The Narrative Lead

          Many years ago when a person who owed money could be thrown into jail, a merchant in London had the misfortune to owe a huge sum to a money-lender. The money-lender, who was old and ugly, fancied the merchant's beautiful teenage daughter. He proposed a bargain. He said he would cancel the merchant's debt if he could have the girl instead.

          Both the merchant and his daughter were horrified at the proposal. So the cunning money-lender proposed that they let Providence decide the matter. He told them that he would put a black pebble and a white pebble into an empty money bag, and then the girl would have to pick out one of the pebbles. If she chose the black pebble, she would become his wife and her father's debt would be cancelled. If she chose the white pebble, she would stay with her father, and the debt would still be cancelled. But if she refused to pick out a pebble, her father would be thrown into jail, and she would starve.

          Reluctantly the merchant agreed. They were standing on a pebble-strewn path in the merchant's garden as they talked, and the money-lender stooped down to pick up the two pebbles. As he picked up the pebbles, the girl, sharp-eyed with fright, noticed that he picked up two black pebbles and put them into the money bag. He then asked the girl to pick out the pebble that was to decide her fate and that of her father. ... The girl ... put her hand into the money-bag and drew out a pebble. Without looking at it she fumbled and let it fall to the path where it was immediately lost among the others.

          "Oh how clumsy of me," she said, "but never mind---if you look into the bag you will be able to tell which pebble I took by the color of the one that is left."
       --- Edward De Bono

          All you can do is sit there and watch as your ship lurches, signaling the exit of hyperspace. Suddenly your ship is put into the middle of a fierce intergalactic battle. Energy beams float through space all around you and pretty soon a ship bursts into flames near you.

          Without thinking, your hand goes to the throttle control and instantly you are thrusting forward at half the speed of light. You glance quickly behind you before your targeting system picks up a stray enemy fighter. Now just a hundred yards in front of you is your quarry.

          With a sudden burst of adrenaline your heart begins to beat faster and faster as you wait for the targeting crosshairs to turn red. Now just moments away from turning your enemy into disarranged particles of carbon, a red light flashes on the visor of your battle helmet. You chance a glance down at the control panel of your fighter. You turn around just in time to see a missile of another enemy fighter slam into the right engine of you craft. You wait for next screen to appear, and you press 'New Game.'

          "Okay," you remark, "let's try this level again."
       --- Zach Vesoulis

The Quotation Lead

          "Quack, quack!" Canada geese waddled across the road at a pace comparable to that of a tired turtle. Remembering her motto about the bothersome geese, Mom shouted, "Fly or die."
       --- Nicole Passan

          "When I'm a genetic engineer, I'm going to find a cure for cancer, and I'm going to make a chicken with six wings," she says.
       --- Liz Botros

          "I came to your house to die."
       --- Daniel Simon

The Question Lead

          John Grisham had always hated English. In college, he even earned D's in freshman English. So, how did he become a writer with three suspense novels at the top of the charts?
       --- Laura Faulkner

          Would you like to see the only real pink elephants in the world? Or visit a barren lava bed whose name means "devil" in Swahili? Or watch hippos play in a bubbling spring? You can. Just visit Tsavo National Park in Kenya, Africa.
       --- Meredith MacMillan

          Have you ever had to glue your shoes to hold them together? Cut your own hair or make your own clothes? Watch as your older sister becomes pregnant at sixteen? Or, with sirens screaming and lights flashing, watch an ambulance take your mother to the hospital after she tries to commit suicide? And, after all this, would you have the strength to go on? These memories, dark and piercing, are from my mother's childhood.
       --- Emily Coleman

The Statistical Lead

          In the Brazilian Amazon, annual forest loss from all causes rose from less than 3 million acres in 1991 to an average of 4.8 million acres during each of the past three years---the equivalent of seven football fields a minute. In 1995 alone, more than 7 million acres were destroyed---an area roughly the size of Belgium.
       --- William Laurance

          Child abuse is becoming one of the fastest growing acts of violence in the United States. According to the American Humane Association, 1.4 million cases of child abuse were reported in the U.S. in 1982. Nearly 1/5 of these victims were teenagers between the ages of 13 and 17. Last year, nearly 1,300 abused children died.
       --- Molly Fitzpatrick

The Mystery Lead

          The mysterious malady began so quietly I could hardly believe there was anything wrong. There was nothing strong enough to dignify with the word pain, nothing except a slight dull ache in my left leg when I walked upstairs. I did not dream it was the stealthy beginning of a seven-year siege during which I would face a word totally new to my vocabulary---incurable.
       ---- Margaret Bourke-White

          Embarrassed. That's the only emotion in the English language to describe a scenario that I shamefully remember as "The Ballpark Incident."
       --- David Haile

          Heart thumping, palms sweating, my Dad watches as the enemy shows its face: nine men, all wielding weapons of war and destruction. Although the enemy does not outnumber my Dad's side, he realizes that their skill is far superior and that at any time one man could win the war. Still, he does not lose faith and holds his breath as he awaits the almost inevitable onslaught.
       --- Patrick Mazanec

          Grandma Mingo taught me to play poker when I was seven.
       --- Liz Mesok

The Descriptive Lead

          The midsummer sun was high in a clear yellow-brown sky. The morning’s filmy blue clouds had dissipated, and the temperature was 8 degrees Fahrenheit---way up from last night’s low of minus 100 degrees. A breeze wafted from the west at about eight miles an hour. A perfect afternoon for a drive on Mars.
       --- William Newcott

          Leaping into the air and grasping the creature in her paws, the cat lands on all four legs victoriously. But, this is no ordinary cat. This is a cat named Sunny. Sunny is my one year old kitten that is full of enough energy to pull a semi across the country. Now sure, she is like most other kittens in the world, except she doesn't use her energy the same way that most other cats do. Most cats use their energy to hunt rabbits or birds or even mice, but not Sunny. She uses hers to hunt for a different game. She uses her energy by catching insects.
       --- Will Cleary

The Imagine Lead

          Imagine dropping ten alarm clocks off the top of the Sears tower. Then, imagine if you had to rely on picture-taking sensors, like bubble chambers, to tell where the pieces fell. You would have tons of pictures of little trails of bubbles that represented part of the paths of the tiny fragments of the clocks. After collecting the data, you would have to do the impossible. Using only these pictures, you would have to figure out how one alarm clock works and what materials made it up. Even with the most powerful computers, it would take you a long time, working constantly, repeating the experiment, and guessing about what the trails represent, to come up with an educated guess. Brian Anderson, a pioneer detective of a world that would fit inside the tiniest speck of dust, works with such a problem.
       --- Kati Moseley

          Imagine this, you are sitting at home and the next thing you know you get this disease and your blood starts to clot. In other words, you freeze, right there. This is what happens in Michael Crichton's The Andromeda Strain.
       --- Daniel Pipitone

The Direct Lead

          In this chapter we examine the Max Lange Attack, the Classical Variation of the Two Knights’ Defense and a line in the Scotch Gambit that can arise if Black avoids the other two systems.
       --- Levy and Keene

The Combination Lead

          What would cause you to go through 49 diapers each day? To go through 11 gallons of formula a week? To spend $1.25 million on medical expenses? To spend $1.45 million on 4 years of college education? Multiple births.
       --- Linsay Davis