Category: Fiction (Page 2 of 4)

Maple, the gray squirrel, has returned for another adventure. Read her first story here. Maple’s friend, Stringy, has requested Maple’s help on an adventure, and she accepts. He plans on going into a house at night. Read the first part of this story here and the second part of her story here!

It was dark. I shivered and shifted my position from where I was sitting in a tree. I wasn’t used to being out so late at night, and I felt jumpy, like I was doing something my instincts hadn’t programmed. Stringy had told me to meet him, Footprint, and Shelby below this tree. We would have a planning meeting. They would come, he promised, as soon as the streetlights went on in the evening. The streetlights had buzzed to life a while ago, and I was still waiting. The quiet neighborhood had stilled around me and the night had settled like a blanket over the houses. Still I waited.

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Maple, the gray squirrel, has returned for another adventure. Read her first story here. Maple’s friend, Stringy, has requested Maple’s help on an adventure. He plans on going into a house at night. Read the first part of this story here! 

I gaped at my friend. “You look like a rat,” I repeated.

He nodded sadly. “It’s my tail. I look like a rat. You know how humans feel about rats.”

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The secret to robbery is stealth.

Not that I’m any expert, of course. I never steal. Mostly. That’s what I say to anybody who asks me. They say, “Maple, do you steal?”and the answer I always give is a confident “No!” But if you, a human, threaten to dig up all my hoarded pecans unless I answer honestly this question, “Maple, do you steal?” I admit that my answer will be different.

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Once there was a little duck. When he was a duckling his parents loved him, his brothers and sisters adored him, and all the animals in and around the pond were astonished at how cute he was. Then he grew up, and went to live in another area of the pond. The day after he moved in to his new home, he went to take a walk. But his walk proved unsatisfactory.

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Jessica, Tessie, and Amy live in a place where everybody wears a color-coded tasseled identification braid from their right sleeve, signaling what they do for a living. The system works well, except for the people wearing yellow identification braids. These people sell illegal braids to those with bad reputations, so they could appear as someone better and make a living. The people wearing yellow braids are the one problem in this otherwise perfectly organized system. The three friends learn that those with yellow braids are disrupting the economy, too, but Amy has other thoughts about these people. The girls’ suspicions are aroused as Tessie and Jessica spot Amy talking to someone with a yellow braid. The don’t know what to do with this shocking discovery of their friend breaking a strict social rule. They decide to ask her about it, but only discover that their friend has gotten a job. She is wearing a yellow braid.

Are you new to this exciting story? Welcome! Make sure you catch up on the exciting twists of this short story by reviewing the previous four parts. Happy reading!

Read part one of this story here!

Read part two of this story here!

Read part three of this story here!

Read part four of this story here!

The next morning Jessica wriggled under her sheets. She was still in bed, the blanket kicked to the side, her stuffed rabbit on the floor, and the pillow completely displaced. She yawned and stretched, opened her eyes and blinked them against the morning sunshine coming through her window. She bared her feet and studied them, wiggled her toes, scratched a place on her leg. She started to sit up and then remembered the day before. Amy wearing a yellow braid. She hadn’t told her dad, she hadn’t told anybody, she hadn’t even told herself. It was too scary, like her best friend had turned to a monster. She couldn’t see Amy anymore, then. She imagined her friend camped out on the street with her tablecloth and her boxes and her false braids. She imagined her friend making a little empty circle around her in crowded spots because nobody wanted to stand with her. She imagined Amy dropping something and people all around her, and nobody would even say, “Hey…you dropped this.”

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Jessica, Tessie, and Amy live in a place where everybody wears a color-coded tasseled identification braid from their right sleeve, signaling what they do for a living. The system works well, except for the people wearing yellow identification braids. These people sell illegal braids to those with bad reputations, so they could appear as someone better and make a living. The people wearing yellow braids are the one problem in this otherwise perfectly organized system. The three friends learn that those with yellow braids are disrupting the economy, too, but Amy has other thoughts about these people. The girls’ suspicions are aroused as Tessie and Jessica spot Amy talking to someone with a yellow braid. The don’t know what to do with this shocking discovery of their friend breaking a strict social rule.

Read part one of this story here!

Read part two of this story here!

Read part three of this story here!

That evening Jessica felt restless. She paced and jiggled, put her hair up and let it down again, spilled her food and dropped a bowl.

“What’s bugging you?” her dad asked as she cleaned up the pieces of the bowl she had dropped.

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Jessica, Tessie, and Amy live in a place where everybody wears a color-coded tasseled identification braid from their right sleeve, signaling what they do for a living. The system works well, except for the people wearing yellow identification braids. These people sell illegal braids to those with bad reputations, so they could appear as someone better and make a living. The people wearing yellow braids are the one problem in this otherwise perfectly organized system. The three friends learn that those with yellow braids are disrupting the economy, too, but Amy has other thoughts about these people. 

Read part one of this story here!

Read part two of this story here!

Loud banging crashed against the door of Tessie’s house. She popped out of bed, peeped through the front curtain, then ran back to where her parents were sleeping. “It’s Jessica. I’ll be back.”

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Jessica, Tessie, and Amy live in a place where everybody wears a color-coded tasseled identification braid from their right sleeve, signaling what they do for a living. The system works well, except for the people wearing yellow identification braids. These people sell illegal braids to those with bad reputations, so they could appear as someone better and make a living. The people wearing yellow braids are the one problem in this otherwise perfectly organized system.

Read part one of this story here!

Amy, Jessica, and Tessie had been friends for a long time. Since they were seven. They met at a playground, where Jessica was squatting over an ant pile, crumbling bits of Giraffe Bread onto the ground and watching the ants haul it away. Amy and Tessie were also playing, and ran over to see what Jessica was doing. Then they were all feeding the ants, and their parents started talking to each other because that’s what you do when your kids play together.

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“Why didn’t you wait for me?” Jessica asked, running towards her two friends. Her handbag, which held her money, swung from her shoulder. On the right sleeve of her short-sleeved shirt, her identification braid swung from where it was clipped to the hem. It was a white piece of braided rope with a tassel on the end, like the braid on the sleeve of all the other children her age. Everybody wore a color-coded braid.

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Carlos

I scanned my surroundings through my binoculars. Not many birds out today. A soft footstep sounded in the lawn, and I pointed my binoculars at the source of the noise. Sophie waved. I could tell she was smiling, even though my view of her face was too close and blurry. I lowered my binoculars.

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