Congratulations to our middle school authors who have impressed the Scribes’ judging panel, the high school AT Publication course judges, several middle school ELA teachers, and teacher librarians. Criteria included best fit to the genre, meaning, craft and structure, careful revision work, and reader response. Here's a piece by eighth grade student Sienna L.

He was walking on a balance beam, a thin slab of decaying wood that stretched on for several meters until the next safe location, the long, wide rock drawing closer in the distance. But the bubbling liquid just beneath his toes threatened death, threatened danger, as his feet struggled to stay upright on the slick surface. The magma simmered, almost hissing to him as he carefully tread step by step, foot by foot. Twenty steps until safety. Fifteen. Ten. Five. He slowly lifted his shaking leg, willing it to ground itself onto the next step, one step closer to safety...
And then he slipped.  
And landed on a cold, grey marble floor. 
Noise reached his ears, and he looked up to see a girl looking down at him, her frizzy golden-brown hair mussed up with sweat as she uncontrollably laughed at him, her cheeks flushed. 
“That’s the third strike for Pike!” he heard her giggle again. “And Annika Lime wins at The Floor is Lava once again!”
Pike frowned. “Nika, you said it would be hot!” he complained, feeling at the cold bedroom floor. 
The girl stopped laughing. “Pikey, I told you, I can only illusionize two senses.”
“Oh.” Pike paused, scrunching up his face. “Wait, is that a word?”
“Senses? Of course, dumdum!” Annika rolled her eyes, pulling him up. 
“Nooo, I meant ‘illusionize’!” Pike held up his fingers in quotation marks, imitating Annika’s voice almost flawlessly. As he did, he saw his fingers grow darker, a charm bracelet appearing on his left wrist and a hairband on the other. Two Annikas stared back at him from the bedroom mirror. The one on the left started to laugh again. 
Pike shrieked, running away from the mirror, the Annika on the right following his movements perfectly. “Don’t do that, Nika! It’s weird!” The left Annika cackled some more and chased after him, the two of them running in circles around the house. 
Pike dove underneath a chair, watching as Annika paused near the staircase, looking for him. Pike squinted, staring at a glass of liquid on the table above his hiding spot. A second later, Annika was covered in orange juice, the cup bouncing off her head and onto the floor, where it rolled just in front of Pike. Annika squealed, running toward him as he quickly got up, grinning, and bounded to the second floor.
Even though this was technically Annika’s place and not Pike’s, he still knew his way around the four-story house as well as he knew his own, every nook and cranny included. He and Nika had been inseparable best friends for more than eight years, which was basically Pike’s entire life. Their parents had known each other far before both of them were born, so the two were practically family. Which was a good thing when Pike rapidly turned the corner next to Annika’s parent’s bedroom and smashed right into the cabinet, a blue vase crashing to the floor. 
Pike froze, not sure what to do or say, when the shards of vase started to float up and piece themselves back together, the object as good as new. A woman poked her head out of the doorway, her eyes focused on the vase that was melding back together again. She stepped out as soon as the job was finished, looking down at a guilty Pike.
“Oops…” Pike squeaked out as Annika’s mother raised an eyebrow at him. 
“Sorry, Mom,” Annika apologized, coming down the hallway. “We were just… having some fun.”
Mrs. Lime smiled. “That’s all right, darling, but remember what I’ve said.”
“Fun is okay,” Pike and Annika recited. “But fooling around all day will get you nowhere.”
“Good job. Us Savireferians were gifted with these powers, and we should use them to our greatest potential, to help our people and our mission. Which in our case, of course, is dabbling in our race’s lovely feud with the Phreasnarkians. The good side might enjoy their little rests, maybe even encourage them, but evil never hesitates to strike when the time is right.” Pike stared up at Annika’s mom, his eyes wide as was Annika’s right beside him. “Good.” Mrs. Lime smiled at the two, pushing past them and walking back down to the first floor. “And remember, you both are being sent to Irwin-Imogen Prep this fall, and prestigious boarding schools like them don’t tolerate fooling around either. Understand?”
Pike and Annika murmured a vague ‘yes’, heading back to Annika’s room to play card games until they were called downstairs for dinner. 
“Nika, do you like being a Savireferian?” Pike asked later that night, as the two of them lay on Annika’s bed.
“Mm.” Annika mumbled, staring up at the tan ceiling. Pike looked too, in case anything was there. There wasn’t anything. “Why’d you ask?”
“Nothing really.” Pike replied. “But-” 
“Is it ‘cause we’re evil? Do you not want to be evil?” Annika turned to look at Pike, her green eyes flashing in the cool moonlight. 
“No, not that. I just don’t want all this evil-ness to make us become serious and grown-up. I still wanna have fun with you, like today, and not have all this seriousness to take it away.” 
“Pikey, don’t be silly,” Annika laughed, the bubbly sound filling up the room. “We can’t control other people’s decisions, but we can choose what we decide to do, right? We’re not going to let them take away our fun.” 
“Yeah. We aren’t.” Pike scooched his head over until it touched Annika’s. “You promise?” 
Their pinkies linked. “Promise.”   
Letting go, Annika flicked her wrist and the ceiling turned into a night sky, speckled with twinkling stars. Pike laid his head against hers again, smiling to himself as they fell asleep. He was a Savireferian, evil and proud of it. But that could wait. Right now he was with his friend, and they were happy together. No matter how evil and serious Savireferian life got. 
And that was all that mattered.