Come join in, everyone! Read below to see how the workshop participants are coming along with their first five pages, and share your own opinions of their work. Be kind, but do be honest. How are these critical first pages of their manuscripts working? Do they reel you in? Make it impossible to keep from reading on? How is the reading style? The characterization? The plot? Is this an idea that intrigues you? Please take the time to let the writers know.
And if you are a writer yourself with a WIP, consider joining our August workshop, which will be open for entries beginning at noon on the first Saturday of August.
Our guest mentor for August is going to be the fabulous Leah Cypess, author of MISTWOOD and NIGHTSPELL. These are two of my all-time favorite YA fantasies. (And no, I'm not kidding, they ARE that beautiful!). Check here for the workshop rules, or find more information about Leah and her writing here.
Showing posts with label First Five Pages Workshop w/ Sarah Ockler. Show all posts
Showing posts with label First Five Pages Workshop w/ Sarah Ockler. Show all posts
Monday, 23 July 2012
1st 5 Pages July Workshop - Hollinbeck - Rev 2
Rosi Hollinbeck
Middle Grade Historical Fiction
The Incredible Journey of Freddy J.
Chapter One
Big News
Freddy’s mother turned her face toward the sun.
“Read one more chapter, Freddy.”
Treasure Island was a favorite of them all. Trudy put the wooden egg into another sock and threaded a thick needle with grey yarn. Emmi brought a bowl of potatoes, sat on the edge of the porch, and began peeling.
Freddy read, but it wasn’t long until Momma’s eyes began to close.
“Momma needs to go in, Freddy,” Emmi said. “Trudy, can you turn down her bed please? My hands are messy.”
Freddy helped Momma up. When she laid her hand on his arm, it was as if a dry autumn leaf had landed there. Sometimes he thought he should carry her, but she was so fragile; he was afraid she would break or fly away on a puff of wind.
Freddy searched his memory, trying to figure out when she had first gotten sick. It was a few days before Christmas. Now in August, she still stayed in bed most of the day.
He helped her lay back against the pillows, then lifted her feet onto the bed. “You rest now, Momma. Maybe Walter or Karl will stop by today,” he said. Their grown brothers usually visited after work once or twice each week. Everyone was so worried about Momma. Freddy laid a soft afghan over her, tucking it around her feet.
Voices floated through the window.
“Hey, Freddy!”
“Shhhhh, Rudy. Our mother is resting.” Emmi scolded.
“Sorry.”
Freddy reached across Momma and smoothed the afghan.
“Freddy, you go,” Trudy whispered. “Play with your friends. It’s a little while before Poppa comes.”
“You sure?”
“Ya. Ya. I sit with Momma. You go.”
Freddy lowered the shade on the west-facing window before slipping out the door. Rudy waited by the alley gate.
“C’mon. The guys are waitin’ on the corner. We got us a stickball game.”
They played hard for awhile. The hot afternoon sun made the street shimmer. After hitting a ball over the cemetery wall for a home run, Freddy penguin-walked to the base and back, twirling the stick, just like Charlie Chaplin twirling his cane in The Goldrush. The boys guffawed and Rudy fell off the curbstone, he laughed so hard. Freddy grinned.
In the distance, Freddy heard the streetcar bell and his grin disappeared. “Rudy, meet me by the car barn after supper, will ya?” he called.
He ran to the front porch and grabbed the tin pail. The buttons on his knickers were loose, and the heavy cuffs flapped against his shins. He might only be ten, but Poppa wouldn’t like it if Freddy looked like a bum. The car was still a block away. Dropping the pail, he buttoned his knickers below his knees.
Squat, brick tenement buildings and a rusty overpass carrying busy Chicago traffic stood across from him. Someday he would design beautiful bridges and elegant skyscrapers like those in the Loop. Someday. If he studied hard in school. And he would. No dirty factory work for him.
Poppa stepped from the streetcar and handed Freddy a quarter. “No vasting time. Ve got some tings to talk about. Come straight home from de Schenke.”
Poppa turned and walked away.
“Well, that don’t sound like good news,” Freddy muttered as he walked to the speakeasy behind the grocery store. Prohibition had sent all the bars into back allies.
He had seen the back of Poppa’s hand enough times to know not to make him wait.
Freddy pushed through the heavy door, and put his pail on the bar. He could barely see over the tall counter, but Otto knew who he was and what he wanted. And he knew better than to give Freddy a pail of foam.
“How you doin’, kid?” Otto smiled down at him. “Got a quarter today?”
Freddy slapped the quarter down and watched Otto fill the pail and scrape foam off with a knife before settling the lid. The Cubs game blared from the radio behind the bar. Grover Cleveland Alexander was pitching against the Boston Braves, and the Cubs weren’t doing too well.
“Stupid Cubs! When’s the last time they had a real team?” some guy at the bar growled.
Someone answered, “Got Alexander and Lefty Tyler in 1918 and dat was sposta do it. It’s been eight years and nothin’!” He slammed his mug on the bar and pointed to it, letting Otto know he wanted another.
“Hey!” Freddy said. “Alexander’s a great pitcher. If anyone can help the Cubbies pull this out, it’s him.” Freddy didn’t like hearing guys talk bad about the Cubs. He loved them and would like to hang around to listen to the game but didn’t dare.
Otto pushed the pail across, shook his head slightly, and said, “Don’t you know bein’ a Cubs fan is gonna break your heart, kid?” All the men laughed.
Freddy walked as quickly as he could without sloshing. It was only two blocks to home, but the heavy wire handle cut into his hands. His arms ached by the time he set the pail on the sink-board. He pumped cool water to help work the kinks from his fingers.
When he turned around, Poppa loomed over him. Poppa had changed out of his dirty work clothes and was ready for his beer. He lifted the lid on the pail and nodded with a satisfied look. “No vasteful foam. Das ist gut. And you didn’t spill none. Ya. Sehr gut.”
Good he got it right. Sometimes it seemed he couldn’t do anything to please Poppa.
Poppa took a heavy glass mug from the cupboard and dipped it into the beer. He drained the mug without a breath and filled it again. Sitting heavily at the kitchen table, he kicked another chair out from under it.
“Come. Ve talk.” He nodded toward the chair.
A whisper of feet shuffled behind the partly-closed door to the hallway. His older sisters peeked between door and frame. Emmi crouched down so Trudy could see over her, and Emmi wiggled her forefinger at Freddy as if waving hello. Freddy crossed his eyes and made a face. Emmi covered her mouth, but Trudy shook her head.
Freddy sat. His feet didn’t quite reach the floor, and he swung them without thinking.
Poppa drank another half glass of beer and wiped flecks of foam from his bushy mustache. His sharp blue eyes drilled through Freddy and pinned him there.
“Momma been getting sicker and sicker. Doctor says she needs more medicine and food. More meat and such. You vant Momma to get better, don’tcha?” Poppa said.
“Of course, Poppa. We all want Momma to get well.”
Poppa picked up the salt shaker and sprinkled some in his beer. “Dey are cutting back hours at da factory. Dey only gonna pay us to vork ten hours each day and only half a day on Saturdays.” He stared at the table top, then picked up the glass and drained it again. “You’re gonna need to go, Freddy. Ve can’t afford to keep you.”
Freddy heard a quiet sob from behind the door. When he looked, Trudy was gone, but Emmi remained, her eyes wide and full. Freddy swallowed hard.
“What do you mean go, Poppa? Go where?” Freddy tried to look into his Poppa’s eyes, but Poppa wouldn’t look at him. Poppa took his jackknife out, opened the little blade, and started to clean the black from under his cracked, blunt fingernails.
Poppa wouldn’t look up. “Ve don’t got enough. You’re a man now. You need to go.”
“Poppa,” Freddy said, almost a whisper, “Please, Poppa. I don’t know where to go. I can find milk bottles and turn ‘em in. Or carry shopping for rich ladies. I have to get your beer every day. The girls can’t do that. Maybe Otto down at the bar will lemme sweep and mop. I won’t eat much. I can —”
“Stop!” Poppa thundered, his fist hitting the table hard. The salt shaker fell over, spilling on the table top. Freddy stared. That was bad luck. He should throw some over his shoulder, but he couldn’t move.
Poppa stood and walked to the sink-board to fill his glass.
Freddy stared at the pail. His eyes stung and a growing lump in his throat burned. It had cost a quarter. A QUARTER! And Poppa had one every day. But he couldn’t afford to keep his son.
Middle Grade Historical Fiction
The Incredible Journey of Freddy J.
Chapter One
Big News
Freddy’s mother turned her face toward the sun.
“Read one more chapter, Freddy.”
Treasure Island was a favorite of them all. Trudy put the wooden egg into another sock and threaded a thick needle with grey yarn. Emmi brought a bowl of potatoes, sat on the edge of the porch, and began peeling.
Freddy read, but it wasn’t long until Momma’s eyes began to close.
“Momma needs to go in, Freddy,” Emmi said. “Trudy, can you turn down her bed please? My hands are messy.”
Freddy helped Momma up. When she laid her hand on his arm, it was as if a dry autumn leaf had landed there. Sometimes he thought he should carry her, but she was so fragile; he was afraid she would break or fly away on a puff of wind.
