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The Ups and Downs of Skeeter Kitefly

a novel by P. S. Ehrlich

Click here to download the Split Infinitive Edition of The Ups and Downs of Skeeter Kitefly

and here for the Titles to the webchapter version
 

New What's

Skeeter Kitefly Index

  PART ONE:  MARBLE ORCHARD 
 

The Ups and Downs of Skeeter Kitefly

Part One
Part Two
Part Three
 

Skeeter Kitefly's Sugardaddy Confessor

Part One
Part Two
Part Three

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Skeeter Kitefly's
Titular Assets

COMPACTIFICATION
behind the scenes


RoBynne O'Ring's
GRUNTS OF
PASSION

_______________


TO BE HONEST

FINE LINEAGE

13 BLACK CATS
UNDER A LADDER

BOLSTER,
NOT MOLEST HER

MARAT À LA MODE

BAGELANNA

OLD LITTER

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About the Author

Contact the Author

Characters

Book Covers

Skeeterography

Etc.ography

Site Map

Links

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Last Updated

June 13, 2009

At a 4th of July party in 1965, the
not-quite-six Kelly Rebecca Kitefly
(“Miss Skeeter” to her Grampa Otto)
has a cavortin’ good time, oblivious
to her parents having broken up—and
also to the dangers of skyrockets.

…It was getting really, really dark now and Kelly Rebecca started back, lingering by the old chicken house since Dougie Hungerford had swiped
a cherry bomb from the fireworks supply, and had whispered to her that later on they were going to try blowing up the old chicken house with it.  Kelly could hardly wait.  Being involved in an explosion wouldn’t faze
her at all, nossir!  Never a skinned knee nor a bruised finger despite all her antics; and though she’d broken collarbones by falling out of trees, they had never been her collarbones…

Click here to read "O Say Can You Skeet"
(webchapter version)

and here to read "O Say Can You Skeet"
as it appeared in DigiZine
 

Living with her grandparents in
smalltown Marble Orchard, Skeeter
is confined to bed with the German
measles, her hyperactive imagination,
and other family legacies.
 

…Skeeter had no sooner landed in a sickbed than she’d entertained
high hopes of ambulances and oxygen tents, her life being despaired of, all her friends at school chipping in to buy flowers that could double if necessary as a funeral wreath.  But what a gyp: nothing but a week of tucked-in isolation and denial of TV rights, since Gramma wouldn’t
move the family Magnavox upstairs…

Click here to read "Two Points"
(webchapter version)
 

Left on her own one Sunday afternoon,
Skeeter occupies herself with
multilayered make-believe—and
testing the limits of a cat’s patience
on a treehouse level.
 

…Wrinkle your pointed-button nose and look down it at the rest of you.  Someday soon you’re going to be big, with boobies out to here, and wear stylish unmentionabubbles to tote them around in.  Lawnjer-ray , lawnjer-ree, lawnjer-RAH-hahaha—and pose in tight sweaters with an arched back like Ann-Margret…

Click here to read "The House in the Trees"
(webchapter version)

and here to read "The House in the Trees"
as it appeared in DigiZine
 

The eight-year-old Skeeter and her
intense friend Janey take advantage
of their Brownie uniforms as they
conspire to buy their first cigarettes.

…The girls had already done plenty of experimental smoking, despite a lack of material.  Janey’s mother had been raised Mormon, and wouldn’t allow tobacco in her house; and Gramma Otto, while puffing through quite a few cigarettes, was nobody’s fool and kept them under literal
lock and key.  “When we get BOYfriends, we can take their cigarettes,” Skeeter’d decided.  “Till then we’re on our own…”

Click here to read "Brownie Like Me"
(webchapter version)

"Brownie Like Me" was published in the printmag
Rhapsoidia
 

Visiting her uncle in Chicago, Skeeter
gets her first taste of Bright Lights
Big City—and takes part in the fracas
surrounding the 1968 Democratic
convention.

…lookit all the burlesque houses! the pawnshops! the saloons! the drunk-looking man staggering out of that one!  This must be the genuine authentic BAD part of town!  But “Wait, it gets better,” Buddy was saying, swinging them roundabout again and heading off in a new direction.  “1-2-3 Red Light!” Skeeter sang—and all at once the world
lit up like the carousel at the Booth County Fair…

Click here to read "Power & Light"
(webchapter version)

and here to read "Power & Light"
as it appeared in The Sidewalk’s End
 

Skeeter meets Mercedes Benison, a
potential big stepsister who alternates
between eager affection, moderate
fury, and outta-here! bossiness.

…Sadie was still lecturing about race relations and social injustice when they reached the edge of Oswald Avenue.  Here Skeeter found it necessary to punch her on the arm.  “Ow!  What was that for?” 
“Slug-Bug went by,” Skeeter explained, pointing to a passing Volkswagen.  “Look, there goes another—”  “Ow!  Quit it!  Who do you think you’re punching, squirt?”  “Gee, Sadie, I thought it was you…”

Click here to read "Sister Sadie What Have You Done"
(webchapter version)

and here to read "Sister Sadie What Have You Done"
as it appeared in The Sidewalk's End
 

About to leave Marble Orchard in 1970,
the impatient Skeeter plans her own
going-away party, heedless of the
left-behind.

“...Okay!” she’d run home to inform Gramma, “here’s the latest: I’m going to hitch the ponies up to Jeff’s uncle’s neighbor-that-used-to-be- a-milkman’s cart, and do it up like Cinderella’s pumpkin, right? and get driven to school my last day, and be hahnded out at the door in this red velvet gown cut low front ‘n’ back—”

Click here to read "Buying the Farm"
(webchapter version)