Competition Twenty-Nine Shortlisted: Trick or Treat by Alison Wassell

You’ve never been one of the cool kids but here you are, a virgin trick or treater with your Wednesday Addams plaits and pilgrim-collared dress, and it doesn’t matter that the others are in hoodies and jeans, nor that they’re calling you by your last name the way they do in school, nor that nobody wants to listen to your scientific explanations of paranormal phenomena because, for once, you feel part of something and

you’ve never been one of the cool kids but here you are, hanging out in the graveyard, resting against the headstone of a decades dead infant, taking your turn drinking from the vodka bottle someone stole from their parents’ cabinet, letting the liquid slide down and embolden you, knowing that your mum won’t mind, that she’ll be thrilled you’re doing normal teenage stuff,  not stuck in your bedroom with your boring science books and

you’ve never been one of the cool kids but here you are, banging on doors and making mischief and when someone says you won’t have the guts you stoop and scoop up the biggest stone you can find, turn your body ninety degrees, stand with your legs apart, pull back your throwing arm and release it into a ballistic trajectory with the intention of impacting a distant target, namely your neighbour’s window, and there’s no need to wait for the thud against the glass, for the light to go on, for the door to open, to know that you’re the one who’s been tricked, that the cool kids have scarpered and here you are, rooted to the path in your chunky black school shoes facing the consequences on your own, because however hard you try, you’ll never be one of them.

Alison Wassell is a writer of short fiction from Merseyside, UK. Her words have been published by Fictive Dream, The Phare, Frazzled Lit, Does It Have Pockets, Trash Cat Lit, NFFD, FlashFlood Journal and elsewhere.

@alisonwassell.bsky.social

@lilysslave

Photo by ClickerHappy at Pexels

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