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“What’s that, Mummy?” Alice pointed apprehensively at an ominous-looking gate set in the middle of the room.

“It’s a metal detector, sweetie. Just like at the airport.” Alice sucked her lip, then gave a quick “Oh” of recollection. She stood quietly in the queue, twisting her lovingly-tied pigtails around her finger, imagining planes flying past the window. Her speculations ended abruptly, as she was ushered through the detector and into a waiting room glowing with neon light. 

Easily the youngest person there, she was used to towering head and shoulders over her fellow peers, but cowered under the intimidating efficiency of the formally dressed adults around her. 

“Why does Daddy stay here? It looks like a prison,” asked Alice, turning up her nose.

“It’s not a prison, dear. You don’t know about these things. Daddy just likes to stay here because it’s safe.”

“But Mummy, I thought Daddy went overseas on business.” Alice didn’t understand business – in her imagination it was just a bunch of men in handsome suits... like those posh business people she’d seen in the QANTAS Club on the long journey to see her father. 

“Well, this is where he stays when he’s away,” said her mother. Alice had fading memories of her father smiling and joking with her mother while they were making popcorn strings, and had no idea why he would ever want to spend time in such a dreary building.

After what to her seemed an unendurably long wait, while her mother fingered copy after copy of out-of-date magazines, they were shepherded into a long, draughty room broken into two halves by a huge pane of glass. Men lined the other side of the glass, each sitting in an individual booth. Having stopped to look around, Alice felt herself being wrenched towards a booth by her mother, suddenly stopping as she gleefully recognised the man sitting in it.

“You look thin, Daddy,” she observed. “Hey, what’s that?” She pointed to a badge on his black uniform. It read, ‘Solitary’. “Daddy, why are you playing cards alone? Is that why you’re on the other side of this window?” He looked momentarily baffled, then deciphered her question.

Before he could answer, they were interrupted by the kind of person Alice would have called a businessman.

“Mrs. Allerton? I just need a quick signature regarding last year’s incident.” Alice’s mother glowered at the man, jerking her head slightly in Alice’s direction.  

“Maybe we can discuss this a little later?” she asked pointedly. The man’s face remained carefully blank as he bobbed his head in apology and left.

A more experienced observer than Alice might have noticed that Tim Allerton’s body released itself from the hunched, nervous knot it had been. Fortunately, she had forgotten her earlier question, although the relief didn’t last long.

“Daddy, what are you doing here?”

“Daddy’s here because he wanted to come here.”

“But why? It’s boring here. There’s nothing to do.” She poked out her tongue, as if to say that places with out-of-date magazines in the waiting room weren’t worth her time.

“Well,” said her father slowly and patiently, “I had to come here. And I like it here. Black is my colour.” And he chuckled, as if to say that living with out-of-date magazines wasn’t so painful if you could wear colours which suited your complexion. Her mother frowned.

Alice had no idea what this was supposed to mean, so she asked again, “Why are you playing cards alone?”

“Well, I…” He trailed off as he quailed under Alice’s mother’s furious glare.

“That’s it. We’ve done what you asked. We moved away for a reason. Alice, we’re leaving,” announced Mrs. Allerton unexpectedly, with an air of finality.

For the umpteenth time that day Alice felt her mother dragging her jerkily out of the room, utterly perplexed by her father’s queer behaviour. She didn’t think that the refined suits of business had done her father any good, and wished he had never involved himself with those professional people. Alice jerked to a halt as her mother stopped to grab the pile of documents from the businessman before marching off to the hire car, where she shoved the documents unceremoniously into the glovebox, making Alice all the more perplexed.

As they drove, her bafflement slowly became hunger, so she barely noticed her mother’s pursed lips and concerned glances. Her mother pulled over habitually outside a bottle shop, promising she would only be gone a moment. Searching the car for some kind of food, Alice unfastened the glovebox, causing an empty pack of cigarettes and the pile of documents her mother had put there to fall out. She picked one up at random, seeing an emblem with a title embossed: St. Gloria’s Prison – Secure Correctional Facility. Perusing the file, she understood barely a word among the mess of legal jargon. Three words jumped at her off the page: murder, and Tim Allerton.

Alice dropped the file, knocking the pages to the floor. Absently, she grabbed a stick of gum from the glovebox and threw it into her mouth, although her brain still worked more furiously than her jaws.

Murder. She attributed it vaguely to her mother’s television, and blood, and blunt instruments and evil. Prison made her think of bloodshot eyes and tattooed men. But when she thought of Tim Allerton... she thought of their chestnut hair, their slightly pointed noise, his two dark, brooding eyes. Soft tears slid down her cheeks as she read and re-read the page, searching for anything to confuse her, to baffle her. The truth had cut through any of her mother’s lies.

