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Author on Reedsy Prompts since Jun, 2020
Submitted to Contest #142
The city library wasn’t in the worst part of our town. But it was close enough to always double-check that I’d locked my bike before I went inside. That spring, I’d taken to always riding down there after school to do my homework. Though I was from the right side of the tracks – barely – I wasn’t scared of the ride not quite into the slums. It was where most of my friends lived, which was one of a hundred reasons why my mother and I didn’t get along at all lately. Another was my avoiding spending time at home after school. “You ought to fa...
Submitted to Contest #133
Jerry heard his mother in the hallway a second too late to avoid getting caught red-handed, perched on his desk chair with one hand deep in the reaches of the top shelf of his closet. “What are you doing in there, sweetheart?” she asked from the doorway. “Oh, nothing!” Jerry said much too emphatically, even he could hear that as he let go of the contraband magazine and pulled his hand out. Along the way he knocked something out of place that he couldn’t make out in the darkness, and it came tumbling out – an old heart-shaped box. “I hope...
Submitted to Contest #131
The first time I saw Jen, she was coming down the path from Loorsey Hall just after second bell. She was laughing at something another girl said when they were passing, and her joyful smile and bouncing dark curls caught my attention. I smiled back as I approached her. When we made eye-contact, she recoiled and stepped off the path to give me a wide berth. I was used to the older girls looking at me like that because I was a freshman and a scholarship kid, and I knew just how to handle it. “Good morning,” I said, not losing the smile. “D...
Submitted to Contest #81
It took Pauline ages to scrub off the grime from the ’74 Cadillac she was restoring. But it was worth it, for she’d finally gotten the engine to start. If the neighbors hadn’t all heard her whoop of triumph down to both ends of the block, they’d surely heard the engine chugging, for she hadn’t bought a new muffler yet. In any event, she mused as she finally emerged from the shower and put on her favorite red top and white pants, that made two things Florence would be overjoyed with when she got home. Besides the candlelit dinner Pauline ha...
Submitted to Contest #73
“Freakin’ Kansas City,” Becky grumbled from across the aisle as the bus pulled off the snowy interstate. “Most boring city on earth!” “I’ve always wanted to see it, myself,” Kate replied with a smile, though after all these weeks she wondered why she bothered when her fellow dancer was in one of her moods. “You would say that,” Becky said. “What do you know about Kansas City anyway, Miss East Coast? You probably think it’s in Kansas, don’t you?” “Part of it is, although the bigger part is in Missouri. In fact, it’s the biggest city in ...
Submitted to Contest #68
It was a cheap hotel and a pair of unfamiliar beds, and I probably wouldn’t have slept very well under any circumstances anyhow. Whatever the reason, Ben and I were up in time to see the sunrise.I didn’t mind a bit. The sooner this was over, the better.While he was still in the shower I walked down the balcony to get a coffee in the hotel lobby. The sun was just peeking over the horizon and the asphalt wasn’t the blistering hot sheet it would be in an hour or so, but I wore my sandals anyway. I hadn’t seen any snakes last night but that didn...
Submitted to Contest #64
Three things had roared through my mind on that wonderful day last spring when I got my acceptance letter from Branford Academy. When Penny greeted me scarcely twenty minutes after Dad dropped me off, I was down to one for three for the time being. But at least that one was under my own control. I was still smarting from the first illusion to fall when Penny invited herself into my new room and handed me the second. I was sitting on my new, as-yet sheetless bed, looking out the window at the steel-and-glass view of New Campus when I heard ...
Submitted to Contest #47
Suitcase in hand, you head to the station. I don’t expect you to thank me for driving you there, but you mumble “Thanks” as I shut the trunk. “You’re welcome,” I say, and we set off to navigate the parked cars and arriving travellers. “But you know, Steve, one of these days you’re going to come back from Pittsfield and I’m not gonna be around.” “You’ve been sayin’ that ever since you got out of the navy,” you say as if I don’t know. “You taken over your mother’s mortgage yet?” “She’s invited me to, instead of payin’ rent,” I say. “But ...
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