The teacher briefly leaves the room. Class discussion erupts.
Mark: “You’re so ugly.”
Lucy: “I know.”
Everyone laughs. Feeling humiliated, Lucy quickly smiles, hoping that the sudden twist of her lips will prevent a deluge of tears. Teacher returns. Class once again silent, although Lucy can still hear that laughter.
Linda Nathaniel is a teacher from Sydney, Australia, who has had a play go from page to stage and poems published around the globe.
I never expected this when I left work early.
Two black women’s shoes and a stained blouse create landmarks across a trail of red smears.
“Daddy! I was playing dress up and mommy made chicken’s fingers and I got my own ketchup.”
Smiling, I kiss my daughter’s precious, tomato-covered cheek.
Craig would like to thank the creators of spell check,caffeine,and the English language. He is currently working on a fifty word story that will not use the same word twice.
“Why don’t you go outside and play, Joey?”
“Stink hole,” he said, stubbornly shaking his head.
“The TV news scared you, didn’t it? Well, Joey, there’re no sinkholes in our backyard. Just watch me.”
Joey’s mom was stomping her way around the azaleas when she was ambushed by the skunk.
John H. Dromey has had short fiction published in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, Gumshoe Review, Plasma Frequency Magazine, and elsewhere.
Children aren’t mean. Sometimes they just lack common sense.
For example, at the party I was in charge of the pinata. Finding one, hanging it up, getting some big sticks.
We were having a lot of fun until Mrs. Pinata from down the block showed up, looking for her kid.
Joe Malone is living in a mud hut in South Sudan. Read more from him at http://joem18b.wordpress.com/.
At age 5, Brody required less of my doting. Horsing around on the monkey bars, he slipped. His embarrassment outweighed his pain.
Bath time, I asked if I could take a look. Reluctantly, he agreed. As I kneeled in for examination, he turned his head, rolled his eyes and said, “Awkward.”
Shelly Eady is an emerging writer with an abundance of faith and a heart’s desire to enrich, inspire, and encourage others to dream through the art of creativity.
“I wish I had their legs,” I hollered at the mother as her two girls raced ahead on the path.
“Well, they get to go to bed at 8 PM,” she chuckled back.
Such a jolly, inane exchange.
Then I thought, wait a second, what if I went to bed at 8?
rJo Herman dreams of writing the one perfect tale her grandchildren will tell their grandchildren. She lives in the Colorado high desert with her grey striped companion, Emil Catt I.
Lucy is eating her second watermelon slice. I indulge her because her sister, Rachel, is on a playdate and she’s not.
Slurp. Drip.
“Lucy, please don’t get watermelon on your dress.”
“Okay.”
Slurp. Drip. Drip.
“Lucy, I just said not to get watermelon on your dress!”
“I’m wearing Rachel’s dress.”
Wendy White Lees is a freelance writer and editor. Her two daughters fuel both her creativity and her insomnia.
Vee wore a flimsy veil from a costume store, and Mommy’s 15-year-old prom dress.
Scottie wore 80s sunglasses and a plaid hunting cap.
As they struggled through their “vows”, my wife and I held hands behind our backs.
I smiled almost as much at that “wedding” as at my own.
This story was based on the prompt “hunting cap” at TypeTrigger.
Fifteen thousand and twelve things could happen between our car and his classroom.
I tell myself they won’t; I tell myself he’ll be fine. He doesn’t need me to walk him anymore. And I don’t.
But he’s my little boy, and it’s so very, very hard to let him go.
M. Elaine Moore is a North Carolina fiction writer and poet. Her work can be found in print in The Island Breeze, and Outer Banks publication, and online at Foliate Oak Literary Journal, Four and Twenty, The Camel Saloon, Apollo’s Lyre, Pond Ripples, Three Line Poetry, and the Journal of Microliterature.
Cynthia had made a habit of sneaking cookies out of the jar when Mom left the room.
One day, Mom caught her, and Cynthia received a crisp slap on the wrist.
The next afternoon, Cynthia emerged from her bedroom with foam padding taped to her wrists, and took a cookie.
This story was based on the prompt “slap on the wrist” at TypeTrigger.