There S Something Out There

An overnight campout sets the stage for a monstrous scare! Jenna Walker has always been fascinated by the legend of the Marked Monster, the scarred half-bird, half-beast creature that is said to roam the forests around her hometown. Is the Marked Monster real or is it just the stuff of myth? Jenna decides to find out once and for all with a campout at her house where she and her friends can search for the legendary beast. But as Jenna starts to learn more about the Marked Monster, she realizes that this legend might be more than just myth, and more sinister than she ever could have imagined. Will Jenna meet the Marked Monster face to face and will she be marked for life?

In “There’s Something In The Water”, Ingrid R. G. Waldron examines the legacy of environmental racism and its health impacts in Indigenous and Black communities in Canada, using Nova Scotia as a case study, and the grassroots resistance activities by Indigenous and Black communities against the pollution and poisoning of their communities. Using settler colonialism as the overarching theory, Waldron unpacks how environmental racism operates as a mechanism of erasure enabled by the intersecting dynamics of white supremacy, power, state-sanctioned racial violence, neoliberalism and racial capitalism in white settler societies. By and large, the environmental justice narrative in Nova Scotia fails to make race explicit, obscuring it within discussions on class, and this type of strategic inadvertence mutes the specificity of Mi’kmaq and African Nova Scotian experiences with racism and environmental hazards in Nova Scotia. By redefining the parameters of critique around the environmental justice narrative and movement in Nova Scotia and Canada, Waldron opens a space for a more critical dialogue on how environmental racism manifests itself within this intersectional context. Waldron also illustrates the ways in which the effects of environmental racism are compounded by other forms of oppression to further dehumanize and harm communities already dealing with pre-existing vulnerabilities, such as long-standing social and economic inequality. Finally, Waldron documents the long history of struggle, resistance, and mobilizing in Indigenous and Black communities to address environmental racism.

Jenna Sanchez has always been fascinated by the legend of the Marked Monster, the scarred half-bird, half-beast creature said to roam the forests, so she hosts a campout where she and her friends can search for the legendary beast and see if the monster is real.

Uh-oh, there might be something creeping around in the attic. Could it be a monster? After a little girl hears something snooping around in the attic when she’s sleeping, she decides to investigate. How can she sleep when something is making creaking noises and stealing her toys when she’s not looking? "In typically zany Mayer fashion, an intrepid girl confronts a resident nightmare with delightfully unexpected results."—Publishers Weekly "The story is satisfying, humorous, possibly bibliotherapeutic, and significantly different from previous titles to justify making room on the shelf for this nightmare as well."—School Library Journal

It's a cold Sunday in San Francisco. Sharon McCone's alone on a routine surveillance job, following a man named Frank Wilkonson through the city's lush horticultural hot spots to the sere foothills of the Diablos. But when she returns to find her kindly old client in a pool of blood, nothing she's learned explains it. The search of answers takes her from Wilkonson's sullen brood on Burning Oak Ranch, to the eccentric havoc of a household in the Haight, to Golden Gate Park and the desperate digs of the homeless. Unraveling the threads that link a homeless man, a pair of prominent activists, a wayward rancher, and a mysterious missing beauty, Sharon is plunged into the depths of domestic mayhem ... entering a realm where dreams shatter and marriage leads to bloody murder.

Beth and Michael Bridges loved restoring old Victorian homes and decided since they both always wanted to live in one the next Victorian home they restored would be theirs, but their dream would soon be shattered because the home that just took their breath away had a horrid past. The owners of the home that sold this fixer-upper to the Bridges were acting very nervous and very anxious to sell at any price. The owners also lied to them saying they needed something bigger, and more modern, and that they had been living in the home for over three years. Just before the owners grabbed the check from the Bridges and ran like hell out of the house the owner said “There is one thing I need to tell you both, whatever you do don’t open the door to the basement, here’s the keys to the house.” The owner grabbed the Check from Mr. Bridges' hand like he was in a hurry and then grabbed his wife’s hand and made a b-line to the front door. The owners took off like a bat out of hell in their car leaving a trail of smoke behind never to return. Mr. Bridges ran out the front door yelling “You forgot your stuff,” but their car was long gone and they could care less about what they both left behind, they were just happy to be alive and rid of this demon house. Michael turned back around and walked back inside the house shaking his head at what just happened. His wife came up to him and said ”Honey don’t worry about it we have got our dream home and that’s all that matters besides, they’ll probably realize that they forgot their things and turn their car around and head back soon. “Maybe you’re right” replied Michael.

A long, boring summer--that's what Anastasia has to look forward to when her best friend goes off to camp. She's thrilled when old Mrs. Bellingham answers her ad for a job as a Lady's Companion. Anastasia is sure her troubles are over--she'll be busy and earn money! But she doesn't expect to have to polish silver and serve at Mrs. Bellingham's granddaughter's birthday party as a maid! As if that isn't bad enough, she accidentally drops a piece of silverware down the garbage disposal and must use her earnings to pay for it! Is the summer destined to be a disaster?

"The ten inter-related stories in [this collection] are held together by a surreally intricate web of cause and effect--one that slowly ensnares both fictional bystanders and ... readers"--Dust jacket flap.