The Runaway Slave by SlyPigglet5 (girl, age 7.5yr, again, this story is completely hers with basic spelling and few formatting corrections by mom)

Once upon a time there was a slave and her name was Abigail. She was a hard-working slave, but she was no ordinary girl. She was blind. One day she decided to run away. So she put her plan into action. But when she started to run through the yard she heard barking. Instantly she knew that they caught her so she started to run even faster. She twisted and turned and ducked through the forest. Finally, she found a fork in the road, so she made the slave owners think she went right but she actually went left. When she turned left she found the most beautiful pond. It was crystal clear. Then out of the pond came a unicorn who knew immediately that she was blind. The unicorn waved her horn at her and then she could see! Then she created a band of unicorns and when she was old enough she freed her family with the help of the unicorns. And they lived happily ever after. The End.

Brindle, a small fairy with rich brown skin and thin green wings, lay draped over a spongy mushroom beneath a slender young oak tree. Warm sunlight drizzled through the branches overhead and onto the clumps of grass and shrubs below. A handful of blue flowers nodded gently in the breeze. Somewhere unseen nearby, a small bird tweeted sweetly.

Brindle groaned loudly and with great feeling. He was satisfied when the bird stopped singing. “Hmph.” He muttered.

The young fairy’s wings drooped and then flopped up annoyingly in the breeze. If he could stop the wind, he would have, but no fairy’s magic was big enough to do that. His chin sagged onto the mushroom and his twiglike limbs dangled carelessly. There was absolutely nothing to do around here.

He groaned again, drawing it out longer this time with a dramatic roll of his large eyes.

Brindle squinted at the nodding blue flowers huddled together nearby. They looked too cheery, or perhaps they were privately snickering at him. He pointed a tiny finger at the flowers, and a moment later the petals, leaves, and stems faded to the dull gray of a sullen storm cloud.

The fairy stuck his tongue out. That would show them to be so pretty and cheerful. Just then, a stiffer breeze puffed through, shaking leaves overhead and sending Brindle’s wings flopping about.

The now-gray flowers bobbed more vigorously. Brindle scowled and, with a sharp flick of his finger, cast a new spell that made them invisible. That was better.

Brindle then noticed a fluffy black-and-orange caterpillar creeping along a broad leaf nearby, and an impish grin slid across Brindle’s face. He aimed his finger at the hapless victim, causing all the bristling fuzz on the caterpillar to fall off and whirl away in the next breeze. The little creature looked quite odd without its bold coat; its skin squashed and stretched unbecomingly as it continued its trek across the leaf with a bit more urgency.

Brindle snorted, the grin on his face widening. He rested his pointy little chin in one hand and let his gaze wander. After a minute, a brief scratching drew his attention upward, into the thick branches, where a plump squirrel had paused to nibble at an acorn. 

The fairy sat up on his mushroom. 

The squirrel worked her mouth around the outer shell of the nut, chewing busily. Brindle stared at the little paws holding the acorn. He then pointed at the squirrel’s snack and turned it bright purple.

The squirrel took no notice. Brindle frowned, and pointed again. This time the squirrel’s treat appeared to vanish in her paws, but again, the squirrel remained so lost in chewing that she failed to notice.

Brindle’s frown deepened, and he buzzed upward towards the squirrel.

“Your nut is gone, you nutty thing!” He cried peevishly. The nut was only invisible, since Brindle couldn’t really make things vanish, but a simple-brained squirrel wouldn’t know that.

The squirrel paused and considered him with a large, black eye, and then peered at what should have been the acorn in her paws. Her paws were held apart, as if they were still wrapped around something, and yet there seemed to be  nothing between them.

Brindle snorted and grinned wickedly at the squirrel’s confusion, then guffawed with delight when the poor animal fumbled and dropped her invisible nut far below. The squirrel peered at the ground and twitched her fluffy tail hopelessly. On a whim, the impish fairy squatted farther down along the branch, tapped it with both forefingers, and made the whole tree invisible. He laughed again.

