"... twenty ... twenty-five ... fifteen ... forty-five ... one hundred! Ready or not, here I come!"

Five-year-old, Chloe Mann uncovered her adorable, brown eyes and looked around her bedroom. "I'm gonna find you!" she declared as she quickly dropped to her knees and looked under her bed.

By the last period of the day, I was just about ready to strangle one of the middle school students in my Earth studies class. As I looked up from helping one of the giant Denebians with an essay in the back of the room, I tried to keep my voice low and calm. "Snorg, please stop kicking your neighbor. Open your i-Textbook to the chapter on Earth geography. We're going to have a quiz on this at the end of the week."

They are the secret soldiers of the nefarious overlords; the subterranean underlings of a strange and unimaginable underworld. They lurk in the alleys and scurry in the sewers, lying in wait for dusk to settle. Oh, you may see one during daylight hours, but they are at their most vicious after night has fallen.

A mother's guide to boiling an egg in five easy steps.

Nuke Boy and Razorback, sidekicks both, paced listlessly atop the geo-dome overlooking the concrete spires of Metro City.

Joan's inner ear itched, and though she had tried to ignore, her success was minimal at best. The itch was a visceral thing, and not as easily fixed as a stray hair finding its way deep within the cavity. She laid still for as long as she could in hopes of not waking her roommate Stefanie...

I'd always believed my mother was destined to become a certified Crazy Cat Lady, so the idea of her having a friend of any kind, let alone a boyfriend, took some getting used to. But once I met Bill, I liked him. He had a nice smile and good manners, and God knew what he was doing with Mum.

The curved neck and stretched wings of the black Dragon dwarf the figure of the doe-like white Unicorn. They make an unlikely picture behind the glass panel and aluminum frame of my sliding glass kitchen door. As always, quite the sight to see. I ask them in.