genesis in the living room.

"Hey beautiful," said Jesse. "How's your sister?"

"My dad talked to the doctor this morning," Genesis answered. "He said Ramona's doing a little better. She's staying awake for longer periods of time."

"Ah," said Jesse. "Has her hair started falling out yet?"

"What?"

"You know when you do chemotherapy, your hairs starts to fall out?"

"Oh, she's not quite there yet," said Genesis.

Cheshire runs as fast as she can with two hunters on her heels. She wasn’t as fast as she used to be ducking and dodging the tree limbs and roots. “Come on, just a little further.”

The two hunters chasing Cheshire fire at her and barely miss her. The bullet hit the tree limb right above her head. He goes to fire again and suddenly is hanging upside down by his feet. The other hunter that had been chasing Cheshire runs right by him. A grin appears on his face.

The Baker's Dozen was a series of short stories I wrote under my previous pen-name, Shawna Stimple, featuring the Baker sisters, and the people in their lives, through the 1960s, and beyond. I'll be updating, and re-releasing these stories as I go through them, correcting the errors that came with my first attempt at storytelling. I do intend to take a crack at these again in the future, and possibly release this series as an anthology, fleshing out the characters a bit more but that's a little ways off. In the meantime, please enjoy this little trip back in time.

The first part of the series is the story of Jimmy Baker, a young boy whose father has recently passed. Being the only male in the household, he starts acting out, and after nearly ruining a family outing on a visit to his grandmother's, his sisters think they've found a solution.

Please enjoy, as in this story I play with a long underrepresented category, Bad boy to good girl, to bad girl.

Grounded for a week.

It wasn't the first time Genesis had been grounded. When Genesis was Gene, he'd been grounded a few times by his father Reginald. But she'd almost forgotten how much it sucked. Her parents only let her leave the house so she could go to school, but not to meet up with any friends or extended family. She couldn't even go out to do something fun by herself.

All was chaos in the house. With the forth of July conveniently occurring on a Thursday this year, those that could stretch the holiday into an extra-long weekend did so. Thus Chris and Sandy, a modern couple with demanding jobs, chose to leave their teenage children home to fend for themselves and spend four days backpacking in the woods. Naturally, this occasioned some acerbic comments from Melissa – age 13 – and Carter – age 15 – concerning the decrepitude of their aging parents and doubts as to their ability to survive without Cable, Internet and Fast Food.

For the next couple weeks, Genesis continued to visit Megan's house after school to practice magic. Since finals were coming up, and Genesis still had cheerleading practice to go to, she couldn't train with Megan every day. She only went to her house on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays. She'd have either Jesse or Ramona drive her to Megan's house.

All of this made for a busy schedule for Genesis. But it wasn't until one Thursday at lunch when she realized there might be something else she should be doing.

Cerridwen Circe Whitethorn's Debutante Ball

Part Two of Three:

Vanishing My Own Shadow

Tom and Taylor had been best friends ever since kindergarten. They weren’t exactly inseparable any longer but every minute they could you would find them together. It really was quite fun to see them. Tom was BIG. A star athlete. Discus, shot put and things like that. Taylor was tiny and cute. He excelled in softer areas. Home Ec wizard, dancing, fashion … You couldn’t imagine two boys that were more different. It was really quite fun to watch them. No denying that there was a very close bond between them though. Perhaps it was because both of them were such firm conservatives.

I want to make some things perfectly clear.
First of all, I NEVER said I was a girl.
I was not girly in any way.
I wasn’t petite. I’m slightly above medium height (male).
I did not have long flowing golden locks. Not exactly short but certainly not long.
I was not a social outcast. Actually, I was quite popular in school and did honor list (though not potential Valedictorian) well in school.

Gabycon 2013.

In Pursuit of the Truth.

by Angharad.

(Based on the characters created by Maddy Bell).

“D’you dream about bikes?” asked Maddy.

“Not as far as I know,” replied Drew, who was disguising less effectively, his burgeoning femaleness. It wasn’t quite true, well, he didn’t so much dream of bikes as of cycling; and he’d done so for years. In his dreams he’d won the Tour de France and more disturbingly the elite women’s road race world championship his mother riding to support him. But as time progressed that dream might turn to one of prophesy.

In the opulent halls of the palace, Prince Connor, a man of sharp wit and cunning, turned to his trusted assistant, Grayson. Grayson, a man of unassuming appearance but keen intellect, was dressed in a crisp business suit. "Grayson, enlighten me on what you've discovered about Consort Alex. I intend to use her to thwart Princess Helena's ascent to the throne," Connor said, his voice laced with a mix of determination and intrigue.

“Oh, what the hell happened.” Jack slowly wakes up and sits up.

As he starts sitting up, a bunch of long black hair blocks his view. He also notices that there is something weird about his voice. He looks at his hands and arm.

“What the hell?” as he hears a high-pitched female voice.

He looks around and notices two other younger girls lying near him. All of them are dressed in neon-colored full bodysuits. One of the teenage girls looked oriental and the other one had silver hair that covered her back.

"One, two, three, four, we're the tigers, do the roar!" Genesis cried as she and her fellow cheerleaders shook their pom-poms. In response, all the spectators in the bleachers cheered. The cheerleaders watched as Eastern Plains High's star batter Rupert Lacey hit a home run and ran all three bases before skidding onto home plate. There was another round of cheering as Rupert beamed with pride.

"Yeah, Rupert!" said the cheer captain and Genesis' stepsister Ramona said. "You're the man!"

"And look at that!" Rupert said, looking at the scoreboard. "We won!"