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A bored lover gains a child’s confidence, then turns the boy’s secret meetings with his father into ammunition for an adult quarrel.
After an opera, a sixteen-year-old tries to turn two admirers into the material for her first grand romantic sorrow.
Two small children make newborn kittens the center of their world, while the adults around them barely notice the stakes.
Weeks before her wedding, a young woman begins to see her comfortable provincial life—and the future chosen for her—with new clarity.
Two schoolboys arrive home for Christmas with maps, a pistol, and a secret plan to cross Siberia and seek gold in America.
A boy approaches confession with fear, rivalry, hunger, and a vivid hope that absolution will make him new.
Seven-year-old Pashka is left overnight at a rural hospital, where promised treats give way to a world he cannot understand.
A boy discovers his governess’s secret romance and learns how much power a whispered threat can hold.
Two young friends race down an Alpine mountain, then linger over wine as marriage, school, and the end of freedom wait for them below.
A boy accompanies his doctor father across a dark lake to help a woman in labor, entering a night of pain, birth, and adult mystery.
A boy’s holiday glow collapses when his father reveals that the girl he loves has chosen someone else.
In a small Michigan town, Liz Coates builds a private romance around the blacksmith whose return from a hunting trip changes everything.
Three protected schoolboys share a railway carriage with a woman whose sudden crisis defeats every adult precaution.
Two boys skip school in search of adventure and meet a stranger who unsettles their day.
A boy promises to bring a gift from a bazaar to the girl he adores, and waits for his chance to go.
A boy waits for news of an ailing priest and struggles to understand the adults’ uneasy silences.
A stopped train brings strangers to Caline's rural home, leaving her curious about the world beyond it.
A Terran boy visits his alien friends on the day their people finally begin winning back a century of conquered worlds.
Years after leaving school, a former pupil remembers the aging English teacher his class turned into an object of relentless laughter.
19 stories
