Cirrus@Austlit

'A boy and his father live in the middle of the desert; despite the lack of customers at their tiny motel/petrol station, they believe that there will be even more because of a legend of a creature that lives in that area. One night, the boy goes out and spends several days wandering the desert, trying to find this legendary creature.'   (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Undone_(short_story_collection))

'An old man is forced to go to a nursing home. He can only leave if he can prove the existence of a dragon, so he sends his grandson into the sewers to take photos of the dragon. The grandson returns with a box which turns out to be a dragon egg from which a baby dragon hatches. Was later adapted as an episode of Round the Twist, was one of two adaptions to be combined into one episode.' (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unbelievable_(short_story_collection))

'A 14-year-old boy has the ability to travel through time. He decides to travel to just before his mother was killed and stop her from going on the walk that kills her.'  (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncovered_(short_story_collection))

'A boy always gets the rude finger from the school bully when he walks home from school, and does nothing about it because he doesn't have middle fingers himself. So one day, he eats a lizard's tail, and he ends up growing new fingers. However, it is not long before his fingers become more of an embarrassment than anything else.'

'A boy burns his buttocks after trying to photocopy them, causing him to feel pain whenever he sits down. He then helps his grandfather find a water-holding frog, but they get trapped in the desert without water. Knowing that neither of them can go on any further, the boy sits down on his burnt bottom and tears rush from his eyes as he feels the unbearable pain. His tears fall onto the ground, causing a ton of frogs to appear on the ground and the grandfather's wish is granted.'  (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unmentionable)

'A boy invents a lie detector that works exactly as intended. His friend uses it on the two richest children in his class, hoping to embarrass them.'   (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unmentionable)

'When a boy gets his earrings confiscated at school, he buys a new one. But this one is enchanted; it causes whoever wears it to get rubbish attracted to them. Was later adapted as an episode of Round The Twist.'  (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unmentionable)

'A boy's parents are getting divorced, and he can't decide whom to stay with. So he invents a robot man with green eyes and red eyes; whenever he is in a difficult situation, he spins the eyes; both colours cause a different outcome.'    (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unmentionable)

'A deliberately humorless melancholic drama about a terminally-ill boy (Tim) who wants nothing more than to see snow. His non-verbal brother (Richard) is obsessed with toilet paper and honey and says nothing but "Aargh". Could this obsession be linked to his brother's desire?' (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncovered_(short_story_collection))

'A 21-year-old man visits the site of his primary school, which had since been demolished for a shopping centre. When he was 12, he buried a time capsule containing a letter to his girlfriend here. He hopes that someone will uncover that time capsule, as it was supposed to be uncovered nine years from its burial.' (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncovered_(short_story_collection))

'An old man has a watch that runs on his movement whenever he wears it. When he dies, he loses it, and his wife is unable to feel happy. However, their grandson tries to get the watch back and make his grandmother happy.' 

'A boy moves from Melbourne to the Queensland rainforest to live with his father (because his mother, who had divorced, has died). The last thing the boy has to remind him of his mother is a hat, which he always tries to retrieve every time he loses it (even if it means risking his life), but his abilities are pushed to the limit when he loses it while being ordered to stand guard over the last known individual of a species of bilby. ('https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tongue-Tied_(short_story_collection))

'When a new boy named Sammy Sams arrives at school, the school bully gives him a very hard time. But when the new boy discovers an unidentified species of beetle, he becomes respected by the school - with the exception of the bully, of course. So when the school tries to show the beetle to the authorities, the bully steals it and expresses a desire to pass it as his own discovery. However, he gets bitten; throughout the following day at school, his skin starts to become see-through. When it spreads to his entire body, he becomes a sideshow; embarrassed, he spends 10 years away from civilisation. The bully decides to commemorate the tenth anniversary of his exile by eating the beetle; the beetle bites him again, and he kills it. Afterwards, the bully's skin returns to normal and he decides to return to society, only to discover that everyone else in the world has developed see-through skin.' (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Undone_(short_story_collection))

'Two twin brothers find a box while digging in the vegetable patch; they fight over who should own it, despite the fact that they are so close to each other that they rarely fight. But when one of them to stop arguing the remaining one refuses his brother then has an accident and dies. The remaining brother then feels guilty about his decision, and wants nothing but to shake his brother's hand, even though he knows it's never going to happen. But one day, he discovers what is in the box: an enchanted pair of glasses. When he wears them, he finds himself in a parallel world where spirits of dead people live. The spirits do not know that they had previously died, they have no memories of their past life, they don't believe in people, they are unable to see or hear visitors to their world, and they are "born" by appearing out of nowhere, already fully-grown. The boy hopes that he can somehow use the glasses' power to shake his brother's hand.' (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tongue-Tied_(short_story_collection))

'A boy gets stranded on an island with his father. But he has three other problems: one, he has never seen his mother; two, he is forced to watch his father die; and three, he has nails growing all over him. Was later adapted as an episode of Round The Twist.' (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unbearable_(short_story_collection))

'A man tries to buy land from another man. When the man owning the land refuses, the other man steals his car. The man sends his children to look for the car; however, the forest they live near is believed to be haunted by a ghost that can change shape, force people and animals into it, and eat them.'