Freddy searched his memory, trying to figure out when she had first gotten sick. It was a few days before Christmas. Now in August, she still stayed in bed most of the day.
He helped her lay back against the pillows, then lifted her feet onto the bed. “You rest now, Momma. Maybe Walter or Karl will stop by today,” he said. Their grown brothers usually visited after work once or twice each week. Everyone was so worried about Momma. Freddy laid a soft afghan over her, tucking it around her feet.
Voices floated through the window.
“Hey, Freddy!”
“Shhhhh, Rudy. Our mother is resting.” Emmi scolded.
“Sorry.”
Freddy reached across Momma and smoothed the afghan.
“Freddy, you go,” Trudy whispered. “Play with your friends. It’s a little while before Poppa comes.”
“You sure?”
“Ya. Ya. I sit with Momma. You go.”
Freddy lowered the shade on the west-facing window before slipping out the door. Rudy waited by the alley gate.
“C’mon. The guys are waitin’ on the corner. We got us a stickball game.”
They played hard for awhile. The hot afternoon sun made the street shimmer. After hitting a ball over the cemetery wall for a home run, Freddy penguin-walked to the base and back, twirling the stick, just like Charlie Chaplin twirling his cane in The Goldrush. The boys guffawed and Rudy fell off the curbstone, he laughed so hard. Freddy grinned.
In the distance, Freddy heard the streetcar bell and his grin disappeared. “Rudy, meet me by the car barn after supper, will ya?” he called.
He ran to the front porch and grabbed the tin pail. The buttons on his knickers were loose, and the heavy cuffs flapped against his shins. He might only be ten, but Poppa wouldn’t like it if Freddy looked like a bum. The car was still a block away. Dropping the pail, he buttoned his knickers below his knees.
Squat, brick tenement buildings and a rusty overpass carrying busy Chicago traffic stood across from him. Someday he would design beautiful bridges and elegant skyscrapers like those in the Loop. Someday. If he studied hard in school. And he would. No dirty factory work for him.
Poppa stepped from the streetcar and handed Freddy a quarter. “No vasting time. Ve got some tings to talk about. Come straight home from de Schenke.”
Poppa turned and walked away.
“Well, that don’t sound like good news,” Freddy muttered as he walked to the speakeasy behind the grocery store. Prohibition had sent all the bars into back allies.
He had seen the back of Poppa’s hand enough times to know not to make him wait.
Freddy pushed through the heavy door, and put his pail on the bar. He could barely see over the tall counter, but Otto knew who he was and what he wanted. And he knew better than to give Freddy a pail of foam.
“How you doin’, kid?” Otto smiled down at him. “Got a quarter today?”
Freddy slapped the quarter down and watched Otto fill the pail and scrape foam off with a knife before settling the lid. The Cubs game blared from the radio behind the bar. Grover Cleveland Alexander was pitching against the Boston Braves, and the Cubs weren’t doing too well.
“Stupid Cubs! When’s the last time they had a real team?” some guy at the bar growled.
Someone answered, “Got Alexander and Lefty Tyler in 1918 and dat was sposta do it. It’s been eight years and nothin’!” He slammed his mug on the bar and pointed to it, letting Otto know he wanted another.
“Hey!” Freddy said. “Alexander’s a great pitcher. If anyone can help the Cubbies pull this out, it’s him.” Freddy didn’t like hearing guys talk bad about the Cubs. He loved them and would like to hang around to listen to the game but didn’t dare.
Otto pushed the pail across, shook his head slightly, and said, “Don’t you know bein’ a Cubs fan is gonna break your heart, kid?” All the men laughed.
Freddy walked as quickly as he could without sloshing. It was only two blocks to home, but the heavy wire handle cut into his hands. His arms ached by the time he set the pail on the sink-board. He pumped cool water to help work the kinks from his fingers.
When he turned around, Poppa loomed over him. Poppa had changed out of his dirty work clothes and was ready for his beer. He lifted the lid on the pail and nodded with a satisfied look. “No vasteful foam. Das ist gut. And you didn’t spill none. Ya. Sehr gut.”
Good he got it right. Sometimes it seemed he couldn’t do anything to please Poppa.
Poppa took a heavy glass mug from the cupboard and dipped it into the beer. He drained the mug without a breath and filled it again. Sitting heavily at the kitchen table, he kicked another chair out from under it.
“Come. Ve talk.” He nodded toward the chair.
A whisper of feet shuffled behind the partly-closed door to the hallway. His older sisters peeked between door and frame. Emmi crouched down so Trudy could see over her, and Emmi wiggled her forefinger at Freddy as if waving hello. Freddy crossed his eyes and made a face. Emmi covered her mouth, but Trudy shook her head.
Freddy sat. His feet didn’t quite reach the floor, and he swung them without thinking.
Poppa drank another half glass of beer and wiped flecks of foam from his bushy mustache. His sharp blue eyes drilled through Freddy and pinned him there.
“Momma been getting sicker and sicker. Doctor says she needs more medicine and food. More meat and such. You vant Momma to get better, don’tcha?” Poppa said.
“Of course, Poppa. We all want Momma to get well.”
Poppa picked up the salt shaker and sprinkled some in his beer. “Dey are cutting back hours at da factory. Dey only gonna pay us to vork ten hours each day and only half a day on Saturdays.” He stared at the table top, then picked up the glass and drained it again. “You’re gonna need to go, Freddy. Ve can’t afford to keep you.”
Freddy heard a quiet sob from behind the door. When he looked, Trudy was gone, but Emmi remained, her eyes wide and full. Freddy swallowed hard.
“What do you mean go, Poppa? Go where?” Freddy tried to look into his Poppa’s eyes, but Poppa wouldn’t look at him. Poppa took his jackknife out, opened the little blade, and started to clean the black from under his cracked, blunt fingernails.
Poppa wouldn’t look up. “Ve don’t got enough. You’re a man now. You need to go.”
“Poppa,” Freddy said, almost a whisper, “Please, Poppa. I don’t know where to go. I can find milk bottles and turn ‘em in. Or carry shopping for rich ladies. I have to get your beer every day. The girls can’t do that. Maybe Otto down at the bar will lemme sweep and mop. I won’t eat much. I can —”
“Stop!” Poppa thundered, his fist hitting the table hard. The salt shaker fell over, spilling on the table top. Freddy stared. That was bad luck. He should throw some over his shoulder, but he couldn’t move.
Poppa stood and walked to the sink-board to fill his glass.
Freddy stared at the pail. His eyes stung and a growing lump in his throat burned. It had cost a quarter. A QUARTER! And Poppa had one every day. But he couldn’t afford to keep his son.
July 1st 5 Pages July Workshop - Koon - Rev 2
Author: Shelley Koon (Revision 2)
Genre: YA/ Dystopic
Title: Axiom
Imp reached back and slid the stealth suit’s probe into the port at the base of her neck. Grabbing her long dark hair she twisted it into a ponytail, pulled the stealth suit hood over it and tucked her hair inside. She adjusted her headset and then slid her hand across the C-port embedded in the sleeve to activate the suit. Black and charcoal poppies of color bloomed across the suit, growing and bleeding into one another until it was a perfect match to the bleak backdrop of the forest. Data, collected from sensors embedded in the fabric, surged through her nervous system carrying with it the across the exposed skin of her face and hands turning them a mottled ashen grey. Imp held her hand out and wriggled her fingers, straining to see them against the ground.
“Whoa,” she said, drawing the word out more exhaled than exclaimed.
She took a few quick steps to test the feel of the data as it changed in relation to her surroundings. The muscles in her back tensed as the flow ran down her spine. Her nervous system tingled and it felt as if her whole body was laughing. A grin slid across her lips, not that anyone could have seen it in her currents state, as she broke into a sprint.
The suit shifted colors rapidly to match the passing scenery. Imp’s heart beat sped up rapidly as if to keep time as the data flow throbbed through her body. The exhilaration of the tingling gave way to the unnerving sensation of a thousand tiny rats gnawing on the tender threads of nerves. Imp pushed harder, hoping to outrun the pain until the world began to dim at the edges of her vision.
She stopped and lurched over, palms resting against her thighs and gulped in air. It tasted stale and stung her nose but the coolness displaced the burning in her lungs and seemed like a fair trade to her. After a moment the lightheaded feeling began to slip away and, confident she wasn’t going to pass out, she began negotiations with her stomach about the fate of her breakfast. This wasn’t exactly how she had envisioned starting her stealth suit training.
Once Imp and her stomach had reached an agreement she stood. She stepped forward gingerly as if checking to make sure the ground was still solid and finding it sound took another step. Pacing herself this time to allow her body to adjust to the data flow, she made her way through the petrified trees.
She tried to imagine what the transfer would’ve felt like when the forest had been alive. She’d seen pictures of the world before when it was lush and green, spotted with every hue of the spectrum. She shuddered at the thought of that running through her body. But the world she lived in was void of color, the forest nothing more than a negative of itself. But the landscape was just one more casualty of the Great War and the only time the forest ever looked green to her was in the dark, through her night vision contacts.
