"Leicester Writes short story prize anthology 2020" (Dahlia publishing)

• Dissolution (Dan Powell) - After the narrator's dad left, s/he had to look after the 2 younger siblings while his/her mother camped on the roof, painting the horizon. When it rained, the paintings turned to pulp. She tried again. After a night of rain, the narrator went up on the roof and couldn't find her/his mother, only a dark puddle. She/he looked at the sky to see what his/her mother had been trying to capture. Then the siblings called.
• The taste of sugar (Joe Bedford) - 2018. He's in a Paris hotel, looking at his travel docs and an obit. He has a madeleine and recalls years before having gone to Paris as a reporter with colleague Milena, who get chatty after a madeleine, telling him about her rebellious time during the Prague Spring. They slept together and carried on for years, going on European assignments, never living together. He wrote about food, she politics. He revisits various towns they went to, ending in Prague, sampling cakes in each city. In their 40s, they went to Prague as it was about to gain independence. She asked him to stay but he had a family in London. He returns home, living alone now.
• Not entirely true (Alison Woodhouse) - When the narrator was 7, her mother had their garden concreted to park their van with its invalid sticker (dad in a wheelchair, unable to speak). She'd been in the accident that disabled him. When the narrator (who shoplifted) was 16, her mother died (she was a heavy drinker with a peanut allergy; the narrator had put ground peanut in her coffee). The narrator later claims to her aunt that her mother had been driving (not her father as her mother claimed), but the aunt successfully gets compensation for the accident. The house is expanded. Now the narrator's 26. The story ends with "we understand each other perfectly".
• Swimming against the tide (Claire Sheret) - Annie, 80, looked forward to her weekly swim in the sea. It made her feel alive.She used to win prizes. John (a volunteer?) gave her a lift. This time she swam further out than usual. 2 20-something women had bottled out, and chatted to Dave. She was envious. They praised her when she got back to shore, helping her dress. (I'm not convinced)
• The Reddifers (Peter Hankins) - The narrator's mother had run the house. When she died, the narrator's father struggled. He found routines to follow. The narrator gave his/her father an iPad. He liked the calendar, putting in his regular activities and "reddifers" prior to the events, so he could be alerted to get ready for the event. When he lost the ipad he couldn't cope. He'd been "performing a stereotyped imitation of himself" using the ipad as prompts. He had to go into a home. The narrator would have liked to have had a notification of a reddifer regarding the father's death.
• Required reading (Laura Blake) - A bookclub has Boudicca, Jane Austen, Elizabeth Taylor, Quuen Victoria and Anne Boleyn. Boudicca's not impressed by womanhood since her time. At the end, Mary Seacole arrives.
• Packing like a Brownie guide (Judith Wilson) - When home after her return flight she opens her case to find it's not hers. She repacks the messy contents and returns to the airport. Next time she returns on a flight she deliberately takes another's baggage. It's a man's. She donates the contents to Oxfam. Stealing luggage excites her, and becomes a habit. She's hoping for personal items. She loves repacking. Her mother died 6 months before. She was 8 when she joined the Brownie Guides. She liked the uniform. Her father went off with his secretary. When she takes her next piece of luggage she's stopped at customs. It contains cocaine, neatly packed. She says it's not hers.
• Faith (Fiona Ennis) - Ava, 8, (her PoV) is with her mother in a beer garden wearing her first communion dress. She's expecting her father to arrive and take her away for the night. She stains her dress. There's a bouncy castle. Her mother fancies the owner. When the father arrives he says he's too busy to take Ava. Ava's sad. Her mother's angry and sad. (I don't see much in this, though the writer's highly qualified)
• Sarika and me (Radhika Praveen) - The narrator (studying ancient Indian women) is apartment neighbour of Sarika (who lives with her 5 year old daughter, her husband, and her mother-in-law). "My part of Harrow was brown to the core". She hears bickering throught the wall, and suspects domestic violence. Sarika tells her that mother-in-law tried to kill the little daughter because she wasn't a boy, and that she's just had a miscarriage induced by her mother-in-law's concoctions - she was expecting a girl. The narrator gives her ratti beads, saying that they're dangerous. The husband dies of a heart attack. Sarika go back to Indian with her daughter.