The squirrel’s eyes widened like quarters as she looked around at the sudden nothingness below her paws. Terrified that she would fall, she flung herself at the nearest solid thing that she could see. Tiny claws scrabbled and grasped; Brindle hollered and grunted under the frenzied animal, and then suddenly both fairy and squirrel fell from the branch. The squirrel twisted her body and whirled her tail, righting herself in time to land on all four paws in the grass.

Brindle, however, was not so adept, nor did he weigh quite as much as a squirrel, and the careless breeze sent him tumbling a few feet away from the tree before he could get heads or tails of which way was up. He buzzed away in a huff, tossing a scowl at the squirrel. “Nuts for brains!”

Like every good dwarf, Teinn Varg followed a routine—first inventory, then orders. But today he stood behind the counter, squinting at the form in his hands. 

“Rhilla!” he groused. “Why’d you have to write this so small?”

“Small?” his wife straightened a tablecloth over the shop’s nearest booth. “That’s average-size, my dear. Your eyes are worsening.”

“M’eyes are fine,” Teinn argued. He swiped a hand across his forehead. 

“There’s a new optometrist in town,” Rhilla said in her honey-you-oughta-listen voice. “Haddie-something. Betcha she could help you.”

“Haddie-something?” Teinn held the form closer…then further…then closer again. Blast it if Rhilla wasn’t right again. His eyes were getting worse.

“Sounds like a child’s name.”

“She’s a human woman,” his wife chided. “She moved to Hartmore a few weeks ago, bought the shop on First Street.”

First Street, eh? He’d go see her and return before the noon rush. “All right, I’ll go see her. But my eyes are fine.”

“Maybe next time I see you, you’ll be able to see me,” Rhilla teased. She kissed him on the cheek as he passed.

The dwarf trudged to First Street. Signs in store windows flipped from CLOSED to OPEN. Bells jangled as doors opened, and the proprietors waved good morning. Teinn paused in front of the new office for several minutes, talking himself into going inside. Finally, he reached for the doorhandle and opened the door.

A bell jangled. Teinn huffed as he took in the walls covered in pictures—large cutouts of dragons and unicorns wearing spectacles. The door across the room sat ajar, and humming echoed from behind it. She’d renovated the place.

“Hello?” Teinn growled more than he meant to. “Anybody home?”

He jangled the bell one more time.

The humming stopped. A tall woman with messy hair peeked her head around the door, wide grin creasing her features. “Hello! I’ll be with you in a moment.”

“No rush,” the dwarf replied. After a few moments, the woman emerged, extending her hand to him. “Dr. Hadassah Balren, but you can call me Haddie.”

“Teinn Varg.” He took her small hand in his and shook it. “People call me Varg.”

“What brings you in today, Varg?” her voice had an upward lilt to it. She even sounded too young to be a doctor.

“Well,” Teinn loosed her hand to wipe his forehead. “I’m struggling with small print on my order forms. My wife Rhilla said you might be able to help.”

The woman Haddie nodded. “Let’s take a look. Come with me back to the exam room. Don’t mind the mess, I’m still unpacking.”

She wasn’t kidding. The further he followed her into the office, the messier it became. Paper birds hung from the ceiling and childish drawings filled one wall. Not much like an optometrist’s office to him.

“Have a seat,” she gestured to a wooden chair. He obeyed. “Now, don’t mind me as I take some measurements of your eyes.”

Teinn tried not to mind. He truly did. But he didn’t see the point of all this. His father’s optometrist in the city just had him read off a chart on the wall, and that was that. Teinn grunted.

“Pardon me?”

“Nothing.” Teinn shook his head. “Just thinking.”

“Other than small print,” she picked up a notebook from the corner of the room, “anything else you’re having difficulties with?”

“Small print…” Teinn racked his brain. “Nah, that’s it.”

“Any issues with lights?”

Lights? Now that he thought about it… “they seem awfully bright at night. Get an extra glare around them.”

“Mmmhm,” she looked into his eyes with a candle and a mirror, and then again with a stronger mirror. So much fancy equipment. 