Lightning lacerated the sky above her, followed by the heavy rumble of thunder. The storms came more often these days, but they never brought rain. Even if they had, Imp wasn’t sure the ground was capable of being fruitful anymore. There wasn’t much that thrived outside the base nestled inside the mountain. Except the variants she had been trained her entire life to hunt.
Imp reached up and flicked her headset on and a series of numbers and letters streamed across her retina display.
“Janip, you there?” Imp asked.
“Where’ve you been?” Janip’s voice came from the headset. “The other Slayers stats are coming in already. We fell down the ranking, to third,” Janip said, the last sentence taking on a shrill tone that Imp recognized as panic.
“Relax, I’m just giving them some leeway before I annihilate them. I’m nice like that.”
A loud thumping came over the headset; Imp cringed and pulled it away from her ear.
“Ow, seriously Janip what the hell?”
“Just checking the connection. I think there’s something wrong with it, it sounded like you said you were nice.”
“Funny,” Imp said.
“So what’s the plan?”
“Bigger trees, bigger numbers.”
“You were told to stay low and take it slow. If you turn back now down, you’ve still got time to get a few good merges in and…”
“No. We were told not to go high. I’m not going high, just midway up the hill where the trees are a little bit bigger,” Imp said and then added with a snicker, “I promise to walk there slowly.”
“You’re impossible.”
Imp picked a rock up and rubbed it on her mic, “What I can’t hear you there’s a lot of static today.”
“Touche,” Janip sighed.
Imp hit her mute button and jogged up the hill. As she ran she ticked through combat stances in her head, a trick she had learned in survival training for externalizing pain. That seemed to help keep her mind off the data flow and the queasiness stayed at bay. Several feet up the hill she made a quick right and headed toward a small grove of trees she had noticed on the map. As she neared it, she caught a fleeting glimpse of something from the corner of her eye. A ripple against the backdrop of the forest. She whipped her head towards the movement, her breath catching in her lungs. She dropped to the forest floor and kneeled, her hand fluttering to the empty holster on her belt. It took a moment for the void there to register. She had left her gun in the arsenal, as had all the Slayer trainees, at the request of their commanding officers.
“Jan, did you see movement near me on your display?” Imp whispered.
“No why?”
“I saw a…” she stopped mid sentence and frowned. She hadn’t really seen anything. “Like a ripple.”
“A ripple?” Janip questioned.
“Yeah. Like when you see a reflection in water and poke the surface and the image ripples.”
Shifting her weight from one foot to the other to change her perspective, Imp continued to stare towards the space where she had seen the ripple. The swooshing sound of her blood pounding in her ears all but drowned out the thunder overhead. She scanned the area for anything she could use as a weapon. Her gaze fell on a jagged rock within arms length. She reached towards it, catching it with the tips of her fingers and pulling it closer until she was able to grab it. The sharp edges bit into her skin as she gripped it tighter and braced herself for an attack. While she had a great respect for her commanding officers confidence that the training zone had been swept of variants and locked down, she had an even greater respect for her own intuition. And right now hers was screaming that she wasn't alone.
“Someone’s probably having trouble with their stealth suit. The system’s been kind of glitchy today and a couple of suits that aren’t reliably tracking. I don’t see anything near you on the map,” Janip said.
“Nothing breached the zone?” Imp whispered, her eyes wide and locked straight ahead.
“Checking,” Janip said. A pause followed that was in reality no more than wnty seconds but seemed like an hour to Imp. “Nope, no zone breaches.”
Some of the tension relaxed from Imp’s body but her hand left hand still rested on the empty holster and her right gripped the rock. Over the past year five Slayers had disappeared while on duty, the most recent being Larkin. Imp had no plans for being number six.
She stood and headed back toward the grove, pausing a few times to check behind her, unable to shake the feeling she was being trailed. She ignored it and pushed it away. Janip was the best navigator she knew and if she thought it was just a glitchy suit that had passed by, then that was good enough for her.
Imp stopped just short of the grove as if she had hit an invisible wall. Brow furrowed she stared mouth agape at the grove. She had assumed the large dark spots on the map indicated trees that were larger than those on the forest floor. But now, standing before them she could see that wasn’t the case. These trees, though much smaller, were positioned so closely together that it was difficult to distinguish one from the next. Their branches entwined, twisted by the ancient winds and froze in time by petrifaction. They reminded Imp of a group of survivors, clinging to one another for safety. She supposed in some ways they were.
“Is your camera on?” Imp asked Janip.
“Are you seeing these?” Imp asked Janip.
“Yeah and you’re crazy if you want to try to do a merge to that. I mean maybe we can give it a try when we’ve gotten more practice in…”
“I was fine on the way up here,” Imp lied, thankful she had waited to turn her headset on, “We’re doing it now.”
“No way. Anything happens to you and it’s my ass that’s in trouble. Well, yours and mine but yours will be dead, so I’m more concerned about mine.”
“Jan…”
“Why would you even want to try that?”
“There has to be eight to nine trees in that formation, the data stream is going to be gigantic. This one merge will give us at least double the points the other teams get. You were the one bitching about rankings earlier. Are you in or not?”
Imp crossed her arms and looked further up the hill as she waited for her Navigator’s response. Her headset remained silent. She noticed a smaller grouping of three trees a few yards away and crossed the short distance to get a better look. The branches of this group were also entwined but, unlike the larger group their trunks were spaced further apart, allowing just enough room for Imp to wriggle between them. A grin spread across her full lips. Being the smallest of the Slayers had its advantages.
Genre: YA/ Dystopic
Title: Axiom
Imp reached back and slid the stealth suit’s probe into the port at the base of her neck. Grabbing her long dark hair she twisted it into a ponytail, pulled the stealth suit hood over it and tucked her hair inside. She adjusted her headset and then slid her hand across the C-port embedded in the sleeve to activate the suit. Black and charcoal poppies of color bloomed across the suit, growing and bleeding into one another until it was a perfect match to the bleak backdrop of the forest. Data, collected from sensors embedded in the fabric, surged through her nervous system carrying with it the across the exposed skin of her face and hands turning them a mottled ashen grey. Imp held her hand out and wriggled her fingers, straining to see them against the ground.
“Whoa,” she said, drawing the word out more exhaled than exclaimed.
She took a few quick steps to test the feel of the data as it changed in relation to her surroundings. The muscles in her back tensed as the flow ran down her spine. Her nervous system tingled and it felt as if her whole body was laughing. A grin slid across her lips, not that anyone could have seen it in her currents state, as she broke into a sprint.
The suit shifted colors rapidly to match the passing scenery. Imp’s heart beat sped up rapidly as if to keep time as the data flow throbbed through her body. The exhilaration of the tingling gave way to the unnerving sensation of a thousand tiny rats gnawing on the tender threads of nerves. Imp pushed harder, hoping to outrun the pain until the world began to dim at the edges of her vision.
She stopped and lurched over, palms resting against her thighs and gulped in air. It tasted stale and stung her nose but the coolness displaced the burning in her lungs and seemed like a fair trade to her. After a moment the lightheaded feeling began to slip away and, confident she wasn’t going to pass out, she began negotiations with her stomach about the fate of her breakfast. This wasn’t exactly how she had envisioned starting her stealth suit training.
Once Imp and her stomach had reached an agreement she stood. She stepped forward gingerly as if checking to make sure the ground was still solid and finding it sound took another step. Pacing herself this time to allow her body to adjust to the data flow, she made her way through the petrified trees.
She tried to imagine what the transfer would’ve felt like when the forest had been alive. She’d seen pictures of the world before when it was lush and green, spotted with every hue of the spectrum. She shuddered at the thought of that running through her body. But the world she lived in was void of color, the forest nothing more than a negative of itself. But the landscape was just one more casualty of the Great War and the only time the forest ever looked green to her was in the dark, through her night vision contacts.
Lightning lacerated the sky above her, followed by the heavy rumble of thunder. The storms came more often these days, but they never brought rain. Even if they had, Imp wasn’t sure the ground was capable of being fruitful anymore. There wasn’t much that thrived outside the base nestled inside the mountain. Except the variants she had been trained her entire life to hunt.
Imp reached up and flicked her headset on and a series of numbers and letters streamed across her retina display.
“Janip, you there?” Imp asked.
“Where’ve you been?” Janip’s voice came from the headset. “The other Slayers stats are coming in already. We fell down the ranking, to third,” Janip said, the last sentence taking on a shrill tone that Imp recognized as panic.
“Relax, I’m just giving them some leeway before I annihilate them. I’m nice like that.”
A loud thumping came over the headset; Imp cringed and pulled it away from her ear.
“Ow, seriously Janip what the hell?”
“Just checking the connection. I think there’s something wrong with it, it sounded like you said you were nice.”
“Funny,” Imp said.
“So what’s the plan?”
“Bigger trees, bigger numbers.”
“You were told to stay low and take it slow. If you turn back now down, you’ve still got time to get a few good merges in and…”
“No. We were told not to go high. I’m not going high, just midway up the hill where the trees are a little bit bigger,” Imp said and then added with a snicker, “I promise to walk there slowly.”
