Gibberish: Flash Fiction Friday - Fight
November 7, 2025
Scoot’s Assignment: Write about a magical creature, with the phrase “adamant error,” a character who is learning to fight, and the sentence, “This doesn’t seem like the right way.”
An Adamant Error
Mary loved her kind foster mother, Rose, the “good witch woman.” She’d been living with Mama Rosie in her funny little house for a couple of years, and eventually the time came for her to be starting school. She loved her teacher, her classes, the books, recess, even lunch… and MOST of her classmates. But there was one girl she had trouble liking because she was a bully, and she teased Mary every time she got the chance.
Helen would trip Mary on the playground during recess, hide her textbooks before class, and teased her mercilessly because Mary was living with a “little old lady” instead of a “real” mommy.
The bullying escalated until Mary began to dread going to school. Then came the day that Helen destroyed Mary’s art project. Mary had just completed a beautiful unicorn from papier mache and brought it outdoors to finish drying. She’d planned it to be a present for Mama Rosie, and eagerly anticipated the happiness it would bring to her foster mother. But it was not to be.
Helen walked up to Mary and declared, “What a STUPID thing to make! There’s no such thing as unicorns. You must be stupid to have made this thing.” Then she reached over and plucked the figurine out of Mary’s hand. She held it out of Mary’s reach for a few minutes, but then she suddenly crushed it between her palms. As a few last flakes of papier mache floated to the ground, Mary covered her face and began to sob. And that was when Helen made an adamant error; she began to denigrate Mama Rosie, the person Mary loved more than all the world. “Old witch, evil old witch, your fake mama is nothing but a nasty old witch,” she taunted. At last Mary could stand it no longer, and ran home, sobbing the whole way.
Rose was worried about her foster daughter. She thought about going to the school herself to teach the little bully what's what, but that didn’t seem like the right way to help young Mary. No, if Mary was going to succeed in life, she must learn to stick up for herself. She must learn to fight. And so the lessons commenced.
Rose had been born a witch, but magical skills can be learned by regular folk, as long as the teacher knows how to teach and the student is willing. Rose was more than competent and was a patient teacher. Mary was an enthusiastic student, soaking up her lessons like a sponge. Rose taught her young charge how she could use magic to fight, but emphasized that Mary must never use her magic to hurt others.
During this time, Helen had continued her petty reign of terror - except that her victim no longer seemed very frightened. It had been weeks since she’d been able to wring tears from Mary. Helen became more and more frustrated until one day she snuch up behind Mary and pulled her hair as hard as she could. Suddenly, Mary's hair was no longer in her hand, and Mary turned and stared at her tormentor - and Helen realized that she couldn’t move a muscle.
“Why are you so mean?” Mary began to look into Helen's mind. Helen was helplessly paralyzed, she couldn’t even speak.
And then Mary saw what was hiding in the recesses of Helen’s brain: Helen might have a “real" mommy, but her mother was not a kind woman like Mama Rosie. Helen’s mother was sometimes a cruel tyrant, and Helen was very unhappy. Tears began to flow from her frozen eyes.
Mary gently wiped Helen’s face and Helen found that she could move again. Mary took Helen's hand and told her, “I'm sorry about what I saw inside your head. But you shouldn't be ashamed. My mommy was even meaner than yours. That's why I live with Mama Rosie.”
Helen finally smiled a little. “I'm sorry I was mean to you. Can I have a new chance?” Helen became a happier child, so was kinder to her classmates. And Mary and Helen fought no more, becoming good friends.
Click photo to read story.
A basic truth about bullies here - sometimes they're covering insecurity by their behavior & sometimes they respond to a dose of modified Sun Tzu. Then some of them never really leave the schoolyard even when they grow up physically.
I never really had a bully as such as a kid / teen. I could give as good as I got most of the time.