“If you look at that chart straight ahead,” she pulled back to ask. “What is the smallest line you can comfortably read?”

“Comfortably? I’d say…” Teinn narrowed his eyes. “F-A-I-R-Y. Are they s’posed to spell a word?”

The woman grinned as she pressed a piece of paper into his hands. “Some of them do. Now, hold this about where you hold your order forms. What’s the smallest line you can comfortably read there?”

“E-L-F. Third one down.”

“Mmmhm,” she said again, reaching her hand out for the form. “No doubt about it, Mr. Varg. You’ll need some glasses.”

Teinn shrugged. He’d figured as much.

“You should know you have cataracts, though. You’ll need surgery on those sooner than later.”

Cataracts? Surgery? He didn’t have time for that. He huffed. “I’ll just worry about glasses for now.”

“That’s fair.” She sat back, putting her book to the side. “I’ll send your measurements off to the lab, so they can work their magic, and deliver your glasses when they arrive. But I do strongly advise you to follow up on your cataracts.”

He knew he shouldn’t have come… could’ve handed order forms off to Rhilla or hired some help. Cataracts? Teinn dismissed himself from the office with his sense of dignity intact, grumbling to himself all the way home.

Rhilla listened to him grumble for the next two weeks. “I don’t see the point of surgery…the point of her bein’ here, anyhow.”

He’d only barely resigned himself to wearing glasses when, two weeks later, the young doc traipsed into his shop with a basket over one arm.

“Mornin’!” she called to him as she sat on the barstool.

“Mornin’,” he grunted in reply.

“Here’s your glasses. Try them on for size.” 

Varg slipped the glasses over his ears and reached for his order forms. Blast it, the letters were clear as day. “Nice and clear, Miss Haddie. Well done.”

“Doctor Haddie,” she said meekly, hopping off the barstool. “You’ll see me better when you get those cataracts removed.”

Varg rolled his eyes but watched as she traipsed out of his establishment, basket over one arm. Rhilla laughed from the corner.

“Fine.” Teinn wrinkled his nose at his wife. “I guess I see where she’ll be useful.”

“Told you so.”

Silver Truth by SlyPigglet3 (girl, age 10.5yr, I think I corrected some spelling? Otherwise this is completely her's)

Sophie Aspenleaf was eleven years old and loved to read. But the thing was, Sophie always told the truth and it was on this particular Tuesday, on this particular planet, in this particular situation, that she lamented it most. You see, Sophie’s planet was not the world we know but a world where the grass was mustard yellow, the sun was blue, and the ponds not muddy brown but always crystal clear. Sophie was not a regular girl in that she could not see out of her left eye and had to wear an eye patch to prevent double vision and got teased at school for wearing it. On this Tuesday, however, she was having a very hard time getting over what Mara the bully had said. 

“You’ll never be like us, so stop trying.”

Tears came to Sophie’s eyes as she walked slowly down the stairs and to the door. She was trying to open the door as quietly as possible but it had a squeaky hinge and made a squeaking sound whenever it opened and today was no exception. 

“Sophie,” called her mother from the kitchen, “where are you going now?” She asked as she walked out of the kitchen

Sophie did not want to tell her mom that she was going to a pond to be alone, but she did anyway. “I’m going to the pond.”

Her mom nodded as if she understood. “Here.” She said, tossing Sophie an orange.

She caught it and dashed out the door, thankful it was that easy to escape. 

Sophie spread out on the grass as she dipped her toes in the water. She looked up and found shapes in the clouds. A tear drop here, a sad face there, and yes, there was always a broken heart. But as she looked something else made itself apparent. As it got closer, Sophie saw the glint of scales in the sun and it got closer and closer and closer, until at last it landed on the other side of the pond. Sophie was on her feet now, not wanting to lay down with a dragon on the other side of the small pond, too close for comfort. But something seemed odd about the dragon, though it had large scales and big sharp teeth. When the dragon looked up, a tear rolled down her face. Though the dragon had two front legs, two nostrils trailing smoke, and two ears to hear, it only had one working eye. One eye was dull and lifeless while the other was a piercing green and full of life. But the dragon looked so sad, just like her. 

