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“Write a story from the POV of a child or teenager.”

Posted in Short Story on Apr 18, 2025

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✍️ 85 stories

True Colors

Weekly Contest #299

“Hi, my name is Richard, but everyone calls me Ricky—I’m six and a half.”“Hi Ricky! I’m Jimmy. I’m six, too.”“I’m six and a half! I’ll be seven in September.”“My mom says I’ll be six and a half next month.”“Hey, we’re practically the same age.””That means we’ll be in the same grade. Are you gonna go to Faulkner Ridge Elementary?””I think so. Do you go there?”“Uh-huh. It’s close enough we can walk there. Do you want to be friends?”“Sure, I don’t have any friends here. That means you can be my best friend.”“Okay!”“Whatcha doin’?”“I’m catching ...

38 likes 14 comments 14
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How I Became Acolyte to Primordial Chaos

Shortlisted for Contest #299 ⭐️

CW: TransphobiaHow familiar are you with chaos theory?An old adage goes that if a butterfly somewhere in Brazil flaps its wings, it can potentially form a tornado in Texas, because everything is connected. Ask a meteorologist how often they consult butterfly wings when writing weather reports, and they might look at you a bit funny. But the metaphor still works.So what if you could control the butterflies? Not just one, but all of them? Every single factor in the complex, nearly unknowable ecosystem that led to the destruction, or lack there...

32 likes 12 comments 12
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The Privileged Kid

Weekly Contest #299

by Jelena, Age 6 (CEO of Lopsided Legs and Sarcastic Remarks)Before I got paralyzed, I was normal.Well, as normal as a baby who poops in sparkly onesies can be.I was healthy. Loud. Probably very annoying in a cute way. I’ve seen the pictures. I had fat cheeks and a smug little smirk like I was planning world domination from the crib.Suddenly - boom.Vaccine.One little jab at six months old. One tiny pinch. Standard procedure, they said. That day - everything changed.I don’t remember it, obviously. I was too busy chewing on my own foot or what...

31 likes 31 comments 31
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Things Adults Say (That Don't Make Sense) As overheard, misunderstood, and overthinked by me, age 11¾

Weekly Contest #299

Have you ever noticed adults love to talk? Half the time, they’re not saying anything that makes sense. The other half, it’s just them trying to shut you up without even answering you. Lucky for you, I hear everything—and I mean everything. Just keep reading and you’ll see what I mean, I’ve cracked the parent clap-back code.Here’s the lingo. Trust me when I say, this information will make your life easier once you understand what parents are really saying versus what they actually mean. Don’t let them we know because they might change it or ...

25 likes 24 comments 24
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The Ladies of Loretto

Weekly Contest #299

I'm scared shitless! Hundreds of girls dressed exactly as I am in dark navy serge uniforms, black stockings, stiff white plastic collars and cuffs and black Oxford shoes. Their Oxfords shine; mine are scuffed. So typically me. It's September 1960. Like penguins on parade, we are lined up, waiting for the doors to open on the next four years of our lives in the holy halls of Loretto College School for young ladies. One small problem: I do not feel like a lady and don't think I want to be one. It sounds boring. I don't belong here. I'm j...

20 likes 14 comments 14
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I'll Be Back

Weekly Contest #299

I was fourteen the first time I snuck out. As a lowly freshman, I was trying to overcome a heart-wrenching breakup with my first love. He was a senior—handsome, kind, and funny. He came from a wealthy family, though I didn't care one way or the other, even if riding in his Acura totally boosted my cool factor. He was at the top of his class both academically and in popularity. I considered him completely out of my league. It shocked me when he asked me out and further shocked me when we fell head-over-heels in love. Our relationship began at...

18 likes 13 comments 13
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How to Spot a Witch (Step 1: Deodorant)

Weekly Contest #299

It was a cool, late fall day when we met. The leaves were just beginning to litter the ground in a cascade of yellows, oranges, and browns, crunching under my feet as I walked to the high school’s entrance. It’s still hard to believe that we’re in high school now. Ninth grade. Young adults, young professionals, or whatever other bullshit the principal said to us at orientation.It’s been like a month. I should be used to it by now. The intensive workload, the trauma of changing and showering after gym, and students with easily a foot on me an...