“You’re impossible.”
Imp picked a rock up and rubbed it on her mic, “What I can’t hear you there’s a lot of static today.”
“Touche,” Janip sighed.
Imp hit her mute button and jogged up the hill. As she ran she ticked through combat stances in her head, a trick she had learned in survival training for externalizing pain. That seemed to help keep her mind off the data flow and the queasiness stayed at bay. Several feet up the hill she made a quick right and headed toward a small grove of trees she had noticed on the map. As she neared it, she caught a fleeting glimpse of something from the corner of her eye. A ripple against the backdrop of the forest. She whipped her head towards the movement, her breath catching in her lungs. She dropped to the forest floor and kneeled, her hand fluttering to the empty holster on her belt. It took a moment for the void there to register. She had left her gun in the arsenal, as had all the Slayer trainees, at the request of their commanding officers.
“Jan, did you see movement near me on your display?” Imp whispered.
“No why?”
“I saw a…” she stopped mid sentence and frowned. She hadn’t really seen anything. “Like a ripple.”
“A ripple?” Janip questioned.
“Yeah. Like when you see a reflection in water and poke the surface and the image ripples.”
Shifting her weight from one foot to the other to change her perspective, Imp continued to stare towards the space where she had seen the ripple. The swooshing sound of her blood pounding in her ears all but drowned out the thunder overhead. She scanned the area for anything she could use as a weapon. Her gaze fell on a jagged rock within arms length. She reached towards it, catching it with the tips of her fingers and pulling it closer until she was able to grab it. The sharp edges bit into her skin as she gripped it tighter and braced herself for an attack. While she had a great respect for her commanding officers confidence that the training zone had been swept of variants and locked down, she had an even greater respect for her own intuition. And right now hers was screaming that she wasn't alone.
“Someone’s probably having trouble with their stealth suit. The system’s been kind of glitchy today and a couple of suits that aren’t reliably tracking. I don’t see anything near you on the map,” Janip said.
“Nothing breached the zone?” Imp whispered, her eyes wide and locked straight ahead.
“Checking,” Janip said. A pause followed that was in reality no more than wnty seconds but seemed like an hour to Imp. “Nope, no zone breaches.”
Some of the tension relaxed from Imp’s body but her hand left hand still rested on the empty holster and her right gripped the rock. Over the past year five Slayers had disappeared while on duty, the most recent being Larkin. Imp had no plans for being number six.
She stood and headed back toward the grove, pausing a few times to check behind her, unable to shake the feeling she was being trailed. She ignored it and pushed it away. Janip was the best navigator she knew and if she thought it was just a glitchy suit that had passed by, then that was good enough for her.
Imp stopped just short of the grove as if she had hit an invisible wall. Brow furrowed she stared mouth agape at the grove. She had assumed the large dark spots on the map indicated trees that were larger than those on the forest floor. But now, standing before them she could see that wasn’t the case. These trees, though much smaller, were positioned so closely together that it was difficult to distinguish one from the next. Their branches entwined, twisted by the ancient winds and froze in time by petrifaction. They reminded Imp of a group of survivors, clinging to one another for safety. She supposed in some ways they were.
“Is your camera on?” Imp asked Janip.
“Are you seeing these?” Imp asked Janip.
“Yeah and you’re crazy if you want to try to do a merge to that. I mean maybe we can give it a try when we’ve gotten more practice in…”
“I was fine on the way up here,” Imp lied, thankful she had waited to turn her headset on, “We’re doing it now.”
“No way. Anything happens to you and it’s my ass that’s in trouble. Well, yours and mine but yours will be dead, so I’m more concerned about mine.”
“Jan…”
“Why would you even want to try that?”
“There has to be eight to nine trees in that formation, the data stream is going to be gigantic. This one merge will give us at least double the points the other teams get. You were the one bitching about rankings earlier. Are you in or not?”
Imp crossed her arms and looked further up the hill as she waited for her Navigator’s response. Her headset remained silent. She noticed a smaller grouping of three trees a few yards away and crossed the short distance to get a better look. The branches of this group were also entwined but, unlike the larger group their trunks were spaced further apart, allowing just enough room for Imp to wriggle between them. A grin spread across her full lips. Being the smallest of the Slayers had its advantages.
1st 5 Pages July Workshop - Cook-Raymond Rev 2
Name: Sarah Cook-Raymond
Genre: YA urban fantasy
Title: The Defenders
Chapter One
Irony: the opposite of what you’d expect—with a twist.
Before today the only irony I knew was being the tallest boy in class but sucking at basketball. But that’s the twist. The day your life changes forever begins like all the others. It’s just the ending that’s changed.
Chapter Two: Before
I turn my boxers inside out, grab a hoodie, the same jeans I wore yesterday, and hurry downstairs to the kitchen for breakfast.
“Hey Big Shot,” says Dad, looking up from the Washington Post. There’s a stack of five other papers beside him, all already read.
“Hey,” I echo. I don’t contest the nickname. He’s spent my entire life trying to get it to catch on. No need to stop now.
The coffee pot dings. Dad smiles and stands up from the table. His massive frame is draped in his uniform: dark suit, shiny shoes, crisp shirt. I see a small splash of coffee still in his cup as he goes over for a refill—meaning this is the second pot of the day.
I look over and see Mom leaning against the counter typing away feverishly on her Blackberry, a half-eaten piece of toast balanced between two fingers. “Here,” Dad says, moving across the kitchen and sliding a steaming mug of coffee in her direction. She looks up and their eyes meet. “Thanks,” she says with a crescent smile. She puts the Blackberry down and takes a sip. As she does, her shoulders rise and fall into a relaxed soft sigh.
“Toby!” yells Shelly, bursting into the room. She’s wearing a backpack so full it’s amazing she doesn’t buckle under the weight. “Let’s go. We don’t want to be late for school.” Shelly’s two years younger than me but you’d never know it.
“Speak for yourself,” I say, grabbing one of the strawberry Pop-Tarts in her outstretched hand. I take a satisfying bite. “I swear if it wasn’t for you, I’d never eat,” I admit.
“I heard that,” says Mom, though she doesn’t contest it. “I have an open house to prep for,” she says, turning to Dad.
“I wanted to take them to school anyway.”
“Fabulous.” She reaches down and throws a purse onto the counter so large it looks like she’s checking luggage. She shuffles papers around. “Ah, here’s the address,” Mom says softly to herself, but still waves the piece of paper in the air for us all to see.
“So you excited about that English test today?” Dad asks.
“Excited? You can’t get excited about a test.”
“Toby,” he pauses. “Life is a test.”
“Alright, alright!” claps Mom. She hoists the purse onto her shoulder and Shelly strides up beside her—her own little mini-me.
“So Big Shot,” Dad says, turning to me. “We still on for tonight?”
Tonight is fantasy football draft night. I’m the defending champ.
“You bet. But be ready, old man!” I say to him, closing the house door behind us. “You’re gonna need some luck.”
* * * * * * * * * * * *
There was one word that I couldn’t get right on my English test. One word I swore I knew but couldn’t remember: precipice.
I turn into the driveway and I see it: Mom’s car in the driveway uncharacteristically early. A cool shiver spiders its way up my back. Something’s not right.
Cautiously I tip toe up the steps and place my hand on the door. All the hairs on my body stand on end. “Mom?” I say as I push my way in.
I hear her before I see her.
She’s curled up on the floor, her knees hugged up tightly to her chest. Her clothes tangle up around her. She just looks like a pile of laundry thrown on the floor. A mess of snot and tears stream together down her cheeks, pooling on the floor.
It unnerves me in the same way horror movies do. It’s that sensation where I want to cover my eyes but can’t because something—compulsion or curiosity—stops me.
“Mom?” I ask again. Cautiously I cross the room towards her. I don’t see Shelly walk in but hear the squeak of her sneakers on the freshly-waxed floor as she stops abruptly.
Mom looks up at us from under red-rimmed eyes, her whole demeanor as fragile and breakable as ever. “Your father—” she eventually chokes out but breaks off. All that follows are blubbered incoherent words coupled with bouts of hyperventilation.
And then it comes to me. The two definitions collide: Precipice (n). A cliff or a situation of great peril.
“He’s dead?” I whisper. I only meant to think it. But then she nods…
My knees buckle and I collapse next to her. Shelly does the same. We’re just one big pile of bodies like football players in a heap only no one attempts to move and we don’t have any padding to cushion the blow.
Genre: YA urban fantasy
Title: The Defenders
Chapter One
Irony: the opposite of what you’d expect—with a twist.
Before today the only irony I knew was being the tallest boy in class but sucking at basketball. But that’s the twist. The day your life changes forever begins like all the others. It’s just the ending that’s changed.
Chapter Two: Before
I turn my boxers inside out, grab a hoodie, the same jeans I wore yesterday, and hurry downstairs to the kitchen for breakfast.
“Hey Big Shot,” says Dad, looking up from the Washington Post. There’s a stack of five other papers beside him, all already read.
“Hey,” I echo. I don’t contest the nickname. He’s spent my entire life trying to get it to catch on. No need to stop now.
