Free Old Bones: A Collection of Short Stories by Steven L. Campbell

questions his teachers gave him
increased in size and quantity until eventually he became overly
burdened and tired from receiving their questions in return for
his.
    He took some of their questions home and his
mother was able to give him well-fitting answers for them. But as
their questions grew bigger, so did her answers until they became
too big for his hands. On his way to school, he often dropped and
broke the big answers and had nothing to give his teachers, except
tiny answers that didn’t fit their big questions. They scolded him
for mishandling his answers until he finally stopped giving them
any answers at all. He even kept his questions to himself.
    His mother became concerned that he wasn’t
bringing home any more questions, and at school his teachers were
concerned because he had stopped giving them answers.
    “I don’t want to give you answers,” the boy
said. “I want you to give them to me.”
    His teachers said he was being selfish.
“Students must give proper answers in return of our questions, not
vice versa.”
    “But you only want answers that fit right to
your questions,” he said. “I can only give you answers that fit
right in my hands. Anything more is too much to carry.”
    His teachers merely looked at each other in
dismay and gave him more questions. Big questions. Heavy questions.
They told him to look in libraries for answers; they said to search
in universities, too. But the libraries were crowded and the
universities too far away, so he lugged around their questions and
tried to find answers elsewhere. However, everywhere he looked was
void of the right-sized answers. Along the way, he dropped and
broke them. Eventually, he gave his teachers his leftover answers,
which they returned unaccepted. Too small, they said; try
again.
    Eventually, his load of big questions became
too heavy to carry, so he dragged them behind him until one day he
strayed off course and ended up at a riverbank. He rested with his
burden, sorted through the mess of jumbled questions, and found his
own unanswered questions lying at the bottom.
    He felt that he had failed his teachers and
mother, and even himself terribly. Convinced that he would never
find the right answers to any of his questions, he pushed them into
the river until he was free of every one. Suddenly and without
warning, a spinning wind swept across the water, picked up his
questions, and flew them into the sky straight toward the sun. Then
a hundred answers fell upon him, all perfectly sized to fit in his
hands. He sprang about, gathered them into his arms, felt their
perfection, and gave thanks to the wind for its bounty. In reply, a
voice spoke from the sun and told him to return every day and throw
one question into the river. If so, he would be blessed with many
answers from above.
    To this day, he has made good on that
promise. And every day the river, wind, sky and sun blesses him a
thousand times over with their answers.
    #

Tales for Adults
     

Dragon Slayer
    TALL AND LANKY Leo Nash followed short and shapely
Emily Umberto from the library to the faculty lounge. It was ninth
and final period at Ridgewood High School. It was also a free
period for both teachers, and each of them carried a colorful
wrapped gift. Leo sat at the center table and smiled when the
gorgeous dark-haired woman sat opposite him; he tried not to appear
anxious as he slid the long box of chocolate covered cherries to
her.
    “Happy birthday,” he said.
    Emily smiled and said, “To you, too,” as she
slid a longer and larger gift-wrapped box to him. “Open it. Hurry.”
She was dressed in a simple white tunic blouse and a gray flared
skirt. Her long, shiny hair and bright emerald eyes lit up her
otherwise drab attire.
    Leo paused, spellbound by how bright in color
her eyes were. Their gorgeous green had taken his breath the first
day they met a month ago August when she arrived to teach seventh
grade algebra.
    He pulled away his gaze, studied the gift for
a