A new kid can be anyone: a nervous student searching for a place to belong, a possible friend carrying a dangerous family secret, or even a hopeful newcomer arriving at an old folks’ home. This week’s writers took that familiar label and found something wonderfully unexpected inside it.
The prompt was:
› The New Kid
These stories explore what happens when someone steps into a group whose friendships, habits, and pecking order are already firmly established. We meet bullies sizing up an easy target, strangers testing the first fragile moments of friendship, and guarded hearts deciding whether it is safe to open again. One arrival brings terror, another brings tenderness, and sometimes the “new kid” disappears the instant someone finally calls them by name.
Thank you to everyone who wrote, read, liked, and commented this week. You gave each newcomer a memorable entrance—and showed how even the smallest welcome can become the beginning of a much larger story.
Browse the stories in the Flash Fiction Archives, or below.
A big thanks to everyone who participated and took on the challenge this week!
Table of Contents
- Forbidden Heirloom by Mary Zuelke Author
- The Lions of Tsavo in Grade Four by Eolas Pellor
- Nothing Ever Changes by Jesse R Traynham - Author
- Moths on a Lamp by Neviena Dēls
Likes: 4
Words: 200
Jonny swayed on the swing, dragging his feet into the dirt.
“Hey!”
A kid beckoned him from the fence.
He pointed to himself questioningly.
“Yeah.”
The eleven-year-old trudged to the fence, hands deep in his pockets.
“We just moved in. Mom told me to go to Strikland’s and sell this. He held up a small purple velvet box. “Know where it is?”
“Yeah, I can take you there.”
“Good, I need a break.” He rolled his eyes. “I’m Alex.”
“Hey, I’m Jonny.”
The two boys walked in silence until a bus jumped the curb next to them.
“Jesus… that was close.”
“So, what’s in the box?”
“Don’t know. Mom said it had to go… now.”
“That sounds weird.”
“Yeah.”
“Did you look?”
“No. She told me not to.”
“She didn’t tell me.”
Alex handed him the box.
It felt heavy. He pried up the lid. An odd resistance held it back until it flipped open.
“Whoa!”
A golden signet ring sat within the velvet folds.
“Looks old…”
Alex was speechless. His eyes rolled back, and his mouth gaped hissing out black fog that obscured everything.
Jonny coughed, flailing his arms. When the smoke cleared, Alex and the ring were gone.
by Eolas Pellor
Likes: 3
Words: 200
The class went silent when the knock on the door came. Sixty eyes turned toward it.
“May I help you?” Miss Scopa asked.
“I’m your new student,” a strained and nervous voice replied. The English was accented and tense. Willy Brown half stood in his desk, but Miss Scopa’s glance sat him down right away.
‘New kid,” he mouthed, flashing his snaggled, yellow teeth in a wolf-like smile. As the not infrequent recipient of Willy’s bullying, I felt sympathy for whoever it was, coming like a lamb to the slaughter.
“Sammy, isn’t it?” Miss Scopa was smiling, but her eyes flickered over Willy and his gang of hoodlums one by one, daring them to start anything. “Your seat is in the third row over, four desks down.”
I suppose Miss Scopa thought it was a safe seat. The neighbours on all sides were girls, but Willy saw his opening, right away.
“Oh, Sammy sits with the giiiiirls,” he said, drawing the word out to make it ridiculous. Sammy, shorter than any boy in the class, sank into the seat. I did not need to read minds to know he was praying for the floor to open up and swallow him.
Likes: 3
Words: 200
“Check out the new kid,” Mabel said.
“Nice sweater, Grandpa,” said Edith.
“Hey, New Kid, we saved you a spot.”
Howard carried his tray over and joined the girls.
Betty brightened. “Hello, I’m Elizabeth. Folks call me ‘Betty.’”
Howard stood and shook Betty’s hand. Their smiles lingered.
“So, New Kid,” Mabel pressed.
Betty dug into her applesauce.
“It’s Howard.”
“We already have a Howard. I’m gonna call you ‘Howie.’”
“That’s fine.”
“Howie, how’d you end up in this dump?”
“Same story as yours, likely. The kids didn’t want me at the old place, so here I am. Heck with ’em.”
“I hear that.”
The conversation died. Howard and Betty stole glances at each other, hoping the other wouldn’t notice. They did.
“Care for a game of checkers or maybe a puzzle?” Betty asked Howard.
Mabel and Edith scoffed at the thought.
“Poor Betty,” Mabel muttered. “She’ll never learn.”
“New guys never last,” said Edith.
Betty didn’t care.
Howard stood and held out his arm. Betty slipped hers through his, and they wandered to the game room.
“How anyone kind can find love and happiness in this old folks’ home is beyond me,” Edith said.
“You said it, sister,” said Mabel.
by Neviena Dēls
Likes: 2
Words: 200
Emma Miller had been at the school for three weeks, and still nobody called her by name. The teacher said it at roll call; she raised her hand quick, like swatting a fly, and the morning moved on. That was fine. She was good at moving on.
At lunch she sat at the end of a long table, unwrapping a sandwich her mother made. Two girls whispered behind cupped hands. She felt their eyes on her like moths on a lamp. She didn't look up.
In science, they split into pairs. Nobody chose her. Mr. Naylor paired her with Jack, who sighed and dragged his chair closer, as if distance cost him something. She passed him a pencil, unprompted. He blinked, took it, and the sigh went out of him.
At the end of the day, in the doorway, Jack said, "You're not so bad, Miller." She smiled and almost told him the first thing her mother taught her: that moving on works until someone moves with you. Instead she said, "Jack's a good name."
He laughed. She laughed. The bell rang, and the hallway opened up around them like a door.
The new kid was gone. Emma had arrived.
When Colton Travers was just four months old, a runaway horse on Bent Oak Road caused a car wreck that left his mother dead. His father survived, then vanished. Raised on family stories and faded photographs, he never questioned the past . . . until a worn shoe box of old clippings surfaced with hints of a darker truth. Now, drawn into a fifty-year-old unsolved case, Colton must chase a trail gone cold, where memory holds the clues, time keeps the truth, and justice demands satisfaction.
Stargazing at the June Bug Ranch
Comments
Be the first to comment.