The coffee pot dings. Dad smiles and stands up from the table. His massive frame is draped in his uniform: dark suit, shiny shoes, crisp shirt. I see a small splash of coffee still in his cup as he goes over for a refill—meaning this is the second pot of the day.
I look over and see Mom leaning against the counter typing away feverishly on her Blackberry, a half-eaten piece of toast balanced between two fingers. “Here,” Dad says, moving across the kitchen and sliding a steaming mug of coffee in her direction. She looks up and their eyes meet. “Thanks,” she says with a crescent smile. She puts the Blackberry down and takes a sip. As she does, her shoulders rise and fall into a relaxed soft sigh.
“Toby!” yells Shelly, bursting into the room. She’s wearing a backpack so full it’s amazing she doesn’t buckle under the weight. “Let’s go. We don’t want to be late for school.” Shelly’s two years younger than me but you’d never know it.
“Speak for yourself,” I say, grabbing one of the strawberry Pop-Tarts in her outstretched hand. I take a satisfying bite. “I swear if it wasn’t for you, I’d never eat,” I admit.
“I heard that,” says Mom, though she doesn’t contest it. “I have an open house to prep for,” she says, turning to Dad.
“I wanted to take them to school anyway.”
“Fabulous.” She reaches down and throws a purse onto the counter so large it looks like she’s checking luggage. She shuffles papers around. “Ah, here’s the address,” Mom says softly to herself, but still waves the piece of paper in the air for us all to see.
“So you excited about that English test today?” Dad asks.
“Excited? You can’t get excited about a test.”
“Toby,” he pauses. “Life is a test.”
“Alright, alright!” claps Mom. She hoists the purse onto her shoulder and Shelly strides up beside her—her own little mini-me.
“So Big Shot,” Dad says, turning to me. “We still on for tonight?”
Tonight is fantasy football draft night. I’m the defending champ.
“You bet. But be ready, old man!” I say to him, closing the house door behind us. “You’re gonna need some luck.”
* * * * * * * * * * * *
There was one word that I couldn’t get right on my English test. One word I swore I knew but couldn’t remember: precipice.
I turn into the driveway and I see it: Mom’s car in the driveway uncharacteristically early. A cool shiver spiders its way up my back. Something’s not right.
Cautiously I tip toe up the steps and place my hand on the door. All the hairs on my body stand on end. “Mom?” I say as I push my way in.
I hear her before I see her.
She’s curled up on the floor, her knees hugged up tightly to her chest. Her clothes tangle up around her. She just looks like a pile of laundry thrown on the floor. A mess of snot and tears stream together down her cheeks, pooling on the floor.
It unnerves me in the same way horror movies do. It’s that sensation where I want to cover my eyes but can’t because something—compulsion or curiosity—stops me.
“Mom?” I ask again. Cautiously I cross the room towards her. I don’t see Shelly walk in but hear the squeak of her sneakers on the freshly-waxed floor as she stops abruptly.
Mom looks up at us from under red-rimmed eyes, her whole demeanor as fragile and breakable as ever. “Your father—” she eventually chokes out but breaks off. All that follows are blubbered incoherent words coupled with bouts of hyperventilation.
And then it comes to me. The two definitions collide: Precipice (n). A cliff or a situation of great peril.
“He’s dead?” I whisper. I only meant to think it. But then she nods…
My knees buckle and I collapse next to her. Shelly does the same. We’re just one big pile of bodies like football players in a heap only no one attempts to move and we don’t have any padding to cushion the blow.
1st 5 Pages July Workshop - Lawson, Rev 2
Name: J. Lawson
Title: Nooks & Crannies
Genre: Middle Grade Historical Mystery
First Five Pages:
Just past three o’clock in the afternoon, when schools across South London were releasing much-adored children by the bucketful, Tabitha Crum was let into the cold as well. The cobblestone streets of Village Wiltingshire were made eerie and muted by thick November fog, and clip-clopping carriage horses snorted up and down the road, emerging and fading within moments. Almost like ghosts, Tabitha mused. She made her solitary walk home, kept company by giddy, nervous thoughts of the delivery that had come to Miss Morrow’s classroom minutes before the final bell.
She clutched and rubbed the pretty envelope, letting one fingernail linger at the seam. The two recipients had been given strict instructions by the hand messenger not to open them, but to pass the envelopes to their parents. The glue was of a stubbornly good quality and Tabitha’s nails were of a woefully short length.
That, of course, did not keep her from an innocent scratch or two as she passed the candle shop, two newspaper sellers barking excitedly about something or other, and the sweet scent of the corner bakery.
“It’s as though they’ve sealed it with spite,” Tabitha muttered to herself, earning an offended glance from a passing elderly lady. Whether it was the remark, her outgrown uniform, or a combination, Tabitha couldn’t be certain. Perhaps the woman was offended by children as a whole. Rather like her mum and dad.
Licking chapped lips, Tabitha felt a stirring inside her belly unrelated to having eaten a flimsy lunch of broken crackers and watery juice. Ludicrous or not (after all, one doesn’t find a cheerier life beneath maroon wax seals embossed with duos of swans), it was impossible to ignore the tiniest possibility that the envelope might contain… a small bit of light.
Hands shaking from chill and an unfamiliar amount of hope, she lifted the envelope to her nose and took a long sniff. It smelled faintly of flowers.
A summons from Scotland Yard to become an Inspector-In-Training.
An invitation from King Edward to attend a horse race.
Notification from a long-lost relative that actually wants me around and waxes poetically about how I will be seen only as a child with merit, never as an imposition.
All unlikely scenarios, but enough to resist temptation of ripping into the paper and ruining the illusions with a tooth powder advertisement. Barely, though. More helpful in distraction was the vulgar bellow behind her. A passing bicycle veered close and sprayed Tabitha with filthy water left by a midday storm.
“Your envelope is bound to be a mistake—there’s no way she’ll let you in!” yelled a horrid voice.
Wafting alongside the insult were the hideous scents of burned toast and rotting cinnamon. There was only one boy at St. Augustine’s who wore such pungent odors. Sure enough, Tabitha turned to see Barnaby Trundle pedaling a slow circle in the absence of traffic.
“Best to stay home, Drabby Tabby! I’ve heard the place is haunted, and the spirits are hungry for filthy, ratty girls like you.” Barnaby stuck his tongue out as far as it could go.
Tabitha flushed and thought of exactly seven things that she would like to do to her classmate, one involving a rather nasty collision with a refuse wagon. Wiping a brown streak from her face as though it were a harmless butterfly, she forced a smile. “Believe me, Barnaby, I won’t be staying home. I rather think you should, though. I’ve heard most spirits have a fondness for repulsive idiots with no manners, an excess of their father’s hair crème, and an obscene amount of aftershave. I’m afraid they’ll smell you out in a minute.”
Barnaby frowned and took one hand off the handlebars to smooth his locks before disappearing into the fog.
So, he’s opened it. Even soaked as she was, a flutter of excitement coursed through Tabitha’s body. According to Barnaby, her envelope was a mistake. Based on the boy’s foul nature, the contents were sure to be something quite good (despite the silly mention of vengeful spirits). Well done, Detective Crum.
What could it be? A place owned by a woman. Haunted, he’d said, though that bit was clearly rubbish. Hmm…it would be easy enough to find out.
There was a moment, one brief moment, where the act of disobedience hung in the air like a cupcake, waiting to be fetched and gobbled up. The envelope lifted, as though on its own accord, and Tabitha saw her finger rise. Carefully, deliciously, she held her breath and began a tiny tear at the corner.
And stopped.
She sighed, dropping the note to her hip.
Tabitha Crum, she scolded herself, you are incorrigibly, incurably good. You must either learn to be sneaky or not mind being caught. A second voice crept into her mind, scolding back. But they’ll never grow to love you if you can’t even obey simple rules.
Tabitha reluctantly agreed with both of the voices and peered through the mist, occasionally testing it with her free hand, pressing and flicking at whiteness that always seemed to be just a step ahead.
It’s almost like something in a Professor Pensive novel. And next, a woman will appear, begging me to solve the mysterious disappearance of her second cousin’s potting shed.
Professor Pensive always knew the answers to puzzling questions. ‘Every curious situation leaves signs of its origin, Tibbs’ he was known to say to his portly partner, Timothy Tibbs. He always did his deducing in a corner booth of his favorite pub, sipping port and chewing pensively on his pocket watch chain. Tabitha had no desire to drink port and no money to buy a pocket watch, but a warm seat and fresh pastry would be awfully nice.
As though agreeing with the thought, Tabitha’s breath sent scone-shaped puffs into the air. She saw Mr. Willoughby, who was seated in his usual spot at the front window table of Puddles Confectionary. He always seemed to be somewhere along her path to school. She waved with her enveloped hand and he raised his eyebrows in concern as two passing men thoughtlessly bumped her aside.
“Two more are floating around somewhere!” one of them said. “Can you imagine? And children, of all people…”
Tabitha picked herself up, slightly rattled. Mr. Willoughby stood, as though to rush outside and help, but she shook her head and kept walking. Nodding, he returned to his biscuit, though his eyes lingered on the sidestreet for a moment.
