Stone Soup Magazine
— A student escapes a bad school day through a nighttime walk, finding solace in crickets, crunching leaves, and cool air that transforms frustration into peace.
— A family's annual August trip to Mission Beach in San Diego brings together two close families for a day of racing to the ocean, splashing, and summer traditions.
— A child at the beach reaches out to touch the sunset and wraps it around their shoulders like a coat, transforming sensory experience into wearable joy.
— A girl's racehorse Royal Blue faces his rival King of the Wind in the Kentucky Derby, with tensions rising when the rival's exercise rider becomes the jockey.
— A poem captures the last night before a friend moves to Ireland, from joyful evening to tearful goodbye as she disappears in the rain.
— An eleven-year-old returns from Russia to New York and is detained at customs, intensifying her desperate longing to reunite with her parents and her city.
— A student's daily bus ride past horses in a field becomes a meditation on breaking free from routine and discovering the wild possibility within oneself.
— A girl panics when her younger brother doesn't board the school bus, only to discover he had permission to go to a friend's house instead.
— A girl races along the beach following a dolphin, sprinting through sand and tide pools to keep up with the graceful creature before having to leave for the airport.
— A girl chosen as a dragon sacrifice discovers that her brother's lily hair clip, given as a farewell gift, becomes the weapon that defeats the beast.