Every time summer vacation came round, the parents were in the habit of sending their two children to the country, far away from the bustle of the city. So every July, Julien and his little siste ... [+]
E J Delaney lives in Brisbane, Australia, and spends many an hour staring out the window. E J’s short story ‘The Sixes, the Wisdom, and the Wasp’ was published in Escape Pod (#612) and shortlisted for the 2018 Aurealis Awards. E J’s middle grade stories appear also in Countdown (May 2020), Blast Off (June 2020), Spider (March 2022) and Touchdown (June 2022). "The Loner" is in Short Circuit #13, Short Édition's quarterly review.
Holly had been standing in the Time Out corner for five minutes now, and her feet were starting to hurt. She could have sat down. There was a stool for that. But sitting down seemed like something that Jordie-Cherie Treloar would do, or Ebony Urbina.
Not that the princesses ever got in trouble. They were too pretty. Too cow-eyed. (And yes, she included Noah Estay-Banks in that description.) But if one of them ever did get sent to the Time Out— sorry, the Courtesy and Cooperation corner, she bet they'd sit straight-backed on the stool as if making it their own personal throne. They'd lift t