A game of Scrabble has serious consequences.

A semi-barbaric king devises a semi-barabaric (but entirely fair) method of criminal trial involving two doors, a beautiful lady and a very hungry tiger.

Helen was born wrong. Her daddy wanted a son who'd grow up to take over the family manufacturing business. Helen didn't qualify. Mommy wanted a dainty little girl. Helen wasn't dainty.

Kevin's dad is convinced that there's one weed spawning all the others in his garden and he just needs to find it.

The whole exospecimen idea started the night Moses Garcia was bitten by an echidna shrew in his sleep.

Five years and Nolan had always been there. Five years and Dane always appeared nervous, as if it were a first date.

It was impossible to miss. A blood-red diamond was flying in the sky, dipping and swerving with the wind. It was far outside The Hideaway walls, gliding high behind the tall, heavy gate, wind-beaten and soaring.

When he lost his eye, half of Eric Jessop's field of vision became a black sadness that seeped into everything from football to faces. Only skating was strong enough to resist the stain.

I have a special reason for wanting to find someone with knowledge of French, and my intuition – which I always trust – told me I would find that person here in Zenpukuji Park.

In the future, food is boring. Or, perhaps not.

“It’s always the same to begin with,” I said. “I’m on the beach. The sand is hot, the sun is bearing down. It makes the sand look white, like snow.”

We kept white feathers before exams or doctors’ appointments. Black feathers, of course, were warnings. We knew these to be facts, as empirical as science.

For Arabella, Christmas gifts were not judged on how expensive they were. They were an insight into how well I really knew and understood her.

Joe had a bad feeling he’d need his gun before the night was over.

Ten words, one tale. Ten tales, a hundred words.

But in my head that summer before we moved into the town was yellow and purple and red and supremely happy

Yesterday’s air sucked out, tidied and smoothed for re-use.

Truda paused at the gate and tried to calm her racing heart.

As if there weren’t enough problems on his plate, Mondriel had to go and stumble upon the biggest secret ever, didn’t he? The kind of secret that would turn the natural order of things on its head if it was leaked to a wider public.

He sat on the bench. Their bench. And watched the birds. And remembered.