First next morning

I wrote this flash fiction piece for Alameda Shorts August 2025, a live local reading put on by the To Live and Write community. The story had to start and end with the two lines you see here—everything else was up to me!

The sun was about to rise, whether any of them were ready for it or not. 

“Twenty-four minutes,” Joe said. He squinted at his Casio G Shock watch. Prudence had noticed it the first time she met him. Because of its heft, he constantly smacked it against the communal table in the dormitory’s den while flailing his arms, as he did while talking about his favorite subject, the French Revolution. 

The five of them took seats in the dewy grass. It was unmown and scraggly, unmaintained by the university, and it tickled Prudence’s ankles. She sat between Eugene and Matthew; Annie sat next to Matthew, and Joe sat on the other end.

From here, the highest point in town, they could see the pale light teasing over the nearby hills. If the fog didn’t hide it, in twenty-four—twenty-three—minutes they’d spot the first flicker of orange light. Maybe before anyone else in town did, as everyone seemed to be slumbering around them now following a long night of what other people called fun.

After an hours-long game of Risk in the den, Joe had thrown out the idea. Stay up all night. Explore the town after the bars close. Watch the sunrise from Radar Hill. Prudence had never been an up-all-night girl—even at middle school slumber parties she’d resisted the idea, sleeping through soap-opera marathons and games of Truth or Dare. But tonight she was flattered to be included in the adventure.

“How do they know down to the second when the sun’s going to rise?” she asked shyly. 

Prudence had landed in the university’s honors dorm, and though she’d earned straight As and competitive test scores in high school, she hadn’t been prepared for how worldly and intellectual these peers of her would be. She came from a rural town and a poorly funded school, compared to these suburban kids with their STEM labs and Chinese language classes, but she’d still spent the last week wondering if she’d been misassigned to the program. 

“I guess you’re not planning to be a science teacher,” Annie said to Prudence. Then she laughed. Prudence had noticed this about Annie: she said bitchy things then laughed, like she didn’t know how to be funny so tacked on a laugh for clarity. 

“No.” Annie knew Prudence’s career goals, because they’d talked about it. Her theater teacher had changed her life; now she was studying theater and education so she could teach the art to kids someday. 

“They calculate sunrise and sunset based on where Earth is in its orbit, your longitude and latitude, and the day of the year,” Matthew explained. Matthew could be sarcastic and cutting, Prudence had noticed. But the flask they’d been passing around, as they climbed up and down the brick-lined streets through the cool night mist, had softened his tone. 

“Do you understand what all those terms mean, Prudence?” Annie said. She laughed.

Prudence’s mouth dropped open. What the fuck. If the flask had made Matthew kinder, it had turned Annie into a monster. 

Prudence had begun to notice that Annie got competitive when boys were around. She was nice and easy to talk to when they were alone, or with the other girls in the dorm, but when boys showed up she got sassier, edgier, more show-offy. 

“Sssh, listen,” Eugene whispered. 

They fell silent. The cricket and frog noises, which had swollen and swept through the whole night like a magnificent symphony, had grown a touch quieter. In the new space they heard a hooting owl, deep-voiced and weary, followed by the chip-chip-chip of a lone sparrow.

“So beautiful,” Prudence breathed. 

Annie snorted. 

Prudence leaned forward and looked at her. She could only just make Annie out in the dim light. Before she could say anything, though, Joe reached around Matthew and laid his hand on Prudence’s back. 

She sighed, acknowledging his message. She wouldn’t ruin this peaceful moment.

As they sat waiting for the new day to arrive, Prudence realized what the night had reminded her of. At the summer camp for underprivileged kids where she’d worked as a counselor, she’d put on a play with the campers. She asked them all to contribute ideas, which is why the play became a hodgepodge of themes, characters, and storylines. It had included pirates, a ballerina, a unicorn, Harry Potter, somebody’s Grandma Lulu, a snarky purple dragon named Esteban (named, she suspected, for somebody’s older brother), and a dog named Horse. 

Then Prudence had compiled all the ideas and turned them into a play about an eclectic group of friends embarking on a grand adventure. They’d risked great danger (in the forms of the pirates, Lulu, and Esteban) to find treasure. 

If there was one thing Prudence had wanted her camp kids to take away from that play, it was the lesson Prudence herself would practice tonight—and for the rest of the school year. As the rim of orange sun blossomed in front of them, she smiled sweetly down the row at Annie. And laughed. 

Because the best way to deal with a dragon is on their terms, while wearing a tutu in their favorite color, and pretending to know nothing about gold whatsoever.