Contests
Cupcake Poker
By Ric Hardson , Contest #200807

With fingerprint in hand, Mama flung open the kitchen door. It hit the outside of the trailer house with a crash.

Both of us looked up from where we were playing around in the dirt patch that served as our front yard. Seeing Mama in the doorway with one hand on her hip and the other holding a cupcake, my brother immediately hit the brakes on our big red trike. Since I’d been riding shotgun behind him, this abrupt jolt sent me toppling off the tricycle onto the hard pan.

“Just WHICH one of you belongs to this FINGERPRINT?”

I was puzzled. What Mama was holding looked like a cupcake to me. Mama glared at me, at Chris, back at me, then finally at Chris.

“Before my nap, there were twenty-four perfectly frosted cupcakes on the kitchen table ready for tomorrow's bake sale.” She continued glaring. Something about the confused look on my face caused her to focus the investigation on my little brother. “Christopher Robbin! Did you leave your fingerprint pressed into the top of every single one of my twenty-four cupcakes?” 

Solemnly shaking his head he answered, “No, Mama, I didn’t leave fingerprints. Those’re thumbprints.”

Ric Hardson [Burns, OR] is just discovering the author within and enjoys contributing to the weekly Scribes Valley U-Write-It Online Contests. Ric's first story published at CCF is "Don't Be Alarmed."

© 2008 Ric Hardson. Original for CCF  (Hardson grants CCF  first electronic rights for one month; CCF may archive the material indefinitely and include it in an eBook anthology).