"Can you take out the trash, Alex?" my dad yelled. He was watching hockey on the flat screen in our messy "living room". There was a basket of unfolded clothes by his side. I went back through the door I had just entered, shivering as I stood in the icy, un-insulated room. Denver winters will do that to a garage, or a person. One year my best friend Jacob got frostbite from just getting the mail. Despite literally everyone else in the world I actually like winter. I guess I just have good memories with it. Almost every day when we were kids my mom would take us out sledding on the big hill next to our cul de sac. My mom died 2 summers ago from breast cancer, but we still keep on the tradition, me and Zoe, I mean. Sometimes Jake comes along. He takes Zoe to the top of the highest hump on the hill and counts down to when he's gonna push her but he never does it when he's supposed to. It gets a real good laugh out of Zoe sometimes even a shriek of joy. Anything to make Zoe laugh is what I say. When mom died, Zoe took it the worst, I think. She missed half of 3rd grade and got real behind. She'd always been ahead before mom left us but now she's in the 'slower' class. It's disgusting how they'll talk to her like she's baby; "way too slowly with a humorous amount of facial expressions" Zoe told me after one particularly frustrating day. If there's one thing Zoe didn't get behind on it's words. She loves big words like humorous, exorbitant, philanthropic, and so on. We have a calendar that has a word for every day and every day I tell her to try and use that word 2 times (one at school and one at home) so she can really learn it. Not to take too much pride in it, I think it was a pretty good idea.
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Inflicted
Mystery / ThrillerAlex, a tomboyish teenager, becomes interested in a strange local criminal that is somehow connected with her dead mother, and, with the help of her best friend and little sister, finds out something she could've never imagined.
