Menu

More apps built by Reedsy

Assemble a team of professionals

The writing app for authors

Writing courses, events and memberships

Get your book reviewed

Weekly writing prompts and contests

Menu
Prompts
Contests
Stories
Blog
Directory
Contests
Magazine
FAQ

Write a story about a summer afternoon spent in a treehouse.

Posted in Summer on Oct 26, 2022

Submissions are closed

Make sure you don't miss our next contest by creating your free Reedsy account.

Sign in with Google
Sign in with Facebook

Or use an email address:

Why not check out our active contest?

✍️ 150 stories

Life in the Trees

Winner of Contest #50 🏆

“What did you want to do? Like, in general I mean.” This is the first thing either boy had said in about an hour and a half. Approximately forty-five minutes had been taken up sharing a cold can of beans in the Dulchet’s tree fort. Both the treehouse and the beans were free for the taking, now that Mr. and Mrs. Dulchet had passed away. Waylon and Matthew passed back and forth the can of beans between them in complete silence, in the kind quiet contemplation something as utilitarian as beans usually demands. Matthew had been the first to bre...

278 likes 76 comments 76
Read story

What We Used to Be

Submitted to Contest #50

I climb up the ladder nailed to the old tree in my parents’ backyard. The nails hang out of the wood and I give them a worried glance, wondering if they will give way or hold my weight. I’ve put on quite a few pounds since I was last here. The golden treehouse - that we built as a family years ago - towers over me, blocking the sun from stinging my eyes. As I scale the few rungs that it takes to reach the top, the memories of bounding up this same ladder as a 7-year-old girl with pigtails and striped bows flash before me. It brings a smile t...

133 likes 34 comments 34
Read story

Recreating Memories

Submitted to Contest #50

The thing about cancer is that it doesn’t come with a warning. There’s no way to prepare for it before it happens. Like most things in life anyway, cancer ambushes you in many forms and sometimes it feels like there’s no way you can hold it back because there really is no way so, it consumes you and you can’t fight it. Sometimes though, the cancer gives you space to breathe, like just for one moment of your life, you can pretend you don’t have it. The thing is that you don’t know how many moments you’ll have like that before it destroys you ...

129 likes 24 comments 24
Read story

The Glass Box

Submitted to Contest #50

The sound of birds caresses my ears; because of the same sound, my heart is bouncing at the same rhythm as the summer song of a free creature that admonishes me with its song. I'm sitting in a small mouldy room muffled with the dense thick canopy of the old oak tree. I wrapped my legs with my thin, pale arms that have very little strength in them. I closed my eyes to allow other senses to take over my body. The smell of sea salt is itching my nostrils while the sound of the waves of the same water is sinking me into deeper thoughts.I remembe...

121 likes 50 comments 50
Read story

People Talk

Submitted to Contest #50

Authors note: This is just the first story , I'm hoping to work in a sequel with next week's prompts :) Here goes:And so, she lay there, with the hot water bottle upon her stomach and an icepack strapped to her forehead, contemplating the meaning of life and asking herself all kinds of philosophic questions she didn’t know the answers too.Do the teachers notice when the chalk squeaks on the blackboard, or don’t they and is that why they just keep on writing like their students aren’t being cringed to death behind them?Why can’t any real-life...

92 likes 78 comments 78
Read story

Rebuild Those Memories

Submitted to Contest #50

Summer has begun…okay.I’m not fond of this season. The clouds, to all intents and purposes, curse us with raining cats and dogs, almost at any random time as if bawling like a two year old kid. Furthermore, I loathe how clothes stick to the body with sweat, the stench of stale moisture walking in and following me everywhere.Lord!Fine, fine, enough of blustering! Cute cotton ball-like clouds dot the light blue sky that drift lazily in the breeze. A grin like a Cheshire cat plays on my lips as I tilt my face toward the sky, shutting my eyes an...

71 likes 28 comments 28
Read story

Treehouses and Friends

Submitted to Contest #50

“Thud. Thud. Thud.” The hammer bounces up and down while I hammer a nail into place. It goes all the way in, but it’s sort of bent.I hammer it on the side, trying to straighten it out, and it works. Well, a little bit.I sit up. I look around at all of my handiwork. Almost done. I thought to myself. I’ll take a break now.I stand up, careful not to bang my head on the ceiling, and use the ladder to get down to the ground. It’s a standard metal ladder, the kind you would use to get to the roof of your house or something.I’m on the ground. ...