Tabitha sighed at the dismissive bumper and at the memory of Barnaby’s last words. She was filthy. Skinny and filthy and knobby-kneed and wearing a raggedy coat, which probably placed her in the street urchin category to the general public.
At precisely half past three, Tabitha found a curious sight outside her home. Her father’s briefcase, her parents’ traveling trunks, and a jewelry case crowded together. Before she could analyze what it might mean (and why none of her things were among the pile), Tabitha heard a squeaky-wheeled cab lurching down the road in her direction. Cabs were not a regular occurrence on Belcher Street. Gripping the envelope closer, she was horrified to feel only fingers rubbing together. Heart plunging all the way to her numb toes, Tabitha looked down.
The envelope was no longer there.
It must have fallen when I got knocked! Turning in haste, she bumped into a tall figure. She stared a moment, astonished, before remembering her manners.
“Oh, hello, Sir. Pardon me, but how do you know where I live?”
Title: Nooks & Crannies
Genre: Middle Grade Historical Mystery
First Five Pages:
Just past three o’clock in the afternoon, when schools across South London were releasing much-adored children by the bucketful, Tabitha Crum was let into the cold as well. The cobblestone streets of Village Wiltingshire were made eerie and muted by thick November fog, and clip-clopping carriage horses snorted up and down the road, emerging and fading within moments. Almost like ghosts, Tabitha mused. She made her solitary walk home, kept company by giddy, nervous thoughts of the delivery that had come to Miss Morrow’s classroom minutes before the final bell.
She clutched and rubbed the pretty envelope, letting one fingernail linger at the seam. The two recipients had been given strict instructions by the hand messenger not to open them, but to pass the envelopes to their parents. The glue was of a stubbornly good quality and Tabitha’s nails were of a woefully short length.
That, of course, did not keep her from an innocent scratch or two as she passed the candle shop, two newspaper sellers barking excitedly about something or other, and the sweet scent of the corner bakery.
“It’s as though they’ve sealed it with spite,” Tabitha muttered to herself, earning an offended glance from a passing elderly lady. Whether it was the remark, her outgrown uniform, or a combination, Tabitha couldn’t be certain. Perhaps the woman was offended by children as a whole. Rather like her mum and dad.
Licking chapped lips, Tabitha felt a stirring inside her belly unrelated to having eaten a flimsy lunch of broken crackers and watery juice. Ludicrous or not (after all, one doesn’t find a cheerier life beneath maroon wax seals embossed with duos of swans), it was impossible to ignore the tiniest possibility that the envelope might contain… a small bit of light.
Hands shaking from chill and an unfamiliar amount of hope, she lifted the envelope to her nose and took a long sniff. It smelled faintly of flowers.
A summons from Scotland Yard to become an Inspector-In-Training.
An invitation from King Edward to attend a horse race.
Notification from a long-lost relative that actually wants me around and waxes poetically about how I will be seen only as a child with merit, never as an imposition.
All unlikely scenarios, but enough to resist temptation of ripping into the paper and ruining the illusions with a tooth powder advertisement. Barely, though. More helpful in distraction was the vulgar bellow behind her. A passing bicycle veered close and sprayed Tabitha with filthy water left by a midday storm.
“Your envelope is bound to be a mistake—there’s no way she’ll let you in!” yelled a horrid voice.
Wafting alongside the insult were the hideous scents of burned toast and rotting cinnamon. There was only one boy at St. Augustine’s who wore such pungent odors. Sure enough, Tabitha turned to see Barnaby Trundle pedaling a slow circle in the absence of traffic.
“Best to stay home, Drabby Tabby! I’ve heard the place is haunted, and the spirits are hungry for filthy, ratty girls like you.” Barnaby stuck his tongue out as far as it could go.
Tabitha flushed and thought of exactly seven things that she would like to do to her classmate, one involving a rather nasty collision with a refuse wagon. Wiping a brown streak from her face as though it were a harmless butterfly, she forced a smile. “Believe me, Barnaby, I won’t be staying home. I rather think you should, though. I’ve heard most spirits have a fondness for repulsive idiots with no manners, an excess of their father’s hair crème, and an obscene amount of aftershave. I’m afraid they’ll smell you out in a minute.”
Barnaby frowned and took one hand off the handlebars to smooth his locks before disappearing into the fog.
So, he’s opened it. Even soaked as she was, a flutter of excitement coursed through Tabitha’s body. According to Barnaby, her envelope was a mistake. Based on the boy’s foul nature, the contents were sure to be something quite good (despite the silly mention of vengeful spirits). Well done, Detective Crum.
What could it be? A place owned by a woman. Haunted, he’d said, though that bit was clearly rubbish. Hmm…it would be easy enough to find out.
There was a moment, one brief moment, where the act of disobedience hung in the air like a cupcake, waiting to be fetched and gobbled up. The envelope lifted, as though on its own accord, and Tabitha saw her finger rise. Carefully, deliciously, she held her breath and began a tiny tear at the corner.
And stopped.
She sighed, dropping the note to her hip.
Tabitha Crum, she scolded herself, you are incorrigibly, incurably good. You must either learn to be sneaky or not mind being caught. A second voice crept into her mind, scolding back. But they’ll never grow to love you if you can’t even obey simple rules.
Tabitha reluctantly agreed with both of the voices and peered through the mist, occasionally testing it with her free hand, pressing and flicking at whiteness that always seemed to be just a step ahead.
It’s almost like something in a Professor Pensive novel. And next, a woman will appear, begging me to solve the mysterious disappearance of her second cousin’s potting shed.
Professor Pensive always knew the answers to puzzling questions. ‘Every curious situation leaves signs of its origin, Tibbs’ he was known to say to his portly partner, Timothy Tibbs. He always did his deducing in a corner booth of his favorite pub, sipping port and chewing pensively on his pocket watch chain. Tabitha had no desire to drink port and no money to buy a pocket watch, but a warm seat and fresh pastry would be awfully nice.
As though agreeing with the thought, Tabitha’s breath sent scone-shaped puffs into the air. She saw Mr. Willoughby, who was seated in his usual spot at the front window table of Puddles Confectionary. He always seemed to be somewhere along her path to school. She waved with her enveloped hand and he raised his eyebrows in concern as two passing men thoughtlessly bumped her aside.
“Two more are floating around somewhere!” one of them said. “Can you imagine? And children, of all people…”
Tabitha picked herself up, slightly rattled. Mr. Willoughby stood, as though to rush outside and help, but she shook her head and kept walking. Nodding, he returned to his biscuit, though his eyes lingered on the sidestreet for a moment.
Tabitha sighed at the dismissive bumper and at the memory of Barnaby’s last words. She was filthy. Skinny and filthy and knobby-kneed and wearing a raggedy coat, which probably placed her in the street urchin category to the general public.
At precisely half past three, Tabitha found a curious sight outside her home. Her father’s briefcase, her parents’ traveling trunks, and a jewelry case crowded together. Before she could analyze what it might mean (and why none of her things were among the pile), Tabitha heard a squeaky-wheeled cab lurching down the road in her direction. Cabs were not a regular occurrence on Belcher Street. Gripping the envelope closer, she was horrified to feel only fingers rubbing together. Heart plunging all the way to her numb toes, Tabitha looked down.
The envelope was no longer there.
It must have fallen when I got knocked! Turning in haste, she bumped into a tall figure. She stared a moment, astonished, before remembering her manners.
“Oh, hello, Sir. Pardon me, but how do you know where I live?”
Monday, 16 July 2012
1st 5 Pages July Workshop Revisions Ready for Comments
Our July workshop participants have submitted their revised first five pages based on the input they received from each other and our guest mentors, Becca Puglisi and Sarah Ockler. This begins our next round of editing, and we need your help!
Please let the writers know how well the pages are working overall. What did you like? What didn't you like? Is the story moving quickly enough? Does it start in the right spot now? Does it capture your interest? What about the characters? Can you see them? Do you want to know them better? Do you want to spend a whole book's worth of time reading about them?
Let us know! This will be a big help for the writers, but it is also a great process for anyone interested in writing for young adults. See what you can learn from these authors and from the comments the entries receive. What do you agree with? How does your opinion differ? Why?
Happy reading and editing,
Martina and Lisa
Please let the writers know how well the pages are working overall. What did you like? What didn't you like? Is the story moving quickly enough? Does it start in the right spot now? Does it capture your interest? What about the characters? Can you see them? Do you want to know them better? Do you want to spend a whole book's worth of time reading about them?
Let us know! This will be a big help for the writers, but it is also a great process for anyone interested in writing for young adults. See what you can learn from these authors and from the comments the entries receive. What do you agree with? How does your opinion differ? Why?
Happy reading and editing,
Martina and Lisa
1st 5 Pages July Workshop - Cook-Raymond Rev 1
Author: Sarah Cook-Raymond
Genre: YA urban fantasy
Title: THE DEFENDERS
Chapter One
Irony: the opposite of what you’d expect—with a twist.
Before today the only irony I knew was being tall but sucking at basketball. But that’s the twist. The day your life changes forever begins like all the others. It’s just the ending that’s changed.
