S.A. Molteni Wins Flash Fiction Challenge

The goodies, baked fresh that morning had been through many different paws that day and she was determined to get them back, no matter the cost.

Sugar, flour and fruit were in short supply and it would be another week before she could afford more ingredients. If she did not get them back and deliver them to her grandmother, the sales at ‘Grannies Cafe’ would plummet and they would most likely not make the rent.

Those bears were really getting into grooming, obsessively and compulsively so. What triggered in their brains for them to continue this behavior, she had no idea. But, it was her best chance to grab the goods and make a run for it.

She leaped into action and in one continuous swoop, retrieved the basket and dove through the same window she had used to enter the cabin. Like a ninja in the night, she was gone in an instant. Not one bear noticed her stealthy departure and they all continued grooming.

That was too easy, she thought to herself as she scurried down the path to grandmother’s house.

“Whoa!” the wolf barked as he stepped onto the path in front of her, the basket falling to the ground and the contents scattering.

“What the heck …” she stammered as she tried to understand what had just happened.

The bears looked on from their front porch, each eating a fresh blueberry muffin and wondering why the little blond girl had stolen their basket of pine cones.