1. Do you really listen when you are talking with someone?

I
have a friend who listens in an unforgiving way. She
actually takes every word you say as being something
important and when you have a friend that listens like that,
words take on a whole new meaning.

2. There wasn't a bird in the sky, but that was not what
caught her attention. It was the clouds. The deep green
that isn't the color of clouds, but came with these. She
knew what was coming and she hoped she was prepared.

3. One dollar and eighty-seven cents. That was all. And sixty
cents of it was in pennies. Pennies saved one and two at
a time by bulldozing the grocer and the vegetable man
and the butcher until one’s cheeks burned with the silent
imputation of parsimony that such close dealing implied.
One dollar and eighty-seven cents. And the next day
would be Christmas...

4. The cab arrived late. The inside was in as bad of shape as

the outside which was concerning, and it didn't appear that
it had been cleaned in months. The green tree air-
freshener hanging from the rearview mirror was either
exhausted of its scent or not strong enough to overcome
the other odors emitting from the cab. The correct
decision, in this case, was to get the hell out of it and to
call another cab, but she was late and didn't have a
choice.

5. MaryLou wore the tiara with pride. There was something

that made doing anything she didn't really want to do a bit
easier when she wore it. She really didn't care what those
 staring through the window were thinking as she
vacuumed her apartment.

6. There was something in the tree. It was difficult to tell from

the ground, but Rachael could see movement. She
squinted her eyes and peered in the direction of the
movement, trying to decipher exactly what she had spied.
The more she peered, however, the more she thought it
might be a figment of her imagination. Nothing seemed to
move until the moment she began to take her eyes off the
tree. Then in the corner of her eye, she would see the
movement again and begin the process of staring again.

7.It's not his fault. I know you're going to want to, but you
can't blame him. He really has no idea how it happened. I
kept trying to come up with excuses I could say to mom
that would keep her calm when she found out what
happened, but the more I tried, the more I could see none
of them would work. He was going to get her wrath and
there was nothing I could say to prevent it.

8. It was difficult for him to admit he was wrong. He had been

so certain that he was correct and the deeply held belief
could never be shaken. Yet the proof that he had been
incorrect stood right before his eyes. "See daddy, I told
you that they are real!" his daughter excitedly proclaimed.

9. His parents continued to question him. He didn't know

what to say to them since they refused to believe the truth.
He explained again and again, and they dismissed his
explanation as a figment of his imagination. There was no
way that grandpa, who had been dead for five years,
 could have told him where the treasure had been hidden.
Of course, it didn't help that grandpa was roaring with
laughter in the chair next to him as he tried to explain once
again how he'd found it.

10. The trees, therefore, must be such old and primitive

techniques that they thought nothing of them, deeming
them so inconsequential that even savages like us would
know of them and not be suspicious. At that, they probably
didn't have too much time after they detected us orbiting
and intending to land. And if that were true, there could be
only one place where their civilization was hidden.