WEEK 353
"No, you're wrong," Megan told her brother. "I don't consider it a joke when you..."


...talk about grandfather like that."

"Grandfather," her brother said. "You act as if the man was dignified. You know, as well as I do, that he was a bum. A low down, dirty, piece of..."

"Stop it," said Megan, raising her voice just slightly.

"You know it's true. That man slept with more women than the entire male population of Rhode Island."

Megan's face grew red. She felt a surge in her stomach and a tightness in her chest. Her fists curled into balls, and she looped her left arm towards her brother, connecting with his right cheekbone.

Her brother looked at her and laughed. "One of these days you'll realize what he was. Maybe this will help. He tossed her a VHS tape. Megan read the tattered box cover Catch her in the Eye: Staring Richard Long, and saw a smiling, younger version of grandfather staring back at her.

by Jeff Ratcliffe, Hatboro, PA

...tell the bus driver I'm not going to school you little twerp!"

"Oh lighten up," replied younger brother Chris. "It's no big deal".

"It is a big deal! They gave me detention for being late".

"Yeah, Meg, they give the big D to losers like you!"

"I'm not a loser! I just have a brother who's a total jerk!"

"Mom! Megan's calling me a jerk again!"

"Mom! Chris is calling me a loser!"

"Christopher, get in here - NOW!" Mom's voice, coming from the kitchen, had that edge to it.

"Get in here and explain to me why your sister's sunglasses are frozen in a jar in the freezer?"

As Chris ran to the kitchen to see what his mother was so mad about, Megan leaned back in the chair with a contented look on her face; having put her own sunglasses in the freezer the previous day.

"Now that's a good joke, twerp!"

by Stewart Lindsay, Buffalo, NY