Even if it was only in twilight that it showed.”

“She was strong, she was beautiful, she was graceful. Because everything’s a first when you’re in the second grade. She began kicking her beautifully browned legs high in the air and it was thirty years before I danced in public again.”Įssay. ‘Sure,’ I agreed, not wanting to sound as if I had overlooked something so important, and for the first time wondering whether I was coordinated or not. ‘And when you were up there, did you see how they sat with their heads down, kind of bored?’ She smiled broadly when she said it. I’d been far too busy concentrating on what was, to me, a complicated choreography. ‘Did you notice how when I was up there on the picnic table, the boys were all interested and excited and stuff?’ “One early autumn afternoon my new friend Amanda taught me some cheerleading moves she’d copied from TV and then convinced me to assist her in putting on a show for the boys of the neighborhood.Īfter the unremarkable entertainment she approached me, her eyes glistening. Includes an alternate version and my essay “How Many Times Do I Have to Rewrite this %&^# Thing? The ‘Yellow Wagon Saga”

Includes commentary on the fathers from my youth.Ī young girl walks to school alone – is she being stalked?įlash fiction. “He is clasping my hand and leading me down the street to the local bar propping me up on a barstool so all his friends can see, can joke with me and about me while I twirl about on the red vinyl, tall and proud to be out with Daddy.” Never mess with a little girl’s best friend – even if she is dressed all in pink. Now available in paperback (both standard and LARGE PRINT sizes) and eBook at retailers worldwide: Features author commentary on the real-life events that inspired the stories. The story of my life told in short fiction and essays. Stories from My Memory-Shelf: Fiction and Essays from My Past

Haunted Tri-state by Lori Shafer