Danika Stone

He pulled the truck onto the shoulder of the road and parked, cell phone tight in one hand, his eyes on the landscape before him. From here he could see the foothills rippling out like a blanket from the ragged edge of the mountains. They spread in loose folds until becoming the flat expanse of prairie that crossed all the way to the Great Lakes. July's bounty was a brash flare of colour: wind combed through golden tracts of wheat and sun-bright canola so brilliant he had to squint.The truck was balanced along the edge of an invisible wall which blocked Waterton from the rest of the world. He hadn't thought about how very real that barrier was; now that his phone was reconnected, it felt like a physical presence. He wasn't quite sure what he'd find on the other side.

If you're trying to figure out why something's not working,_ Old Lou had explained, __ust focus on the things that do work. Move through those things first and eventually you'll find the one part that's stuck.

Trapped on a school bus for an hour each morning and each evening, she devoured book after book. She explored a hundred worlds, indifferent to her peers and the passing of the universe.