"American History" by Judith Ortiz Cofer Skinny Bones is a teenage Puerto Rican girl struggling to adapt to life in a multifamily apartment building in Paterson, New Jersey. She lives in a former Jewish neighborhood that is now inhabited mostly by Puerto Ricans and African Americans. As a loner, Skinny Bones is attracted to marginalized individuals like herself. She finds her soulmate in Eugene, a shy teenager who has recently come from south Georgia. Because of his marked southern accent he is soon dubbed “the Hick,” and he becomes the school’s newest object of ridicule, joining Skinny Bones as an outcast. Skinny Bones falls in love with Eugene, and they soon become inseparable, despite their cultural differences. Eugene, a bright student, tutors Skinny Bones in several subjects. Although Skinny Bones is a good student, she is not admitted to advanced courses because English is not her first language.
"The Upheaval" by Anton Chekov The Upheaval is a story about a young girl, Mashenka Pavletsky, who works as a governess for an upper-class household. Mashenka, who once felt herself superior to the lady of the house, has had her room searched because her boss, Fedosya Vassilyevna Kushkin, had lost a brooch. Mashenka was so offended by this act of having her room searched, that she packed up her things and left the house and her job in indignation.
"Daughter of Invention" by Julia Alvarez This story is about a family that immigrated to America from the Dominican Republic to start a new life. The father found a good job and the mother was always inventing things and showing them to her daughters, who were never really encouraging. The father is nervous his daughters and his wife are forgetting their Hispanic culture. This creates a divide in the family, but in a way brings them together.
"Dr. Heidegger's Experiment" by Nathaniel Hawthorne This short story is about a doctor who claims to have been sent water from the Fountain of Youth. Dr. Heidegger invites four elderly friends to participate in an experiment in his mysterious, gloomy study.
"Some Are Born to Sweet Delight" by Nadine Gordimor A family takes in a young man. The house has a policy of not allowing Irish people to rent lodging, but there is no discrimination against other nationalities. The new lodger is polite and tidy. The family's seventeen-year-old daughter, Vera, takes an interest in the lodger, but the young man is not everything he seems.
"The Adventure of the Speckled Band" by Arthur Conan Doyle This one of the 56 short Sherlock Holmes stories written by Scottish author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. It is the eighth of the twelve stories collected in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. It is one of four Sherlock Holmes stories that can be classified as a locked room mystery. The story was first published in Strand Magazine in February 1892, with illustrations by Sidney Paget. It was published under the different title "The Spotted Band" in New York World in August 1905. Doyle later revealed that he thought this was his best Holmes story.
Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson rise unusually early one morning. to meet a young woman named Helen Stoner. Helen fears that her life is being threatened by her stepfather, Dr. Grimesby Roylott. She has begun to hear strange noises and observe strange activities around Stoke Moran, the impoverished and heavily mortgaged estate where she and her stepfather live.
"The Censors" by Luisa Valenzuela The Censors' is a short story by Luisa Valenzuela, an author from Argentina. In 'The Censors,' she uses humor to examine the serious events in Argentina during her life. Juan is a young man living in Argentina under the control of an authoritarian government. At the beginning of the story, he writes and mails a letter to a woman he loves named Mariana. However, he quickly begins worrying about what the censors will think about the contents of his letter.
"The Quiet Man" by Maurice Walsh In the 1930s, Irish novelist Maurice Walsh placed the moors and mountains of Ireland firmly on the literary map with this celebrated collection of stories. Since then, readers have continued to be charmed by these accounts of the simple and common activities of the characters in 1920s rural Ireland. A retired American boxer returns to the village of his birth in Ireland, where he finds love. The lives of Hugh Forbes, Paddy Bawn Enright, Archibald MacDonald, Joan Hyland, and Nuala Kierley intermingle as the themes of nationalism, human dignity, honor, and love are given full play.
"The Birds" by Daphne Du Maurier In a small Cornish seaside town in early December, there is a sudden cold snap. A wounded war veteran on military pension, Nat Hocken, is working part-time for a farm owner when he notices a large number of birds behaving strangely along the peninsula where his family lives. He attributes this to the sudden arrival of winter. That night, he hears a tapping on his bedroom window and encounters a bird that pecks his hand, causing him to bleed. As the night progresses he encounters more birds, especially those flocking into his children's room, but the birds leave at dawn. Nat reassures his wife that they were restless because of a sudden change in the weather.
"Through the Tunnel" by Doris Lessing Jerry, a young English boy, and his widowed mother are vacationing at a beach they have come to many times in years past. Though the beach’s exact location is not given, it is obviously in a foreign country. Each tries to please the other and not to impose too many demands. The mother is “determined to be neither possessive nor lacking in devotion,” and Jerry, in turn, acts from an “unfailing impulse of contrition — a sort of chivalry.” Things are going well until Jerry wants to be adventurous.
"Witness for the Prosecution" by Agatha Christie Leonard Vole is arrested for the murder of Emily French, a wealthy older woman. Unaware that he was a married man, Miss French made him her principal heir, casting suspicion on Leonard. When his wife, Romaine, agrees to testify, she does so not in Leonard's defense but as a witness for the prosecution.