Mom gave me a tight hug and said, "My gosh, Marcie! Now I'm having adventures, just like you!"

I rolled my eyes, and she burst out laughing.

Mom sighed. "You have to get that operation soon," she said. "You really forget that you're not a girl, don't you?"

"Yeah," I admitted glumly.

“Wait!” I said in a surprised tone. “A safe house? You mean like witness protection? What about my work? My apartment? What am I supposed to do with my stuff?”

“Slow down,” he said while holding his hands up to emphasize things. “We don’t know how long it’ll be, but I wouldn’t expect it to take too long. For now, anything you don’t have to have with you should stay here. I’ll have a uniform posted here as a guard, okay?”

“Will there be room for my upright?” I asked.

“I don’t know why not,” he responded before adding, “Which one is that?”

Chuck was checking his watch when the stranger approached him. “Those were a couple of nice looking ladies you had.”

Chuck immediately turned around. “What did you just say?”

Synopsis- Hiromi sees a fortune teller and goes to a casino in Macau, Gabrielle has a chat with Dr. Wagner and meets a close friend, Midori and Stewart Slater get very bad news, plus Operation Swan Song takes an unexpected turn.

Susan shrugged and smiled. "They said that if it bothers you, you have to find a way to get Mrs. Wix involved."

"How can I do that? What am I supposed to do? Invite her for a sleepover?"

snowblind, shipwrecked, several millennia old

by Miss K

The village in which I grew up was particularly notable for one thing, which I'll come to in a moment.

Ida told me that she didn't want to be too ambitious on our first weekend together. "I'm hoping we can do this again, maybe often, and so I'd rather take it easy and get to know you a little bit. It's nice to be with you when, uh–"

"I understand," I said, and finished her thought: "– when Maisie's not around."

"Mom, you're killing me!" I protested.

She just scoffed. Dad was no help... he just slogged along, head down, perspiring.

Darryl finally gets to go home . . .

Susan smiled and flounced. "What can I say?" she grinned. "I'm just that clever! So when's Maisie get here? I have to tell you guys what I found out about Misty Sabatino. It's scandalous."

Maisie cut me off. "Listen to me. I know that Ida seems like a nice person. Maybe she is nice to you and your mother... and to everyone else on earth except me." At this point, Maisie was fighting back tears. She dropped the wrench, balled her fists, and swore. "I'm NOT going to cry...," she said, gritting her teeth.

"Maisie, you're *not* fat," I told her. "You've never been fat. You're never going to BE fat. You're so not fat that you, uh, that you..." I didn't know how to finish, but it didn't matter. Her face had changed, and she was furious.

A Murder Misstery Aloft
 © 2008 by Nom de Plume

For those who came in late, Matt McCoy — now Madeline Moreau — is on the run for a crime he did not commit, and a murder which she did….after learning about her secret girlhood, Maddy spreads her wings...and more.

"Look at this, though!" I said, pointing to a comment in italics. It read The "evil twin".

"Whoa! What does that mean?" Maisie asked. "Mrs. Wix, evil? I don't believe it. It's impossible."

Synopsis: Sometimes you find yourself saying the wrong thing, at the wrong time for the wrong reason. Sometimes you aren't the only one.

The final frontier...

Hopefully now, these poor folk can stop trundling round and round in circles and can finally put their feet on dry land. It's been entirely too long coming and the retail outlets on board ran out of Sea-sickness tablets around Christmas, so well, without further ado...

Meanwhile . . .

I looked up at her, something didn't sound quite right. "Becky?" I asked her questioningly.

"It's a little disturbing Bill. Here, you read it."

"Nick, it actually started with my missing memory. We've found out what caused it. And a person did it."

"What? You're talking something criminal now Bill."