• Steel hearts (Harjit Keanu Singh) - Iris (male) awakes in Stardust City. "do steel hearts bleed?" he wonders, his smarthome telling him how to get up. His mother's dead. He gets a reminder that today his father will help. "Maybe it was better to feel nothing at all" (Not for me, though I've nothing against SF.)
• Bottled up (Matt Kendrick) - Beachcombing, the narrator (she? I'll assume so) finds a bottle with a letter in it from Patrick to Angela, who's left him. She hoards objects like this. She also hoards things about Danny, the boy she loved at school and beyond, though he was involved with many women - the narrator had shouted at them. She recalls a story in the papers about Patrick and Angela, how she'd been CCTV'd in a car. She tracks down Patrick. He's with another woman. She finds another message in a bottle - from Angela, saying she can explain everything. She starts throwing her Danny-related memorabilia in the sea.
• The naughty step (Maureen Cullen) - Chloe's on the naughty step with her doll Hayley-Two (Hayley-One got shredded and was used as evidence). Forever Mummy send her there because of what she said about Daddy Three. Daddy Jimmy got 10 years inside (drugs). Daddie Rick was a bad man - drink etc. There was Emergency Mummy and Mummy Angie. 'Have you learned your lesson, Chloe?' 'Yes, Mummy.' ... 'And has Haley?' Chloe shakes her head. 'No, Mummy. Haley's been saying bad words again.'
• Velocity (Farhana Khalique) - Iram (1st person PoV) is on a geography field trip. Faiza chooses her to be on her team to measure the speed of the river. They'd been friends for years until recently when Faiza was teased and Iram didn't support her. Last week Faiza's dad was been kicked out of home. He'd come to Faiza's class to talk to her, and had been rejected. The bully teases but this time Iram supports Faiza.
• Pancake day (Judy Birkbeck) - Mrs Bradley-Law (ex teacher) lives in a care home and is always moaning. A new helper arrives, Christine, who she gets on with. Christine spoils Bradley-Law's best day of the year - she'd been bullied in Bradley-Law's class and Bradley-Law had done nothing about it.
• The curd maker (Tania Brassey) - The pre-teen narrator and her brother are taken by their mother from England to an ashram in Goa, where she leaves them to fend for themselves. The narrator's job is to make curd for the International cafe. A woman turns up from London saying that she knew their mother in London, before she was ordained, and has met the narrator. The women departs. (It's an interestingly different story, whose meaning passes me by. The language doesn't sound like that of a pre-teen, and there are more typos in this story than in the rest of the book.)
• Mooly (J. R. McMenemie) - 2nd-person PoV. A child's imaginary friend destroys Earth - petulance? The child's in a spaceship with other spaceships designed by her father. (interesting twist on a standard "evil imaginary friend" (id) theme)
• Black and white blues (Richard Hooton) - While she's watching morning TV it goes black and white. The world has gone black and white. Her husband Adam returns. His eyes are brown. He makes sure she's taken her pills. The fruit in the market regains colour. He reassures her that things will be better tomorrow.
• Continental Breakfast (Ed Barnfield) - Now a widow, she returns to a plush London hotel with an international clientele. She’s going to spend the Xmas holiday closing the family firm - her husband was owed money by companies and family. She notices an American, an Arab and a Japanese family having breakfast. Next day she sneakily helps with their issues (family dynamics). Watching tele later she sees that the Arab father has been disappeared.
• The Queue (Miki Lentin) - The 1st-person PoV (male, unemployed) volunteers for a week in a Greek refugee camp. “You” is his line-manager. There’s barely enough food to go round. He’s worried that a girl dressed in red, who always turns up late, isn’t getting her share. He searches for her in vain. At the end of the week he goes home. His line-manager says he can come again.
• Washing day (Katherine Hetzel) - A ceremony decides which 15 year old girls are “washed clean and Linked” (married), and which are banished (die?). A mother worries whether her daughter will be chosen - and rigs the result? (I’d need to read this again).