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CONTEST ENDED – Thank you for submitting your stories!

#198: Teacher’s Pet

Whether it was the one who taught you a valuable skill, encouraged you to strive for better, or simply put a band-aid on your grazed knee, there must be at least one teacher you’ll always remember. They’re a constant presence in our childhoods, and, when you’re only small, teachers can seem like larger-than-life characters; the source of all knowledge. It’s little wonder that they feature so often in our stories and our imaginations.

Teaching is a difficult and complicated calling. As in any profession, alongside the above-and-beyonders are also those who should never have become teachers, or who have become jaded. Perhaps your own experiences with a teacher of this kind, one who failed to believe in their students when they needed them the most, clipped your wings, or drove you to work even harder in life. Either way, let's use this week to draw from these formative experiences and write about the people who taught us things, or ought to have.

This week's prompts

Write a story about an unconventional teacher.

High School – 57 stories

Start your story with somebody getting called to the principal’s office.

Middle School – 40 stories

Write about a school trip that takes a turn for the unexpected.

Kids – 15 stories

Write a short story about a teacher or mentor figure who recognizes hidden (or magical!) potential in someone and helps them cultivate it.

Narrative – 46 stories

Write a story that contains the phrase “Okay class! Pop quiz.”

Teens – 24 stories

Stories

“The Sunlight Made Rainbows in the Water” by Sierra Fraser

Submitted to Contest #198

Everyone showed up for my funeral. Everyone wanted to see the Dead Kid. Mom and Dad were there, although it seemed like they were ghosts of themselves, like they were the ones who drowned. They always looked that way. Holly, Pat, and Christian were there, too—I didn’t expect to see them. They were swinging their feet in their plastic chairs and sipping from the black solo cups they had at the funeral home. I liked th...

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“Las Mujeres ” by Martin Ross

Submitted to Contest #198

“You cannot uneducate the person who has learned to read. You cannot humiliate the person who feels pride. You cannot oppress the people who are not afraid anymore." — Cesar Chavez2014Dodge struggled to focus on his lesson plan during the Tuesday morning trek to Phoenix. “Sister” Frieda had permanently assigned him shotgun, and an obligatory period of cautious small talk was de rigueur.By the time Frieda’s Mercedes negotiated the I-60 West ramp, however, he usually was forgotten, as Frieda and Joan and Antonia dished liturgy and rightwing do...

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“It Was Written in the Cards” by Mysti Jones

Submitted to Contest #198

“Lo? What are you doing here?” Lobelia Woods raised her eyes and saw her dorm mate Tawny Skillson approaching the bench. They were in Mrs. Bodie’s Animism class together and Tawny was popular with their classmates after dubbing their professor “Bodie the Toadie”. Lobelia had laughed too, not just because of the squat woman’s round shape and broad mouth but the fact that she taught a class on channeling animal guides and working with familiars. But that wasn’t the reason Lobelia was sitting on the old, rickety bench in front of the Headmi...

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“Once Upon a Time on a School Bus” by Ralph Aldrich

Submitted to Contest #198

My name is Ralph Ferguson, and I’m a tenth-grader at Union High. It’s almost the end of the year, and time to plan our annual class trip. Every tenth-grade class before us has gone to Spencer’s Beach, so we all voted to do the same. It’s a large lake with a small amusement park attached. The food hall serves chili dogs and clam cakes with corn on the cob. For five dollars a student, it’s an all-you-can-eat affair.I’m excited about the trip because the girl I like is also going. She’s a cute little redhead named ...

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“Meh and Bleh” by Murray Burns

Submitted to Contest #198

Meh and Bleh( Language) It was as certain as the sun rising in the east or old man Parker’s dog barking at the moon. Every first day of school for Mr. Livingston’s thirty-two years of teaching 6th Grade at Lincoln Elementary would begin the same way. The students stood at their desks, recited their names, and gave a brief description of their families, their pets, likes and dislikes, and any hobbies. He believed it was a beneficial exercise for both himself and all the students.Mr. Livingston thought he was seeing double- two boys, iden...

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“Writing My Own Story” by Morgan Thompson

Submitted to Contest #198

I felt stiff and bound, and not in the way Dorian Gray would describe as pleasurable. I tried to move, but my existence felt flat and concrete. After a few moments of trying to move, an ephemeral feeling passed through me that I was simply just a book. What an odd thought.Several moments passed before a god-like figure appeared before me.“Hello Annabelle,” it said in that deep, omnipotent voice often mistaken for Morgan Freeman.“What is going…” I tried to speak, but felt as though my words were only penmanship on a piece of paper. “In y...

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“SUCH IS DEATH ” by Susan Catucci

Submitted to Contest #198

Andrei dreaded the thought of preschool.“Why can’t I be like Grandpapa? Grandpapa never went to school. And he’s always talking about the old days and what a great time it was to be dead.”“They didn’t have preschool when your Grandpapa was a pup. You’re fortunate to be dead at a time when there’s education available.”“No, I’m not."“Andrei, things have changed since Grandpapa’s time. Your father and I want only what’s best for you and we know the Institute of Terror and the Supernatural is it.”“But I won’t know anybody.”“T...