Chapter Two: Before
Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. I swat the alarm clock into submission but don’t move out from under the warm folds of down comforter. It’s not time to get up. Not really. Not yet.
I hear the wood stairs creek and croak under Shelly’s shoes. “Toby!” she says, with a knock on my door. “It’s time to get up!” Shelly’s two years younger than me but you’d never know it.
Goodbye, bed.
I let out a sigh and then grudgingly throw the covers off. At once I feel the sharp bite of cold air as it hits my body. I let a Guinness Book of World Record-setting yawns and make my way to the closet. “Mom!” I holler, staring at the very few items still hanging there. “I thought you said you were going to do some laundry!”
“I will dear. I will,” says the zombie in pearls walking by my room. She disappears around the corner offering no further details. Despite my mother’s grand appearances, mornings are her downfall. Apparently it’s genetic.
I let out an audible sigh then grab what used to be my favorite shirt and look in the mirror. I’m met by gray eyes and side-swept, shaggy, brown hair. But then I look down. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” I say to the reflection of a lanky boy in a midriff flannel.
I’ve grown so much in the last year that barely anything fits which means doing laundry is essential. Every time puberty rears its awful head, Mom insists appearances aren’t everything. She’s clearly a liar who never went to high school.
I turn my boxers inside out, grab a hoodie, the same jeans I wore yesterday, and hurry downstairs to the kitchen for breakfast.
“Hey Big Shot,” says Dad, looking up from the Washington Post. There’s a stack of five other papers beside him, all already read.
“Hey,” I echo. I don’t contest the nickname. He’s spent my entire life trying to get it to catch on. No need to stop now. Still, I love him for that. I can’t explain why.
The coffee pot dings. Dad smiles and stands up from the table. His massive frame is draped in his uniform: dark suit, shiny shoes, crisp shirt. I see a small splash of coffee still in his cup as he goes over for a refill—meaning this is the second pot of the day.
I look over and see Mom leaning against the counter typing away feverishly on her Blackberry, a half-eaten piece of toast balanced between two fingers. “Here,” Dad says, moving across the kitchen and sliding a steaming mug of coffee in her direction. She looks up and their eyes meet. “Thanks,” she says with a crescent smile as she puts the Blackberry down. She takes a sip and I watch her shoulders rise and fall into a relaxed soft sigh.
“Alright, Alright.” Shelly bursts into the room wearing a backpack so full it’s amazing she doesn’t buckle under the weight. “Let’s go. We don’t want to be late for school.”
“Speak for yourself,” I say, grabbing one of the strawberry Pop-Tarts in her outstretched hand. I take a satisfying bite. “I swear if it wasn’t for you, I’d never eat,” I admit.
“I heard that,” says Mom, though she doesn’t contest it. “I have an open house to prep for,” she says, turning to Dad.
“I wanted to take them to school anyway.”
I climb into his black Range Rover. “So you excited about that English test today?” Dad asks, starting the engine.
“Excited? I don’t think it’s possible to ever be excited about a test.”
“Toby,” he says, pausing. “Life is a test.”
“Can we please turn the radio non?” begs Shelly from the back seat. The rest of the way to school it’s a Shelly and Dad duet of some Taylor Swift song. Awesome.
Dad drops Shelly off at the middle school first. “You have a great day now,” he says. Shelly reaches from the back seat and gives him as big a bear hug as her scrawny little arms can handle.
“You too,” she singsongs.
When we get to the high school I quickly jump out but not before Dad calls my attention back. “So Big Shot, we still on for tonight?”
Tonight is fantasy football draft night. I’m the defending champ.
“You bet. But be ready, old man!” I holler back to him, my body still moving towards the school’s double doors. “You’re gonna need some luck!”
I bound off the bus thankful the school day is over and that’s when I see it—the sight that stops me in my tracks—Mom’s car in the driveway uncharacteristically early. It’s strange how something so trivial can feel so terrifyingly serious.
Cautiously I opened the front door, all the hairs on my body standing on end. Something’s not right; I can feel it in my entire body, right down to my bones. And then, on the kitchen floor, is my sobbing mother flopping around like a helpless fish out of water. It unnerves me in the same way horror movies do. It’s that sensation where I want to cover my eyes but can’t because something—compulsion or curiosity—stops me.
As a realtor, Mom’s all about fake smiles and pretty façades so to see this, not a stifled, Hollywood-type cry but a mess of tears and snot streaming together down her cheeks, unnerves me.
“Mom?” I ask cautiously as I approach her. I don’t see Shelly walk into the room but hear the squeak of her sneakers on the freshly-waxed floor as she stops abruptly at the sight I’ve only just begun to digest. Mom looks up at us from under red-rimmed eyes, her whole demeanor as fragile and breakable as ever. “Your father—” she eventually chokes out but breaks off. All that follows are blubbered incoherent words coupled with bouts of hyperventilation.
Precipice (n). I couldn’t remember the definition in class today. But I remember it now.
“Mom?” I repeat.
“He’s dead,” she says at last. My knees buckle and I collapse next to her. Shelly does the same. We’re just one big pile of bodies like football players in a heap only no one attempts to move and we don’t have any padding to cushion the blow.
At that moment tectonic plates begin to shift. We don’t feel them but we know they’re there, moving, cracking under the surface. The earth breaking in two, the before and the after, an ocean’s divide between them.
Genre: YA urban fantasy
Title: THE DEFENDERS
Chapter One
Irony: the opposite of what you’d expect—with a twist.
Before today the only irony I knew was being tall but sucking at basketball. But that’s the twist. The day your life changes forever begins like all the others. It’s just the ending that’s changed.
Chapter Two: Before
Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. I swat the alarm clock into submission but don’t move out from under the warm folds of down comforter. It’s not time to get up. Not really. Not yet.
I hear the wood stairs creek and croak under Shelly’s shoes. “Toby!” she says, with a knock on my door. “It’s time to get up!” Shelly’s two years younger than me but you’d never know it.
Goodbye, bed.
I let out a sigh and then grudgingly throw the covers off. At once I feel the sharp bite of cold air as it hits my body. I let a Guinness Book of World Record-setting yawns and make my way to the closet. “Mom!” I holler, staring at the very few items still hanging there. “I thought you said you were going to do some laundry!”
“I will dear. I will,” says the zombie in pearls walking by my room. She disappears around the corner offering no further details. Despite my mother’s grand appearances, mornings are her downfall. Apparently it’s genetic.
I let out an audible sigh then grab what used to be my favorite shirt and look in the mirror. I’m met by gray eyes and side-swept, shaggy, brown hair. But then I look down. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” I say to the reflection of a lanky boy in a midriff flannel.
I’ve grown so much in the last year that barely anything fits which means doing laundry is essential. Every time puberty rears its awful head, Mom insists appearances aren’t everything. She’s clearly a liar who never went to high school.
I turn my boxers inside out, grab a hoodie, the same jeans I wore yesterday, and hurry downstairs to the kitchen for breakfast.
“Hey Big Shot,” says Dad, looking up from the Washington Post. There’s a stack of five other papers beside him, all already read.
“Hey,” I echo. I don’t contest the nickname. He’s spent my entire life trying to get it to catch on. No need to stop now. Still, I love him for that. I can’t explain why.
The coffee pot dings. Dad smiles and stands up from the table. His massive frame is draped in his uniform: dark suit, shiny shoes, crisp shirt. I see a small splash of coffee still in his cup as he goes over for a refill—meaning this is the second pot of the day.
I look over and see Mom leaning against the counter typing away feverishly on her Blackberry, a half-eaten piece of toast balanced between two fingers. “Here,” Dad says, moving across the kitchen and sliding a steaming mug of coffee in her direction. She looks up and their eyes meet. “Thanks,” she says with a crescent smile as she puts the Blackberry down. She takes a sip and I watch her shoulders rise and fall into a relaxed soft sigh.
“Alright, Alright.” Shelly bursts into the room wearing a backpack so full it’s amazing she doesn’t buckle under the weight. “Let’s go. We don’t want to be late for school.”
“Speak for yourself,” I say, grabbing one of the strawberry Pop-Tarts in her outstretched hand. I take a satisfying bite. “I swear if it wasn’t for you, I’d never eat,” I admit.
“I heard that,” says Mom, though she doesn’t contest it. “I have an open house to prep for,” she says, turning to Dad.
“I wanted to take them to school anyway.”
I climb into his black Range Rover. “So you excited about that English test today?” Dad asks, starting the engine.
“Excited? I don’t think it’s possible to ever be excited about a test.”
“Toby,” he says, pausing. “Life is a test.”
“Can we please turn the radio non?” begs Shelly from the back seat. The rest of the way to school it’s a Shelly and Dad duet of some Taylor Swift song. Awesome.
Dad drops Shelly off at the middle school first. “You have a great day now,” he says. Shelly reaches from the back seat and gives him as big a bear hug as her scrawny little arms can handle.
“You too,” she singsongs.
When we get to the high school I quickly jump out but not before Dad calls my attention back. “So Big Shot, we still on for tonight?”
