Bethesda Local Writer’s Showcase: 2025 High School Short Story Contest

High School Short Story Contest – 1st Place

Beneath the Frozen Moon
By Max Bakelar – Georgetown Preparatory School

His gaze flicked toward the boy.

“You think you’re too good for this food?” he asked, his voice low and mocking. “Sitting there, barely touching it. You think you’re better than me?”

“No, sir,” the boy said quickly, his throat tight.

“Then eat,” the man snapped. “And don’t make me tell you again.”

The boy forced himself to take a bite, the dry meat sticking in his throat. His little sister glanced at him, her wide eyes filled with worry. The older sister kept her head down, her hands moving mechanically as she cleared another plate.

The man leaned back in his chair, his eyes still on the boy. “You think you’re a man now, huh?” he said. “Talking back to me out there? You think you’re tough?”

“I didn’t mean to—” the boy began, but the man cut him off.

“Shut up,” he said, his voice sharp. “Finish your food and meet me outside. Now.”

The yard was darker now, the faint glow of the moon obscured by thick clouds. The boy stepped out into the cold, his breath visible in the icy air. He didn’t look back at the house as he walked to the center of the yard, his boots crunching against the snow. He stopped and waited, his heart pounding in his chest.

The man followed a moment later, the shotgun resting against his shoulder. He took his time, his heavy boots leaving deep impressions in the snow. When he reached the boy, he lowered the gun, pointing it straight at the boy, making him look through the very barrel of it. Two shells sat there, smirking at him.

“You think you can talk to me like that?” the man said, his voice low and venomous. “In my house? After all I do for you?”

The boy didn’t answer. He kept his eyes on the ground, his hands clenched into fists at his sides.

“Look at me,” the man said. When the boy didn’t move, the man stepped closer, raising the barrel of the gun to point at his chest. “I said, look at me.”

The boy raised his head slowly, his breath coming in shallow bursts. The barrel of the gun seemed impossibly large, a black void that swallowed the faint light around it.

“You think you’re tough,” the man said, sneering. “You think you’re a man? Let’s see how tough you really are.”

The boy’s chest tightened, his heart slamming against his ribs. He glanced toward the house, where he knew his sisters were watching, their faces pale and pressed against the frost-rimmed window.

“I’m waiting,” the man said, his voice louder now. “Say something.”

The boy closed his eyes. He thought of the summer sun on his back, the sound of his mother’s laughter, the warmth of a life he could barely remember. He thought of his sisters, their wide eyes and trembling hands. He thought of the cold snow beneath his feet, waiting to catch him.

The blast shattered the night.

High School Short Story Contest – 2nd Place

Turtles
By Hana Sor – Montgomery Blair High School

She had never really done anything memorable. She had never seen a play that made her cry, had never given herself a haircut she later regretted, gone to the zoo, fallen in love, worn something risque. She had never traveled to another country. She had never experimented with what she liked, never been kissed, never felt pleasure nor heartache.

As she walked, she passed by mannequins waving in form-fitting wedding gowns and bustiers that made them look like pinup dolls. She saw herself in the reflection. She was wearing a white strapless dress with a veil covered in embroidered flowers, and under, a face of unshed tears and the purest of joy. She saw a lithe body, no remnants of her boyish hands to be seen. She was taller, her hair cascaded in rivulets down her shoulders, dripping onto the lace of her dress. 

She blinked, the dress returning to its place.  A clerk caught her looking, and, ashamed, she turned around, back onto the sidewalk.

Isabella felt herself getting lightheaded, and her hospital gown blew this way and that. She sat down on a bench that looked across the neighborhood she had always lived in. The same man sold newspapers beside the corn nut stand, and the same group of Old people walked hand in hand to their yoga classes. The sky was dotted with clouds, and a bluebird perched herself on a lamppost. 

She felt a figure plop down next to her on the bench, and when she slowly looked to her left, a small girl, no more than six years old, wearing a baby pink shift dress with a ribbon in her hair, was opening a box, a box she knew all too well. They were Turtles. 

She had a small smile on her face, her short brown hair tangled from playing, and she carefully pulled the chocolates out of their encasing. The little girl looked up at her, a thoughtful gaze coasting across her eyes. She stretched out her short arm, a Turtle on top of her palm, gesturing to Isabella. “Wanth one?”, she asked, her mouth full with sticky caramel. Isabella stared down at the chocolate. It had the deep rich color of Jorge Ramons eyes, and the little girl had a sweet tooth.  She smiled at the girl, taking the chocolate carefully from her grasp. “They’re my favorite.”, Isabella said, opening her mouth to take a bite. Her eyes closed. 

The next morning, Isabella was back in her bed, unmoving. Marjorie was in the bathroom calling her nephew, and the trees blew all the same outside. Nurses frantically checked her diagnostics, and time slowed down. Isabella was drifting away, to a place with chocolates and love and little girls who would offer her sweets from their small hands. She couldn’t hear the nurses, all she could do was look down at her hands and wait. She thought about her parents. She thought about Jorge Ramon, and about the little girl with the pink shift dress. And even now, sitting limp on this hospital bed, she thought of Turtles. A nurse waved in her face, then resumed her work with her heart monitor. She closed her eyes. And then suddenly, hidden in her molar, almost imperceptible, she found a  piece of caramel stuck to her teeth.