69 likes 24 comments 24
Read story

Emotions And Summer Afternoons

Submitted to Contest #50

I looked up at the ginormous oak tree standing above me and grinned. It was beautiful. But nestled about halfway up the tree sat my treehouse. And that made it the best tree out of all of the trees.Making my way up the ladder, I was starting to get even more excited. This would be the first time I had ever been in it. Dad had just finished it, anyway.When I got to the top, there was a little landing and then a door to get inside. I took a step forward and opened the red door. I frowned; there was another door. Then another...And another...An...

59 likes 16 comments 16
Read story

The Bakery Case

Submitted to Contest #50

Max Wilson and Harry Cooper were just 2 normal 11-year-olds, with exceptionally good investigative skills. They had nothing to do after school except to hang around in their treehouse. What they expected would be a boring summer vacation, would turn out to be the most memorable moments of their 11-year life. As our to-be-heroes sat in their treehouse at noon, using their binoculars for bird-watching, while most of the residents of their town were asleep, a robbery was happening across town. The police were baffled: The robbery had abs...

59 likes 27 comments 27
Read story

All Because of the Ladder

Submitted to Contest #50

I sigh, staring viciously at the 10 year old chipped hammer that rests in my sore hands, wishing I were offered nails which weren't as rusty as these. With the sun beating mercilessly on my back, I go back to work. The wood that we have is limited, but we have enough for a treehouse, provided we make no mistakes. I should know because I'm a math geek. That's what makes me different from all the other kids at school. I pounded on the nails, trying to ignore the fact that I'm precariously balanced on one slab of wood that easily breaks. I gues...

58 likes 18 comments 18
Read story

Mason Jar

Submitted to Contest #50

Author's Note: This story is the sequel to a previous story I wrote called Nowhere. If you would like to read Nowhere you may, but there really isn't much you need to know from that story in this one. :) Also, this is dedicated to all the people who are different. We all are; it just takes others a while to see that part in themselves and acknowledge it. Thank you.  *********************************************************    The woman at the cash register bagged my items and put them in a cart, trying to stay as far...

56 likes 8 comments 8
Read story

The Treehouse

Submitted to Contest #50

Sure the floor was crooked and the walls were uneven and had a sheet for a roof that leaked when it rained but it was ours and me and Jimmie built it.It was August, 1945. Me and Jimmie Anderson ran away from home. We were hiding out in our treehouse on account of because Jimmie got grounded. It really wasn’t his fault or nothin. We needed a roof on our treehouse so Jimmie asked his Momma if we could use a sheet and she said it was ok.He got grounded because his Momma told him not to use her company sheets. I guess Momma’s have regular sheets...

48 likes 17 comments 17
Read story

The Man in the Suit

Submitted to Contest #50

The man in the suit walked out of the station gates. He moved to the side of the staircase leading down the station and stood silently, watching the world go about its business.There was the pani-puri seller, his stall at the bottom of the staircase. He was doing booming business, even though it was just after lunchtime.At the opposite corner of the staircase was the balloon seller. He didn’t only sell balloons, though; he also sold wooden dolls, little plane figurines, those long cylinders that exploded into streamers and some liquid when t...

48 likes 16 comments 16
Read story

Treehouse Confessions

Submitted to Contest #50

It is a warm August afternoon in California, so Candace and I are hanging out together. My hands are behind me, and my legs are hanging over the edge of the somewhat clean wooden boards that I call the floor. Candace's curly blond hair is on my shoulder, and her little hand is enclosed in mine. We're staring at the sky together, and since our parents aren't home, we've planned to stay up until at least two in the morning.Candace turns her head to glance at me, her eyes, as blue as a cloudless sky, crinkle up around the bottom, and ...

46 likes 17 comments 17
Read story

The Invitation

Submitted to Contest #50

Ben could feel his heart racing as he walked to the small window. His knees trembled with excitement. Though usually clearheaded, his mind at the moment was a jumble, every thought, idea, and unexpressed feeling jostling for expression. He felt he wanted to cry with joy, laugh with pleasure, yell with disbelief; and his face reflected this inner struggle of emotion uninhibited. That is why he avoided turning around. It didn’t matter though, whether he turned around or not; she had come. And she had entered. Elizabeth, the most beautiful girl...

42 likes 22 comments 22
Read story

🌟 Similar prompts

Write a story about a proposal.

Valentine's Day – 210 stories

Write a story about an argument that seems to be about one thing, but is actually about another.

Dialogue – 121 stories

Write a story about a person experiencing pre-performance jitters.

High School – 162 stories

Write a story told entirely through one chase scene.

Thriller and Suspense – 142 stories

How to Write a Novel

Join Tom Bromley for a writing master class and finish your first draft in 3 months. Learn more →

How to Write a Novel