Her mother emerged from the bottle shop. Alice took a deep breath, and shoved the pages back into the glovebox. 

“Everything all right?” asked her mother, noticing her daughter’s blotchy eyes as she hopped into the car, bottles clinking in her hand.

“Fine,” lied Alice, as if nothing had happened. “It was just nice to see Daddy.”

For a 1000 word short story what can I do to make this more interesting?

I feel like I'm stagnating in some way :(

My first thoughts:

I think you're letting the adverbs and adjectives do too much of the work for you.  Instead of "ominous-looking" gate, say what's ominous about it; instead of saying the pigtails are "lovingly-tied" say what that means (also, are pigtails "tied"?)  Instead of saying the adults had intimidating efficiency, show what they are doing that is intimidating.  Instead of saying her thoughts ended "abruptly" perhaps just show them ending quickly in response to something, and the reader will get it.  Right now, the adverbs (especially) are starting to obscure your description, and in such a short piece you need to let the nouns and verbs do more work.

In terms of Alice, I'm finding her unconvincing as a character--I think you go just one step too far in making her designedly adorable and it runs the risk of edging into cliche.  The pigtails; the "gleeful recognition"; the poking out of the tongue; the turning up the nose; the soft tears sliding down her cheeks; the "blotchy eyes as she hopped into the car"--and I'm not sure a little kid like this would be thinking about a man's "dark, brooding eyes" in those words.

with an air of finality

I think you can omit--the dialogue gets this across nicely.

I wasn't sure what this line meant:  "She didn’t think that the refined suits of business had done her father any good,"--meaning the clothes, as in business suits?

"marching off to the hire car" -- is "hire car" UK English?  I expected "hired car."

"Alice unfastened the glovebox, causing an empty pack of cigarettes and the pile of documents her mother had put there to fall out." -- the antecdent of "to fall out" is "had put there" which makes it sound like her mother put the stuff there *in order* for them to fall out.  Maybe, "Alice unfastened the glovebox, causing the pile of documents her mother had put there and an empty pack of cigarettes to fall out." or even better, "Alice unfastened the glovebox.  An empty pack of cigarettes and a pile of documents, placed there by her mother, fell out."  I like that as two sentences.

She picked one up at random, seeing an emblem with a title embossed: St. Gloria’s Prison – Secure Correctional Facility. Perusing the file, she understood barely a word among the mess of legal jargon. Three words jumped at her off the page: murder, and Tim Allerton.

Alice dropped the file, knocking the pages to the floor.

So the documents "fell out" which I assume means on the floor of the car?  Did she catch them?  No, I guess they fell, because she picks one up.  But then she drops it, "knocking the pages to the floor"--so she picked up one multi-page document, and then dropped it again, by "knocking it" to the floor.  I think I'm getting tangled up in paper logistics here.  I think there's a simpler way to do this.

Her mother pulled over habitually outside a bottle shop, promising she would only be gone a moment.

This sounds like she stopped at a bottle shop habitually *today*.  As in, she stopped off several times during just this ride.

she thought of their chestnut hair, their slightly pointed noise, his two dark, brooding eyes.

Seems like you are switching pronouns from their/their to his.  Also, note typo:  noise/nose.

Thanks for the feedback! Then I think the main issues are to do with sentence structure and clarity, telling instead of showing, and a lack of a realised character.

I can think of solutions to the final two problems, but I'm having a bit more trouble with sentence structure. In response to the part where "Alice unfastened the glovebox... had put there to fall out", I think the general rule of thumb is to split the sentence in two. The bit about paper logistics could also do with a rework.

Not sure of how to clarify the sentence: "Her mother pulled over habitually outside a bottle shop..."
So far I'm thinking of putting 'habitually' in front of 'pulled' - 'mother habitually pulled over' - but I'm not sure if that changes the meaning.

The final their/his bit, was supposed to show that the two shared those characteristics - although there are more direct ways to do that in retrospect.

How about, "her mother habitually stopped at a bottle shop on this street; she did so now."  Just to throw an idea into the air.

I get the their/his now.  I didn't quite catch that on first read.

I'll probably revisit this one a while later, with all this in mind. But yeah, signposting like so would help.

I think the largest difficulty for me is that even though the POV is supposed to be primarily that of the child, there is a detatched and adult quality about it that keeps it from ever truly being through her eyes. For that reason, it is hard to empathize with the child; Alice seems merely a construct to convey the situation rather than a real little girl.