High School Short Story Contest – 3rd Place

The Runaways
By Asha Akkinepally – Richard Montgomery High School

The year was 1954 when two twenty-two-year-old girls slipped out of the comfort of their Bethesda homes and into the waiting August night.

Their families were unaware of their departure; it wouldn’t have been permitted. They carried little luggage, as few things are necessary when starting a new life. Leaving is the most important part. And they were leaving everything they had ever known.

Both of the girls had fallen in love, and now they were running to it.

According to everyone, Adelaide Miller was trouble.

Trouble wound its fingers through her frizzy curls, it hid in the creases of her unironed clothes, it crouched in corners of her small house, it buckled next to her in her brother’s Ford, and it lingered at the corners of her mischievous smile, a smile that brought a slight feeling of trepidation upon the person it was directed towards.

Oh, and she was strange. She was an oddity, out of place. She couldn’t even be compared to a sore thumb, because at least that could be explained. Adelaide was like people who hated chocolate—she didn’t make sense.

Nothing, it seemed, could make people think of her as anything more than trouble. 

Nothing except the love of her life.

January 5, 1943

Otherwise known as the day Adelaide Miller fell in love.

“I can’t believe Mark is going to juvie,” Charlie, the youngest of her brothers and the one closest to her in age, said sadly. “He’s so nice—I find it hard to believe he was stealing.”

“Not just stealing—he robbed a month’s worth of profits,” Robby pointed out.

“Allegedly. I think he was framed for the crime. Besides, why would he do it?” Billy said. “Let’s hurry, we don’t want to be late.”

They all filed into the court, wedging into one of the back rows. They had gone to see the trial of Billy’s friend, Mark, who had been accused of stealing from a jewelry store. But most of the audience were people who knew him, and knew there was no possible way he could have committed the crime. He was the type who helped old ladies cross the street, the kind that would remember everything about everyone. Not a thief.

The court was soon called to order and the trial proceedings began. From the first words of the opening statements, Adelaide was entranced. Mark had been framed, his lawyer proved. In just a few hours, something they had all thought to be true, a belief, weighty in their minds but substanceless elsewhere, had formed into a solid, indisputable fact. It was, Adelaide felt, its own sort of magic. 

Sitting there, in that courtroom, sandwiched uncomfortably between her brothers, Adelaide Miller decided that she wouldn’t follow the path her parents had laid for her. She refused to become a housewife. She would become a lawyer because she had fallen in love with the law.

How unfortunate.

High School Short Story Contest – Honorable Mention

Kit
By Lila Grosko – Montgomery Blair High School

I close my eyes and listen to the car rolling into the driveway, the sound masking the low growl of my empty stomach. I squeeze Christopher Ferret as hard as I can, inhaling his airy, clean scent. It feels as if he is squeezing me back, wrapping his fluffy paws around my back to protect me. 

I know this is impossible, of course; Ryan Hyden told me so. He laughed and said that Chris is filled with stuffing and has no muscles. He explained that you need muscles to pick someone up, and then he swung me around the living room and dropped me onto the couch. Ryan was mommy’s last boyfriend, and he smelled like he had been in a fire. I remember his name because it sounds like a hydrant, which I learned is what firemen use to put out house fires. I learned that because my mom set our house on fire last month. The name Ryan Hyden also rhymes, kinda. Ms. Rena told me that words that kind of rhyme are called slant rhymes. I fumble with the covers on my bed and turn myself over so that I am lying on my stomach. I do this sometimes when the emptiness in my belly becomes too much. It helps with that cold feeling that seems to grow up past my ribs and into my throat. 

I hear the back door opening and closing and the sound of voices moving into my kitchen. Three, I guess, one belonging to mommy and two others I don’t recognize. I lean over the bed and push my ear against the door, listening more closely. My mommy’s voice echoes through the house, which is only one and a half stories. 

The half comes from her lofted bedroom, which she built herself two years ago. My mommy was much younger two years ago, and you can hear it in her words. These days, her throat makes raspy noises after every sentence, and she coughs 63 times a day. That’s not an exact number, of course, just a rough estimate. 

I ask Chris if my mommy is calling for me, but he tells me she is not. I’ve asked him this before, because he has much better hearing than me. 

One cool fact is that ferrets can hear earthquakes coming before they happen. 

Chris tells me that Mommy is calling for a pill or a bill or a thrill, but he isn’t sure which. I close my eyes again, because I know it must be late, though I don’t have a clock on my nightstand. 

The growling in my stomach has gotten louder, and it’s impossible to ignore. I am well aware that I haven’t had anything to eat since my dinner last night. On Thursday nights, my mommy’s shift ends at eight, and she comes straight home. She always cooks us peanut butter sandwiches with English muffins and extra crunchy peanut butter. Chris much prefers jelly sandwiches, but he never complains because he doesn’t want to hurt my mommy’s feelings.

For more information on the Local Writer’s Showcase, please visit https://www.bethesda.org/bethesda/localwriters