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Looking for a steady supply of middle school short stories? Every week thousands of writers submit stories to our writing contest.

550+ Middle school Short Stories to read

Submitted by writers on Reedsy Prompts to our weekly writing contest. Keeping the attention of a middle schooler is hard. But our collection of gripping middle school short stories will do the trick!

Middle school Short Stories – Page 2 of 37

My Name Is Harper Torres

Submitted to Contest #294

In my first public speaking memory, I’m six and holding a teddy bear. His name is Roberto, I explain to the class, and I hold him whenever I feel scared.I pass him around the room, and each of my classmates examines him briefly, unimpressed. They were more impressed with last week’s show-and-tell, when Elijah brought in a fossilized fish, its scales still glimmering under the fluorescent classroom lights.What they don’t know is that if you hold down Roberto’s right paw and speak, he’ll record what you say and repeat it back to you. When Robe...

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Dragon's Bread, Thistles and Just Holding On

Submitted to Contest #294

Dear Erin, I told your the story again today. It's not your story, even though it is a story of you. I can't start thinking like that. Maybe you saw me? BBC Breakfast, no less! If you'd have asked me a year ago why I thought I’d be on there, I would have said - God knows - doing a bloody charity walk, or singing on a novelty Christmas single, or something. Not this. Me and you, love. We’ll never be known for what we were. They were gentle with it, mind. I got tea beforehand - shouldn’t have had it, I was busting for a wee the whole time. The...

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The Couple in the Portrait

Submitted to Contest #294

The paint felt sticky on Mili’s hands, bits of it drying and flaking and getting stuck to her fingernails, and other splotches of cerulean smearing between the lines of her palms. It’s why she hated painting in the first place. With a heavy sigh, Mili replaced her paintbrush in its wooden well; an actual, miniature well, where the ropes that might’ve held a bucket now held nearly a dozen paintbrushes aloft in the swirling mix of muddled colors below. It really was more paint than water in the well at this point. Perhaps that’s why all the...

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“Colour In Lines”

Submitted to Contest #292

Regina wanted to get into the gallery show, but she didn’t think her charcoal sketch should be in the gallery show. Had she become the best artistic version of herself, already? Had she peaked in eighth grade? No one she had met was better than her with charcoal. She had the mind of a fourteen year old with a decade of experience, as she figured. Sure, everyone starts drawing at a young age, when you think about it. We all start colouring very young. But, while other kids got bored of crayons and passed over the dull-looking coloured pencils...

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Brown And Blue For You

Submitted to Contest #292

Josie was coloring in art class with her girlfriend, Archie next to her. Though the latter notices that Josie didn't color the eyes brown. It's clearly Josie herself, but the eyes are blue. "Josie," Archie started. "Why didn't you color your eyes brown? Your eyes aren't blue." Josie pauses, and sighs. "I know," she says. "But aren't blue eyes better? Blue eyed people get compliments. You have blue eyes, and you get more compliments in a day than I do in a week." She rubs her temple in slight annoyance. "My eyes are dumb." Archie softens he...

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Malya's Cloak

Submitted to Contest #292

“Where is your cloak? Malya, where is your cloak!” Nona rushed down the hard dirt path to meet the slight girl walking up the hill, grasping Malya’s frail shoulders and shaking them anxiously.Malya looked up, sea-blue eyes wide and watery, tears threatening to spill over. “I sold it,” she choked out.Nona froze, her bony hands stilling on Malya’s shoulders, her puckery mouth working silently. The papery crowfeet wrinkles around Nona's nut-brown eyes pulled away from their normal laughing shape, into tangled wool-strings boiling in a dyepot.Ma...

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The World Without

Submitted to Contest #292

White sunlight dappled the fields, and the pale-grey grass bowed to the wind. Elaine sat on the warm bitumen road, watching the monochromatic shadows pass over the ruins that were Tolyn. From here, the buildings looked like children’s blocks; broken and cracked. Elaine twisted the bracelet around her wrist and looked at the sky. It was supposed to be blue. Blue. She tasted the word in her mouth, drawing it out, letting it escape her lips in a puff. Blue… She’d plunged her hands in a bucket of icy water once, and when the water had made her g...