Some key things that might help:

- Stick to describing things from Alice's view, or if you use the 'god narrator' be very light handed with it and only explain what is necessary to understand Alice, vs. using it as a way to fill in the outer world. Even if we "miss" something from her limited perspective, it will be far more powerful when you hit the kid with the realization that her daddy committed murder. Ways you can do this are:
    * Avoid large words that a child would never use. You can fudge this a little and pretend she has a huge vocabulary, but in general simpler will be better. Any large word like apprehensive, speculation, fortunately, ominous, perusing, glowered, draughty (do you mean drafty?) etc. is going to come off a bit strained and take the reader away from the headspace of the child, reminding the reader that this is really from an adult's perspective.
   * Give us a clue to her age. We are never given an age for her, though we can assume elementary or younger. She could be an intellectual four year old with a large vocabulary who is a beginning reader, or she could be a ten year old still prone to baby talk. From the characterization, we just don't know. Perhaps she carries around her third grade homework to do, or has a security blanket, or sits down and brushes her own hair at one point. The reader needs a sense as to if she is on the young and very dependent side whose trust in her parents is shattered (finding one a murderer and the other a near drunk) or if it is more a tale of grown-up-too-soon with an older child.
   * Be consistent in how the child speaks. In your story, her speech patterns seem to range from those of a toddler or kindergartner asking pestering simple questions (Why daddy, why?) to the better language mastery of an older child familiar with idioms ("you look thin") and masking what she thinks. Does she even know Tim Allerton is her father's name? Other than the mother being greeted as Mrs. Allerton, the dad doesn't look to be addressed as Tim by another person in the piece (I may have missed it.)
   * Show us more things from Alice's POV or thoughts. E.g. "Alice waited, her hunger growing, as her mom stopped by the same green shop she always did, the one with lots of trash piled up in the yard and a giant bottle on the sign" or similar would give us more insight into Alice's trepidation about her mother going to the shady shop rather than simply telling us it is a habit of the mother's.
* Try not to jump POV away from Alice in key parts. For example, towards the end when she is browsing the file, it is her moment of truth, but the narrative jumps away from her to inform us that she doesn't understand the 'legal jargon.' That could be more smoothly incorporated into the reader watching her, e.g. something like "Alice skimmed the page, skipping the mess of large words that meant nothing, stopping on the only three that mattered: murder, Allerton, convicted."

- Perhaps the most jarring sentence, for me, was " A more experienced observer than Alice might have noticed that Tim Allerton’s body released itself from the hunched, nervous knot it had been. Fortunately, she had forgotten her earlier question, although the relief didn’t last long. "
     * The intriduction of a hypothetical observer takes the reader out of the story
     * The latter half is ambiguous, as it isn't clear whether the relief is Alices or the dad
    * Tim's name is introduced in an akward way by the narrator, rather than coming up naturally in diologue or Alice thinking about it
      * The forceful foreshadowing of "the relief didn't last long." Just let events unfold naturally rather than directly warning the reader.
     * How does Tim know she has forgotten the question, since in the very next line she asks basically the same thing but more directly?

- While Alice is the key character, being consistent with the mother's characterization will help as well. We can glean she's an alcoholic (before or after the murder is unclear.) She seems to have given up on her husband. Her actions don't particularly show a great care for her child as she jerks her around and seems to be neglecting the needs of her daughter. Yet the first clue we have to the mother is that Alice's pigtails are "lovingly tied." It just doesn't seem to fit. Alice having a messy ponytail would make a lot more sense, as if her mom tried to make sure Alice 'looked nice' for the visit but didn't want to spend much time or care on it. The mother's immediate notice of her daughters eyes after presumably buying alcohol also doesn't really make sense.

- The dad, unlike the other two, does seem to be consistent in the few glimpses we get of him. We don't know if he actually committed the murder or not (which is an interesting thing - perhaps he is really innocent) but we see glimpses that he cares about his daughter and isn't sure how to explain to her what is happening. He seems to be using humor as a way to cope with his confinement. The dad should probably make the joke about magazines and complexion out loud though, since a child isn't going to assume he is 'meaning' that by his expression.

- Be consistent within sentences as to what POV is being used. For example, in "He looked momentarily baffled, then deciphered her question" we see Tim both from the outside and get a view of his thinking on the inside.

- Language could be stronger if you show the expressions sometimes rather than tell us what they signal. E.g. 'he scrinched his brows together'  or 'she raised both eyebrows and fixed him with a stare' rather than just using labels like baffled, and pointedly.

Yeah there is quite a bit of hand-holding here. Sorry about that, I should have used concrete details in place of the labels (baffled, pointedly etc.). Refraining from making those 'value judgments' would definitely make this piece more engaging.

While I wholly agree that Alice isn't empathetic due to her confused characterisation, I do think that inserting 'superficial' contradictions - for example, having a child with an unexpectedly broad vocabulary - are essential for messying up the world; if you're going for a credible and realistic story, the strictures of logic should only supersede character motivation.

Thanks for the feedback! I'll try to apply them next time.