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“The Saga of Dan Smith, The Headless Pilot Pirate, Part III” by Scott Taylor

Submitted to Contest #198

Monday didn’t start as I was used to. Instead of a taxi, Gloria drove me to the airport after dropping Tammy off at school.“How do you like this family man stuff?” She asked.I smiled as I watched the red lights ahead. A storm, typical for this time of year, had passed through the area the night before. Litter on the freeway had traffic slowed to a crawl as people dodged around debris from an overturned truck.Emergency services had several lanes blocked. I wondered if I would make my flight.“I am glad that you are there for Tammy. I overheard...

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“Passion as the Bigger Picture” by Audrey Lewis

Submitted to Contest #198

I plopped down next to Alicia and Sarah at our usual table in the Senior Quad and dug out the smooshed PB&J from the bottom of my backpack. It was hard to believe that we only had two months of lunches left at this table and I’d miss them at NYU next year. Well, hopefully at NYU. Alicia had already gotten a scholarship to USC for water polo and she’d be leaving at the end of June to get a head start on her future. Sarah, on the other hand, had gotten accepted into UCLA’s medical program just last week. “Any word from NYU?” Sarah asked ...

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“HEAVENLY LOVE” by Charles Corkery

Submitted to Contest #198

HEAVENLY LOVE Miss. Jo was her name. She came to us at the start o’ spring term, 1946 when I was 14 years of age. From the very first time I set eyes on her, I felt something. It’s hard to describe, even now, all these years later, but it was as if she could, somehow, see right inside one’s very soul. She weren’t pretty. No sir. But she weren’t ugly neither. She were sort of plain looking, if’n you get what I mean. But she had hair the colour o’ corn, long and shiny. So shiny ’t’were like looking at the sun. And...

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“A School Trip and a Sighting” by John Steckley

Submitted to Contest #198

The school trip to the local observatory did not begin well. It was the first such trip I, as a newly minted high school science teacher, had ever taken my students on. Now when I was a high school student (my classes hate it when I say stuff like that), school trips had students full of energy and sound. We talked and laughed, but at least we exhibited some enthusiasm on the bus ride to our eventual educational destination. This school trip had a vacuum of...

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“Spiderman Doesn't Wear Noise-canceling Headphones” by KANGEE GREEN

Submitted to Contest #198

DEDICATED TO THE BEST MENTORS IN THE WHOLE WORLDDAY 1When I got lost, all I had to do was look for the men with banana horns attached to their hats. It's what our team was known for. When we were walking around the stadium or in the pits, we always got questions about where the 3D printed horns came from. It was a symbol of our team's identity. An integral part of our image. It represented who we were, our unity and community.And yet, I didn’t wear them.Instead, I had chunky black headphones perched on my ears as I sat and rocked back and fo...

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“It’s all fun and games.” by Matthew Guerrero

Submitted to Contest #198

TW, Child abuse, physical and psychological violence, mental health and sexual violence. “Okay class! Pop quiz” The man shouts above the cries, and we all listen, glued to our desk, like flies buzzing in and never leaving a cheap fly trap. I can see the entire class from my vantage in the back, and I choke back the bile rising in my throat, from the smell of rank piss all over the room. Pools of it surround the flooring underneath, making misshapen puddles where the kids are sitting. I’m shocked when I see Billy Thorn, who has been a thorn...

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“Stop trippin' ya'll!” by David Drake

Submitted to Contest #198

Maybe I can start this journal with some gratitude thought like my counselor, Ms. Crystal New Age Healer etc…that sarcasm is just because I can’t remember her real name…says to do. I can’t think of any other way to put all this down….. I’m grateful that nobody else remembered what happened on last Friday’s class trip. So glad, so gratitude. Now for the literal gory details. Mr. Terrance’s history class never sat still for long. For that, I’m also grateful to the old fart. He loved field trips to the museum when they got in an e...

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“lamenting lullaby” by F.O. Morier

Submitted to Contest #198

When I was a little child, I asked my grandpa if he ever prayed. He replied: “Only when my feet hurt.” And little did I know, at the time, that I would pray a lot for that reason. But I am running ahead on my story. Forgive me! I am thirteen or fourteen and I hate sports! Gymnastics was more my kind of thing, moreover because I was studying classical ballet. But anyways, I guess I was the kind of girl whose only real gift was daydreaming… There was this image in this classroom, of a woman with red hair standing alone. I imagined she was a no...

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$250

Prize money

182

Contest entries

105

Stories

Ended on 23:59 - May 19, 2023 EST

Won by Zack Powell 🏆

Title: Multiple Choice

Submissions must be between 1,000 - 3,000 words and will be approved and published on Reedsy Prompts within 7 days of the contest closing.

Read the full terms & conditions or check out the FAQ if you have any questions!

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