Fifth grade and younger

First Place

Storm

It’s the angry kind of rain, with its forceful drops that pound on the window, fast as bullets. The dark grey clouds, covering the sky like a blanket, turning day into a moonless night. The wind, howling and shrieking its mindless fury. The old oak, groaning and moaning, gnarled branches reaching to the sky as if begging for mercy.

Emily McCabe
Durham

Emily loves to write. In fact, when she grows up, she says, she wants to be a writer. Now the soft-spoken Durham Elementary fifth-grader can say she got her start in very, very short fiction.

Second Place

Despair

I stared blankly at myself in the mirror. The twinkling glass glared back at me. Thinking to myself, “Would they love me and care for me? Would they hate me and send me back to this dreadful place?” The next day came and was washed away by my waves of tears. The doorknob never turned. No one. No one.

Brooke Young
Durham

Brooke and Emily are actually classmates. Their class took on the Fiction 59 challenge and plans to hold its own contest as well. Brooke says she loves to read and got her inspiration for this story from one of her favorites, Anne of Green Gables.

Third Place

Candy Jar

There it was. The shining candy jar up on the cherry wood shelf. Mother had brought it home just a week ago for her book club. But, it was one long week for me, spying it just perching on that dusty shelf. Snickers, Mounds, Rolos, many more. Mother gracefully handed down a big Hershey bar. I thanked her joyfully.

Anna Walters
Chico

Anna, an energetic fifth-grader at Sherwood Montessori, is an avid writer. She says she’s entered the Fiction 59 contest several years now, and her diligent effort has certainly paid off with this third-place story.

Honorable Mentions

Snow

Snowflakes falling in the sky, each one looking unique, one looks round, one is translucent. There goes one, it has spikes. Don’t you worry … it is harmless. The gusty winds will carry them … its fate uncertain. They might nestle on a tree or a mountain, creating a soft cushion. One is just like a starfish. Snow is beautiful enough.

Theo Stark
Durham

Flavors

The delicious sensation of candy when it’s lusciously melting in your mouth. The wonderful scent of cocoa next to your nose. The sugar on your fingers making them sticky like honey. The mustache when you drink it like white snow in the winter. The tasty flavorful flavor of purple lollipops like a sweet blue flower with sugar on it.

Cameron Stanfield
Cottonwood

Never Make Chocolate Medicine, Or Else You’ll End Up Like Me

My eyeball was stinging, so I invented a chocolate medicine for my eye. One day, I put on the medicine and I was hungry, so I licked it. Then, my eye felt weird. I looked in the mirror, and my eye was gone! I cried. I had to go to the doctor, and he found me a replacement eyeball.

Avriella Whiteley
Gridley

Falcon’s First Flight

The young falcon launched herself off the rocky ledge and over the pine forest. It was her first flight. She beat her wings rapidly, lowering toward the forest. Her head darted back and forth. She eyed a landing spot, she stretched out her talons, slipped and landed upside-down. She looked up. How would she get to her nest?

Charlie Giannini
Chico

Drew the Cable Guy

Once there was a boy named Drew. He liked to do nothing but watch television. He just watched television until he was 25 years old. Since he knew everything about television he decided to become a cable guy. Then one time he got a call from a guy named Jon. Jon’s cable snapped so Drew came to fix it.

Caleb Pracna
Chico

Snow

When it snows the world is calm. As if everyone would want it to snow more. The humid sky releases tiny, slowly falling snowflakes that are like the world’s calming medicine. The children run out once the first snowflake smoothly hits the ground and the world lightens. We are now happy, snow forts rising, hands hold attacking snow balls.

Alejandro Garrido
Chico