Tales from a Seventh Grade Snitch

When Vanessa Root joined Hillside Junior High’s team of secret snitches, she thought she was paving the way to the perfect future career. To Vanessa, everything is either black or white–wrong or right–and that’s the way she likes it. A career as a cop seems like the ideal choice. She sets her sights on securing a spot in the police force’s Junior Academy, even when she has to compete for the spot against her new partner, the school Pretty Boy. But when the Director (aka, Vice-Principal Leonard) assigns her to also get close the school Bad Boy, Vanessa realizes that some choices aren’t as black and white as they seem.

Blythe of Brown Stables

Fourteen-year-old Blythe has been bullied for years, but when the bully sets her sights on Blythe’s best friend Jenna, Blythe finally retaliates. Desperate to teach their daughter a lesson, Blythe’s parents send her to what she thinks is a riding camp, telling her that she must behave if she wants to go to high school with Jenna. Otherwise, Jenna will have to face the bully alone while Blythe rots in a private school skirt. Blythe is determined to pass this test from her parents, but when she arrives at the green-gabled house, she discovers it is not a riding camp at all. Run by Sister Scary, whose sole interest is to win the quilting bee, the Anne of Green Gables camp is everything Blythe detests, from the wallpaper and tepid tea, to the floral uniforms and potpourri. No problem, thinks Blythe. That is, until she discovers she has to bake scones without strangling her poufy-haired roommate (one restraining order is more than enough!), milk a cow without getting a concussion, find out if the seemingly perfect Noah is hiding the fact that he’s the Crown Prince of Sweden, oh, and ensure her enemy wins the quilting bee with a quilt that has been sabotaged. Suddenly, the skirt doesn’t look so bad.

Letters to the Tooth Fairy

October 1, 2005

Dear Mrs. Toothfairy,

Hello. My name is Amelia with an A Stanley. I am six years old and go to Holy Reindeer Catholic School. My teacher’s name is Mizz Garson and she is very nice except if you bring fishy crackers for your snack and then she squishes up her face and makes one big eyebrow and says, “That’s not a healthy snack.” I brought fishy crackers once but then she gave me the one eyebrow and I told my mom to give me soup crackers instead. Mizz Garson didn’t like that either and gave me the one eyebrow again so I told my mom to please give me a “healthy snack that isn’t crackers” and my mom said, “Is Miss Garson a doctor now?” and I said, “No silly, she’s my teacher. My doctor’s name is Doctor Green which is weird because he always wears white.”

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