17 likes 4 comments 4
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Constance Power Tibbins Will Not Stand For It

Weekly Contest #299

As I watched the man once again smoking his pipe full of candied peel and haranguing the air with great vigour, it seemed to me that in this world one could be purposeful, even whilst being quite thoroughly mad.I thought, moreover, he was hard of hearing, as he produced two tiny trumpets, placing one in each ear, before announcing himself with the prodigious volume of the extremely deaf.‘Wassup?’ he said, to nobody.He spoke often of blessings, which led me to consider whether he was a holy man. His attire was not that of the clergy - he in f...

17 likes 13 comments 13
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An Empty World.

Weekly Contest #299

She didn’t remember much about the drive to the farmhouse, she just remembered the rain tapping against the Land Rover windscreen and the smears left behind by the wipers. She remembered the way her father kept checking the side mirror, like he was expecting someone to be following them. He didn’t speak to her much at all. Not at the station, not on the road back to his farm, not even when they pulled up to the house, a place that looked so old. It was like it had been borrowed from another time. It had been three days since the funeral; she...

16 likes 6 comments 6
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The Magic That Didn’t Fail

Weekly Contest #299

Would you like to know how I accidentally created a star?Me. A sixteen-year-old girl best known for being invisible.I was the clumsy one — the girl who tripped during PE, got hit in the face by every ball, and was always left behind by the bus.I once wore mismatched shoes all day. No one noticed.I forgot things constantly — like my groceries at the counter… or that time I got into a stranger’s car.People called me Clown Lisa.The only one who ever believed in me was my dad.But he 's gone now.One afternoon my luck changed, on my way home from ...

16 likes 8 comments 8
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Twin Talk

Weekly Contest #299

Twin Talk “Shush. Hey, did you hear that?”“Huh? What? You waking me up again? Isn't it enough you always have an elbow in my ear? How am I supposed to hear anything? That sound is always there. Shush, shush, shush. It lures me to sleep.”“This time it's more than that. Now listen real hard.”“Thump. Thumpity thump. Thump. Thumpity thump. That one is constant, too. Now leave me alone. And there is no room to change position. Stay where you are. Ow! You're always kicking me in the worse places.”“This is the only place we have ever been. Not my f...

15 likes 7 comments 7
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You never saw this coming

Weekly Contest #299

Let me take you back to the time I, Thalia—an 11-year-old nature nerd with the innate capability to touch any plant in my vicinity and miraculously not get poisoned—embarked on what I now fondly refer to as “The Bus to Hell and Heaven.”It all began with a flight. Not just any flight. It was the kind of flight that made us feel like celebrities, minus the paparazzi, plus 30 adrenaline-pumped teens ranging from 6th to 12th graders and at least one poor soul who brought a blow dryer to the mountains. (Spoiler: We never used it.)We were headed t...

14 likes 4 comments 4
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The Great Hair Catastrophe of Room 305 (The Extended Cut)

Weekly Contest #299

Here’s the thing about trying to give yourself bangs at 2:17 a.m.—it never ends in success or emotional stability.I blame YouTube. And hormones. And maybe Madison Blake, whose face somehow looks perfect under fluorescent lighting, which should honestly be illegal. Like, how does she look like a porcelain angel in the same lighting that makes me resemble a raw chicken nugget? Madison has these perfect, wispy little curtain bangs that whisper things like “Paris in spring” and “I own three types of lip balm.” Meanwhile, my hair whispers, “Pleas...

14 likes 2 comments 2
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Cinderella in Disguise

Weekly Contest #299

I don’t remember being adopted. It’s just a story, part of the family folklore to make me feel special and wanted. When I was a kid, I never got tired of hearing it.Before I started school, I would buzz around my mother like a bee while she ironed our clothes. “Mom, where did I come from?”“Jasmine, I’ve told you a hundred times.”“Katie Cronker says you got me from a dumpster.”My mom swung around. “Katie is a silly goose! Dad and I adopted you from Hong Kong when you were almost two. We met your plane at Kennedy Airport and brought you home. ...

14 likes 6 comments 6
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Soody

Weekly Contest #299

Soody My momma was white trash, and I was black and white trash, in the eyes of the world around us. Penchant, Alabama wasn’t much of a world, but I didn’t know that then. They might’ve been right about Momma, she didn’t seem fit for much. But I was nothing like her. She stayed late in bed on any day she could, when I was up with the larks. Her voice was high and thin, while mine was deep and strong, especially for a girl. That was from living with brothers, older and l...

13 likes 6 comments 6
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