She was backing away when the dragon spoke. “Don’t go.”

Sophie froze. The voice sounded young, like the dragon might be her age. 

“I see you only have one eye, too,” it said. “Maybe we could be friends? I’ve never had a friend before.”

“I’ve never had a friend, either,” admitted Sophie. “But you’re a dragon!”

“I don’t care,” said the dragon. When the dragon said this, Sophie realized she didn’t care, either. “What’s your name?” said the dragon.

“Sophie, what’s yours?” said Sophie.

“Silverdash.” Said the dragon. “I think Sophie is a very pretty name for a human.”

Sophie decided that this silver dragon could be trusted and started talking to it. Eventually it started getting shadier around her, but Sophie didn’t want to leave her little bubble of happiness and kept talking about the difficulties of life at school. As Sophie was telling Silverdash about Mara, he got to his feet and said, “My mom is calling me. Will I see you here tomorrow?”

“If you come at one o’clock I’ll probably be here. Bye, Dash!” called Sophie as he flew away out of sight. Sophie walked home feeling happy for once.

As the weeks went by, Sophie and Silverdash became the best of friends. One day Dash said “Sophie, you look like you could use a good fly.”

Sophie, though she was in a rather grumpy mood, had to tell the truth. So she said reluctantly, “That would be…nice.”

And Silverdash was right! The fly was so exhilarating she forgot all about her grumpy mood. As she soared over the treetops, Sophie looked down and saw her school. Then she thought of everything she and Silverdash had been through together and she prayed. Sophie thanked the creator for understanding parents, Silverdash, and truth.

Sophie woke the next morning feeling refreshed. As she skipped down the stairs, her mother called her. 

“Sophie, I heard you walking by the pond and wondered who you were with.” Her mother raised her eyebrows.

This is the situation I mentioned at the beginning, for Sophie was afraid her mother might forbid her from going to see Silverdash and she had bonded with him so much that she could practically see out of Dash’s left eye, his working eye, and they also helped carry each other’s burdens and Sophie felt as though she learned to handle life with an eye patch better because Silverdash had helped her. But Sophie told the truth.

“I was talking to a dragon named Silverdash. He’s helped me deal with an eye patch better and makes me happy.”

Her mom smiled and said “I would like to meet Silverdash. Believe it or not, I also had a magical friend when I was your age, too. She was a unicorn named Magic. Thank you, daughter, for your silver truth.”

The point is, no matter where we are, Sophie’s world or ours, we should strive to always tell the silver truth. 

The End.

Nobody Sees Me

Evelyn Hart did not become invisible at seventy. 

She dissolved slowly, like sugar in tea—still there, still sweet, but no longer seen.

At seventy, she had perfected the art of being overlooked. People held doors for the air behind her. Cashiers handed her change while already speaking to someone else. 

She used to fill rooms.

Not with noise exactly, but with presence. She baked too much, remembered everything—birthdays, favorite pies, who needed an extra hug even if they insisted they didn’t.

Now her children sent texts like “love you!! busy today!!”—as if punctuation could replace presence.

Her house had a quiet that felt… unfinished. She kept the television on for company. She sometimes said things out loud just to hear a voice, even if it was her own.

Thursday was grocery day. Same list. Same route. Same invisible little orbit.

She moved through the store gently, carefully, as if not to disturb the world that had already couldn’t see her. She saw everything—the tired cashier, the overwhelmed mom, the man sighing at a price tag like it had personally offended him.

Nobody saw her.

Until something broke.

A voice cracked through the store—loud, sharp, angry.

“I said FIX IT!”

Near the front, a man was shouting at a young cashier. The girl looked frozen, like if she moved she might shatter.

People looked away..

Evelyn felt something rise in her chest. Old and familiar. The same feeling that used to pull her out of bed when a child cried in the middle of the night.

“Oh, absolutely not,” she murmured.

Before she could stop herself, she stepped forward.

“That’s enough.”

Her voice wasn’t loud—but it landed.

