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Stocked Up, by John M. Carlson

15/9/2023

 
“We’re stocked up for the year!” Stephanie said to herself, as she happily stared into the kitchen cabinet.

It was the afternoon of the first day of school. She’d just finished filling this cabinet with school supplies for her twins. It was stuffed—stuffed!—with paper, pencils, glue, and more. It was so full she couldn’t fit in even one more pencil if she tried. And why would she try? There were hundreds of pencils in the cabinet!

It had been expensive stocking up like this. She cringed at the thought of the extra money on the Visa bill! Back-to-school shopping for just the minimum was bad enough. But, in the long run, she’d save money. Back-to-school sales were so good, like notebooks for twenty-five cents each, instead of $1.50!

And this stockpile of supplies would be convenient. When one of the twins ran out of pencils, she could just pull some pencils out and hand them over. There would be no more late night fast trips to Walmart to get something needed for school the next day.

Unless they needed some special supply, she wouldn’t have to think about shopping for school supplies until next August. Nearly a year of peace!

The back door opened, and the twins came in.

“Hi, Mom!” they said.

“We got a letter—” Amy said.

“—from our teacher!” Brian said.

A letter from the teacher? On the first day of school? Stephanie took it, feeling nervous.

She began reading. “Great news! Our school was approved for a special program that will provide your student with ALL needed school supplies this year!!!!”

Stephanie stared at the letter, feeling numb disbelief. Then, she turned and glared at the cabinet stuffed with unneeded school supplies.
Sue Clayton
16/9/2023 05:26:57 am

Perhaps she could sell her supplies to the school.


Comments are closed.

    Longer
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    Longer Friday Flash Fiction Stories

    Friday Flash Fiction is primarily a site for stories of 100 words or fewer, and our authors are expected to take on that challenge if they possibly can. Most stories of under 150 words can be trimmed and we do not accept submissions of 101-150 words.


    However, in response to demand, the FFF team constructed this forum for significantly longer stories of 151-500 words. Please send submissions for these using the Submissions Page.

    Stories to the 500 word thread will be posted as soon as we can mange.


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    Please feel free to comment (nicely!) on any stories – writers appreciate it.
    Just at the moment, though, we're moderating some of them so there might be a slight delat before they appear
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    One little further note. Posting and publishing 500-word stories takes a little time if they need to be formatted, too.
    ​Please note that we tend to post longer flash fiction exactly as we find it – wrong spacing, everything.

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