The One Word prompt from Lillie McFerrin’s Five Sentence Fiction site this week was: Candy
“I think I may have over-reacted,” she stammered, clearly embarrassed as her kids, stunned by her outburst, clung fearfully to her skirt.
“On the contrary, it was extremely thoughtless of us,” the old man said stiffly, “but we never thought how it might look, our giving them candies like that; things weren’t like that in our day, you see.”
“Look, why don’t you pop round for coffee one morning next week,” the mother said apologetically, “I’m sure the kids would like it, and you can get to know them a bit better.”
The elderly couple accepted with delight and arranged to come round the following Wednesday, before turning away and hobbling slowly back up the path into their new home.
As they stopped in the doorway to wave goodbye to the young family, the old woman squeezed her husband’s hand and whispered with a smile, “if only it were always that easy, my dear.”
castelsarrasin 
Oh dear. You make writing look so easy, Sandra, but I know youput a lot of thought into it. I’m always charmed by your tales, even those like this where the underlying evil surprises us at the end with such perfect simplicity.
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Thanks for commenting Judee. Of course, that might not be an ending with underlying evil … maybe they just wanted to make friends with their new neighbours 🙂
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Ha! That’s true now I think of it. Could just be an old couple who want friends and company, which changes the whole tone of it. But hey, my mind just goes to the dark side sometimes – I think I find it more… intriguing that way. 😉
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Brilliantly understated final sentence Sandra, oozes evil intent..!
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Thanks for commenting Lisa. The ending is open to interpretation, I guess. 😉
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This story was great, I loved the sinister undertones.
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Thanks Jeanelaine, and thanks for dropping by.
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Love how you bookended it. Mother papered over the siblings and made excuses …then the “plain” daughter, who suppressed her seething anger…papered over mother. I bet no one would ever suspect the “plain” daughter and instead, blame the others. lol. Nice work. Here’s mine:
http://www.triplemoonstar.blogspot.com
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OOPs..confused. The above comment was supposed to be in response to your WallPaper story.
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Not to worry… I’ve taken it in the context it was intended. 🙂 Thanks for commenting, Lora.
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Oh my, you need to expand this one…loved it!!
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Thanks for commenting Donna. Glad you liked it.
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Sandra, I agree with the first commenter, you always do make it look easy :)) I like the possibilities in that last line too – a delightful ‘oh,oh’ moment!
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I’m glad it looks that way; 🙂 I found this prompt quite difficult to respond to so I’m glad if it works for the reader.
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