“Mind your business,” he snapped.

Evelyn blinked once.

That was a mistake.

She stepped closer, setting her basket down like she had all the time in the world.

“This is my business,” she said calmly. “You don’t speak to people like that.”

He scoffed. “And what are you going to do about it?”

She didn’t have a plan. She had a cardigan, stubbornness, and seventy years of knowing when enough was enough.

“I’m going to stand right here,” she said, folding her arms. “And you’re going to lower your voice. Or leave.”

A pause.

People were watching now.

The man let out a short laugh—but it wavered. The room had shifted. He could feel it.

He muttered something under his breath and grabbed his bag, pushing past her and out the door.

The automatic doors whooshed shut behind him.

“Oh,” Evelyn said softly. “Well.”

The cashier burst into tears.

Evelyn’s heart softened instantly. She stepped closer, taking the girl’s hand.

“No, no,” she said gently. “We’re not crying over him. He’s not worth the effort.”

“I didn’t know what to do,” the girl whispered.

“You stood there,” Evelyn said. “That’s braver than you think.”

People were still looking at her. Really looking.

Evelyn felt her cheeks warm.

“Oh dear,” she murmured. “I’ve been noticed.”

—

Two days later, Evelyn didn’t come outside.

Which might not have meant anything—except she always picked up her newspaper.

Mrs. Delgado next door noticed it still sitting there by noon.

“That’s not right,” she said.

By evening, she was knocking hard. Then pounding.

“Evelyn!”

Nothing.

Something cold settled in her chest.

Calls were made. Voices tightened. A door was forced open.

They found Evelyn on the kitchen floor.

Still. Too still.

—

The hospital room felt far away when Evelyn opened her eyes.

For a moment, she didn’t understand the noise. The beeping. The voices.

Then—

“Mom?”

Her daughter stood at her bedside, eyes swollen, gripping her hand like she might slip away again. Her son stood close behind, trying—and failing—to stay composed.

“You scared us,” her daughter whispered. “You scared us so much.”

Evelyn blinked slowly. “I… fell?”

Her son let out a shaky breath that almost broke into something else. “You didn’t answer your phone. Or the door. We thought—” He stopped, swallowing hard. “We thought we lost you.”

The words hit deeper than she expected.

More people filled the room. Mrs. Delgado. A nurse. And then, unexpectedly, the young cashier from the store, clutching a small bundle of flowers.

“You helped me,” the girl said, her voice trembling. “I couldn’t stop thinking… What if no one had ever done that for me? I needed to say thank you.”

Evelyn looked at all of them—her children, her neighbor, this young stranger who cared enough to come.

“I didn’t think…” she started, then stopped.

Didn’t think she mattered this much.

Her daughter squeezed her hand. “You matter. We just haven’t said it enough.”

Tears slipped down Evelyn’s temples into her hair.

“Well,” she said softly, a faint smile breaking through, “that seems like an oversight.”

Her son huffed out a quiet laugh. “Yeah. A pretty big one.”

—

When Evelyn came home, the house didn’t feel as empty.

It wasn’t louder. The walls hadn’t changed. The toaster still burned things with quiet defiance.

But something inside her had shifted.

The next Thursday, she went back to the store.

Same list. Same route.

But not the same Evelyn.

She walked a little slower, but she didn’t shrink. When she said “excuse me,” people actually moved. When she smiled, people smiled back.

At the register, the young cashier lit up. “You came back.”

Evelyn leaned in slightly. “I expect my plaque is still in progress.”

The girl grinned. “We’re thinking of something heroic.”

“Good,” Evelyn said. “Capture my strong side.”

As she walked toward the door, someone held it open—not out of habit, but with intention. They met her eyes. I really met them.

And Evelyn realized something that made her chest ache in the best way:

She had never been invisible.

She had been seen—in quiet ways, in unnoticed ways, in love that had gone unspoken but never absent.

And now, standing in the doorway with sunlight warming her face, she let herself feel it fully.

Precious.

Needed.

Evelyn realized that she could see—that people truly saw her.