AUTHOR'S NOTES

Sound like a health insurance merger?

Not that.

I've already stretched a few passages from my original Writer's Notebook into stand-alone stories, but more needed pruning to get Notebook to negotiable length. Adios to the 3x3 scheme for parallel sub-plots, for example. Nobody ever e-mailed, "My, what a clever way to include 9 teen, inc, first stories."

So here are three prunings expanded into very short shorts. (Brief short stories, I mean, not "show panty when you sit".)

TURTLE TIME

ELKS NIGHT

DIARY

****TURTLE TIME

Sister, 13, slips into her brother's pup tent on the family camping trip. She heard a bear!

They'd together climbed to Broad Oak Flats that afternoon. He'd carried her pack all the way and pushed her up when the trail was steep. At the flats, they dozed in the shade, her head on his shoulder, his arm lazily crossing her Smiley Face T-shirt. She wondered if how he adjusted his wrap was on purpose. When he thought she was napping, his wrist had slipped back and forth. At her age, they're just pointy, and he's already 16. Probably he wouldn't even care. She'd held very still.

She's breathless with certainty about the mammal's proximity. As she crawls into his tent, his flashlight catches the bottom of her ribcage through an undone Turtle Time pajama button, nightwear harkening back to an earlier Christmas. Mom had said to bring warm PJ's.

"Turn it off, dummy," she exhorts. "They said for us to go to sleep."

"I was till you showed up."

"And don't talk so loud. They won't let us go back to the flats tomorrow if they think we stayed up."

She pulls the flap shut, sits beside his sleeping bag, unzips it, and inserts her feet.

"Whatcha doing?"

"I'm not scared of an old bear, but it's smart to stick together."

"Well this bag's mine!"

"I'm pretty skinny," already within and drawing up the zipper. "Just keep it quiet!" She pauses. "Well, okay," after weighing the bear's certainty. "A little bit scared."

"I didn't hear anything," he reasons.

"So shut up and listen!"

"I don't..."

"Ssshhh. Really! Listen to my heart!"

She presses his ear to her chest to prove how close is the bear, judging from the race of her heartbeat.

"Don't be so scared," he tells her. "They stay away from people smell."

"I'll stay in here just a little bit to make sure he's not waiting out there."

"I guess."

Maybe he wasn't even aware up at the flats, she wonders?

"We'll just listen," she recommends.

The siblings lie motionless.

Should she redo the button she'd undone before entering? But instead she puts his hand where the button's open.

He doesn't pull away

But it can't be that bad or all her friends wouldn't be doing it, she tells herself. Can he still tell how fast her heart's beating?

She's so sweet, so cuddly, but he should still shoo her back to her own tent. There's no bear out there.

The folks might hear her in here! Probably not, though, as Mom sited his tent at the far end. She shouldn't have got in his sleeping bag, though!

She'd seemed willing this afternoon when he'd felt her. If she'd really been sleeping, she'd not have stopped breathing. Her breast was so hard. He really couldn't feel much specific through her little bra, but he'd imagined her nipple.

She wouldn't have made up this story about a bear if she hadn't thought it was okay, he realizes.

He parts her pajamas around her undone button and traces a rib, feeling her stomach suck in. There's no evasion.

He's only had sex with one person, and like that person, his sister is special. He planned not to do it with anybody else till he marries.

He pauses a long moment and undoes the remainder of her Turtle Time pajama top.

Moonlight from the tent window, triangular and high, illuminates eraser head nipples erect above thumb-width areolae.

She stirs, smiling with eyes yet closed, draws her knee across his thigh and giggles at her discovery. He's surprised when her hand follows, but not enough to thwart it. They kiss. In pulling off her Turtle Time bottoms, the two forget about predatory wildlife.

Mom, of course, hears the whispers. Moms hear everything. After confirming Dad's slumber, she slips out of their tent and steals to where pines obscure her silhouette. By the time she arrives beside the tent, there's just the swish-swish of boy above girl.

The audible enthusiasm assures Mom that her maternal duty's satisfied. From now on, it's just for fun.

****ELKS NIGHT

Mom's been suggesting that you get on the pill, not, of course, because you need to, but rather to make your "monthlies predictable." She got you to switch from mini pads to insertibles because they don't show.

It's her way to prepare you for your brother.

Mom's darted home from the Elks dinner and hears noises from the basement. (I'd lay out the floor plan so that she can negotiate the steps undetected and spy from the landing.) As you've been a scrapper for 14 years, your brother has your exits blocked. He tackles you, pulls off an article of clothing and lets you escape. It's more fun that way.

Mom can tell how you avoid kneeing him, not wanting to unfairly terminate the challenge. Mom can tell at the end, when you could have escaped, how you trip into the sofa instead and then cover your eyes.

Brother triumphantly claims the lace briefs that you thought Mom didn't know about. Moms go through dresser drawers. He's had a three-pack of Trojans behind his socks for months and Mom's displeased that they're not produced now. Stupid boy! On the other hand, maybe this wasn't planned, just something that got going. You chose to wear those panties, didn't you? He couldn't very well excuse himself to go find condoms, she rules.

She winces at the fortitude to which he subjects you. Where's his finesse? Two years at it and he still forgets. Well, don't blame her. She knows your tears are real, becoming a woman, but she knows it's best with your brother. When at last you surrender, clasping his back and raising your hips, Mom's pressing into her skirt.