Scarville, Iowa has a creepy, Disney villain-themed, name. The name of the town might be less than remarkable, but the incidents which occur within this quiet, isolated American town could be described as nothing short of terrifying.
A tale of adolescent alienation and redemption in a post-World War II setting. It focuses primarily on fifteen-year-old Ginnie Mannox's meeting with her classmate Selena Graff's older brother, Franklin.
An unnamed narrator recounts his experiences as a nine-year-old member of the Comanche Club in New York City in 1928. The leader of the club, “The Chiefâ€, is a young law student at New York University who is described as lacking in physical attractiveness but appears beautiful to the narrator. He is widely respected by his troop for his athletic strength and storytelling ability.
Told in two distinct segments, the first involves a discussion between two house servants about their employer’s little boy, who has a history of running away. The second segment explores the mother's efforts to reassure her son and help him cope with his fears. The story opens with the two house servants, Mrs. Snell and Sandra, discussing the homeowner's young son, Lionel. Sandra is very worried that Lionel will tell Boo Boo (Mrs. Tannenbaum), her employer, that Sandra has made some anti-Semitic remarks about Lionel’s Jewish father (“gonna have a nose just like his father†[8]). Boo Boo finds Lionel in a dinghy preparing to cast off, and refuses to allow his mother to join him. Boo Boo pretends to be admiral of the imaginary ship in order to win Lionel over and discover why he is trying to run away. He resists, even going so far as to throw his uncle Seymour's old goggles into the lake. Lionel tells Boo Boo that Sandra called his father a "big sloppy kike".[9] While he doesn't know what this ethnic slur means, conflating the epithet “kike†with “kiteâ€, he nevertheless grasps its derogatory connotation. Boo Boo, in an effort to reassure the boy and help him cope with the episode, succeeds in providing him insights into her own needs and the love she feels for him. At the end of the story, they race across the beach toward home, and Lionel wins.
Lee and a woman are in his apartment together. The phone rings and he reaches across her to answer it. It is Arthur, worried about his wife, Joanie, who disappeared from a party. Lee tells him to relax and assures him that she will turn up soon. Arthur is worried about his job too. He is a lawyer and has just lost a case. After he rings off Lee turns to the woman and she tells him he was wonderful and that she feels like a dog (she is apparently the missing wife). The phone rings again. It is Arthur to say that his wife has returned. Lee is speechless with amazement and ends this conversation very quickly.
A fifty- year old Mamzelle Aurelie who unmarried women. She has never had a man and lives alone on her farm with some animals and Negroes working with her. One day, her nearest neighbor, Odile brought her four children to her house and left them in Mamzelle Aurelie's care because of a dangerous illness of her mother. This is why Mamzelle Aurelie, who has never ever has children before has to keep them. For the next two weeks, Mamzelle Aurelie had to learn to care for the children and be accustomed to their presence and noises. At the end of two weeks, Odlie came back and released Mamzelle Aurelie from her responsibility, but Mamzelle Aurelie felt the loneliness in the absence of the four children, and she cried "like a man, not even noticing her dog liciking her hand.
In the depths of every heart there is a tomb and a dungeon, though the lights, the music and revelry, above may cause us to forget their existence and the buried ones or prisoners whom they hide. But sometimes, and oftenest at midnight, those dark receptacles are flung wide open.
A Wall Street lawyer hires a new clerk who, after an initial bout of hard work, refuses to make copy or do any other task required of him, with the words "I would prefer not to". The lawyer cannot bring himself to remove Bartleby from his premises, and decides instead to move his office, but the new proprietor removes Bartleby to prison, where he perishes.