7 likes 1 comment 1
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Greatness in A Cold, Dark Room

Submitted to Contest #291

“Mr. Gibson,” Thelma said, stepping closer. The principal didn’t stir from his slumber. “Mr. Gibson!” Thelma yelled. Then she nervously put the microphone in his lap and walked off the stage. A few students were clapping, but most of the school before her was now snoozing, too. Thelma grabbed her book bag from the front row and walked as fast as she could without running to the bathroom. “Great? Yeah right,” Thelma said to herself.  At church, Ms. June had excluded Thelma from the small choir; all her friends had made it. Thelma watche...

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The Snowstorm

Submitted to Contest #290

Staring out the window, I inspect the pristine blanket of pure, glistening snow covering my yard. The white of the snow matches my soft, fluffy underbelly. The rest of my body is multi-colored with varying shades of brown, black and tan. I am more suited to summer living as the darker fur absorbs the sun’s heat and warms my spirit. The sun is missing today. While some see the winter as peaceful, quiet, and cozy, I regard it as dreary, endless, and monotonous.  My petite pink nose feels chilly as it presses against the frosty ...

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Between the Lines

Submitted to Contest #290

Charlotte did another full turn in the space between the Romantasy table and the YA fiction, allowing her vision to blur. It was easy since her eyes were full of water. This crying was happening whenever now, just any old time, standing in the shower or in front of her old crush or anytime she had to talk in class. And now in the freaking bookstore, why not? This was supposed to be her happy place. Every Friday after school, she treated herself to a visit, whether she had money in her phone case or not. She browsed the sale table, the new re...

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In Remembrance of Teachers Past

Submitted to Contest #286

The gravedigger wiped the sweat from his brow and planted his shovel in the heap of fresh soil by his side. The pale sun hung over the yew trees at the far edge of the churchyard and the headstones cast long shadows across the gravel pathway. “Afternoon, Annie,” he said to a hunched figure intersecting the shadows on the gravel. “Off to pick up the young ‘un?” “Yes,” the figure replied with a smile and a perfunctory nod, before continuing along the pathway toward the primary school. Her eyes scanned the names engraved on the final row of hea...

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Tickled Over the Dentist

Submitted to Contest #287

April 12, 2012 “I can’t believe your mom made you invite Del Poirier!” Jen squealed from her perch on Becky’s bed as she and their friend Maddy watched Becky adorn herself with her mother’s makeup. “You think he’s ever been to a girl’s birthday party before? Or even to a girl’s house? I think he’s probably a fruit.” “Jen!” Maddy protested from the floor, where she’d been perusing Becky’s books. “The word is ‘gay’ and so what if he is? He’s a sweet kid, and a brain, too. He’s always ruining the curve in social studies.”  “And in French,”...

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The Unicorn Gang

Submitted to Contest #286

“I told you, I don’t care!” The slam of my bedroom door sent a jolt through the cheap wood, leaving a satisfying smirk on my face. Maybe I’d given Dad one more thing to fix before we had to leave. If only my social life could be fixed as easily as the twisted hinges on another forgotten rental. Number ten, to be exact. The tenth time, Mom says, “You get to meet new friends,” and the tenth time she has to remind me, “Don’t forget to say goodbye to your friends.” There was a time when I believed her. When I thought being a military brat was co...

11 likes 1 comment 1
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Just an Old Computer

Submitted to Contest #285

Once you pressed that button, I felt the light. I found the energy to start powering up and I was ready to meet you.  It was Christmas morning of 1996, and the last thing I remember is being placed in a box and left there for a long time. But once I was moving around a bunch, it was time to wake up. I heard paper tearing and the pop of a box being pulled open. There I see Sarah, and her brother Colby. Their eyes lit up as they scramble all of my pieces and parts up to bring to the desk they frantically cleared off. They plugged me in, ...

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Too Late Smart

Submitted to Contest #285

My chin rested on the windowsill, eyes fixed on the entrance of the cul-de-sac, waiting anxiously for Michele’s mom’s royal blue Saturn to round the bend. The late afternoon sun, fractured by shadows, tried its best to finish off the last of the thinning snow. Michael Hutchence, sultry on the stereo, was reminding me that something about my pudgy-yet-rapidly-developing eighth-grade body makes him sweat.Finally, she arrived! As Michele slammed the car door and headed up my lawn, I sprinted to the front door. Breathless (any bit of physical ex...

8 likes 2 comments 2
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RBE | Illustrated Short Stories | 2024-06

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