Tonight is fantasy football draft night. I’m the defending champ.
“You bet. But be ready, old man!” I holler back to him, my body still moving towards the school’s double doors. “You’re gonna need some luck!”
I bound off the bus thankful the school day is over and that’s when I see it—the sight that stops me in my tracks—Mom’s car in the driveway uncharacteristically early. It’s strange how something so trivial can feel so terrifyingly serious.
Cautiously I opened the front door, all the hairs on my body standing on end. Something’s not right; I can feel it in my entire body, right down to my bones. And then, on the kitchen floor, is my sobbing mother flopping around like a helpless fish out of water. It unnerves me in the same way horror movies do. It’s that sensation where I want to cover my eyes but can’t because something—compulsion or curiosity—stops me.
As a realtor, Mom’s all about fake smiles and pretty façades so to see this, not a stifled, Hollywood-type cry but a mess of tears and snot streaming together down her cheeks, unnerves me.
“Mom?” I ask cautiously as I approach her. I don’t see Shelly walk into the room but hear the squeak of her sneakers on the freshly-waxed floor as she stops abruptly at the sight I’ve only just begun to digest. Mom looks up at us from under red-rimmed eyes, her whole demeanor as fragile and breakable as ever. “Your father—” she eventually chokes out but breaks off. All that follows are blubbered incoherent words coupled with bouts of hyperventilation.
Precipice (n). I couldn’t remember the definition in class today. But I remember it now.
“Mom?” I repeat.
“He’s dead,” she says at last. My knees buckle and I collapse next to her. Shelly does the same. We’re just one big pile of bodies like football players in a heap only no one attempts to move and we don’t have any padding to cushion the blow.
At that moment tectonic plates begin to shift. We don’t feel them but we know they’re there, moving, cracking under the surface. The earth breaking in two, the before and the after, an ocean’s divide between them.
1st 5 Pages July Workshop - Lawson Rev 1
Name: J. Lawson
Title: Nooks & Crannies
Genre: Middle Grade Historical Mystery
Just past three o’clock in the afternoon, when schools across South London were releasing much-adored children by the bucketful, Tabitha Crum was let into the cold as well. She quietly dodged the usual groups that shoved and laughed their way through St. Augustine’s iron schoolgates. The cobblestone streets of Village Wiltingshire were made eerie and muted by a thick November fog, and clip-clopping carriage horses snorted up and down the street, emerging and fading within moments. Almost like ghosts, Tabitha mused. She made her solitary walk home, kept company by giddy, nervous thoughts of the unexpected delivery to Miss Morrow’s classroom.
She clutched and rubbed the pretty envelope, letting one fingernail linger at the seam. The two recipients had been given strict instructions by the messenger boy to pass the envelopes to their parents.
That, of course, did not keep her from an innocent scratch or two as she passed the village bakery, the candle shop, and a newspaper seller barking excitedly about something or other. The mysterious contents, sadly, were not inclined to be opened other than by tearing the paper.
“It’s as though they’ve sealed it together with spite,” Tabitha muttered to herself, earning an offended glance from a passing elderly lady. Whether it was the remark, her outgrown uniform, or a combination, Tabitha couldn’t be certain. Perhaps the woman was offended by children as a whole. Rather like her mum and dad.
To open it or not? If there was anything Tabitha loved, it was a mystery. But if there was anything she wanted, it was a bit of excitement. And if there was anything that she ached for, it was... a true sense of belonging. Ludicrous or not (one doesn’t find adventure or friendship or acceptance underneath maroon wax seals embossed with a duo of swans), it was impossible to ignore the miniscule possibility that the envelope might contain some remedy to both.
With a hand shaking both from chill and an unfamiliar amount of hope, she lifted the envelope to her nose and took a long sniff. It smelled faintly of flowers.
A summons from Scotland Yard to become an Inspector-In-Training.
An invitation from King Edward to attend a horse race.
Notification from a long-lost relative that actually wants me around and waxes poetically about how I will be seen as a child with merit, never as an imposition.
All unlikely scenarios, but enough to resist the temptation of tearing into the paper and ruining the illusions with an advertisement for tooth powder. Barely, though. More helpful in distraction was the vulgar bellow behind her. A passing bicycle veered close to the sidestreet and sprayed Tabitha with filthy water left by a midday storm.
“Your envelope is bound to be a mistake—there’s no way she’ll let you in!” yelled a horrid and familiar voice. “Best to stay home, Drabby Tabby! I’ve heard the place is haunted, anyway, and the spirits are hungry for filthy, ratty girls like you.” Barnaby Trundle stuck his tongue out as far as it could go before disappearing around a corner.
Tabitha flushed and thought of exactly seven things that she would like to do to her classmate, one involving a rather nasty collision with a refuse wagon.
So, he’s opened his. According the Barnaby, her envelope was a mistake. Based on the boy’s foul nature, the contents were sure to be something quite good (despite the silly mention of vengeful spirits). Well done, Detective Crum.
There was a moment, one brief moment, where the act of disobedience hung in the air like a cupcake, waiting to be fetched and gobbled up. The envelope lifted, as though on its own accord, and Tabitha saw her finger rise. Carefully, deliciously, she held her breath and began a tiny tear at the corner.
And stopped.
She sighed regrettably, dropping the note to her side. It would have to wait for Mr. or Mrs. Crum.
Tabitha Crum, she scolded herself, you are incorrigibly, incurably good. You must either learn to be sneaky some day or not mind being caught. Otherwise, life will remain quite as grey as this day. A second voice crept into her mind, scolding back. But they’ll never grow to love you if you can’t even obey simple rules.
Tabitha reluctantly agreed with both of the voices and peered through the mist, occasionally testing it with her free hand, pressing and flicking at whiteness that always seemed to be just a step ahead.
It’s almost like something in a Professor Pensive novel, she thought. And next, a woman will appear, begging me to solve the mysterious disappearance of her third cousin’s potting shed.
Professor Pensive always knew the answers to puzzling questions. ‘Every curious situation leaves signs of its origin, Tibbs’ he was known to say to his portly partner, Timothy Tibbs.
It would be easier to deduce the contents inside a tea shop. Or anyplace warm. Professor Pensive always did his deducing in a corner booth of his favorite pub, tucked away near the a cheerfully blazing hearth, sipping port and chewing pensively on his pocket watch chain. Tabitha had no desire to drink port and no money to buy a pocket watch, but tea and a scone would be nice.
As though agreeing with the thought, Tabitha’s breath sent scone-shaped puffs of white into the fog. She nodded at Mr. Willoughby, who was seated in his usual spot at the front window table of Puddles Confectionary, receiving a cup of tea, two biscuits, and the afternoon paper. He always seemed to be somewhere along her path to and from school. Since learning his name last year, they had exchanged pleasantries upon passing.
She waved with her enveloped hand and he raised his eyebrows in concern as two passing men thoughtlessly bumped her to the ground.
“Two more letters are floating around somewhere!” one of them said. “Can you imagine? After all this time? And children, of all people…”
Mr. Willoughby stood, as though to rush outside and help, but she smiled brightly and shook her head. He went back to his paper reading.
Tabitha picked herself up, sighing at the dismissive Bumpers and at the memory of Barnaby’s last words. She was filthy. Skinny and filthy and knobby-kneed and wearing a raggedy coat, which probably placed her in the street urchin category to the general public. Red welts, courtesy of Barnaby’s daily spitballs, were still visible on the bit of bare neck visible underneath the short, blunt-scissored haircut her mother had been giving her once a month since her eleventh birthday.
A bath would be nice, but it wasn’t a Tuesday or Friday, which meant that she would do the best she could, washing her stained knees in the bathroom sink.
Upon arriving home, Tabitha noticed her father’s briefcase in the outdoor entryway. That was rather unusual for a Thursday at 4:00 in the afternoon.
And it wasn’t just his briefcase. One of her mother’s traveling trunks, a jewelry case, and a hat box were piled together as well. Had she been in a slightly more observant mood, Tabitha might have noticed that a horse-drawn cab was lurching down the road in her direction.
And she might have noticed that the envelope was no longer in her hand.
And she might have noticed that a man had been following her down the walkway for the last five minutes.
Instead, she reached her key into the lock. Just as she twisted the door knob, she was halted by an urgent tapping on her back. She turned, staring in astonishment at the face behind her.
1st 5 Pages July Workshop - Koon Rev 1
Author: Shelley Koon (Revision 1)
Genre: YA/ Dystopic
Title: Axiom
Imp reached back and slid the suits probe into her spinal port. Grabbing her long dark hair she twisted it into a ponytail, pulled the stealth suit hood over it and tucked her hair inside. She slid her gloves on and activated the suit. Her body hummed with excitement as the sensors embedded in the fabric gathered data from her surroundings and sent it snaking through her nervous system. Black and charcoal colored patches bloomed across the surface of the suit, resembling a long dead field of poppies. They bled into one another until they covered every inch of the suit making it impossible to distinguish Imp from her surroundings. She held her hand out and wriggled her fingers, straining to see them against the backdrop of the forest.
As she walked she tried to imagine what the transfer would’ve felt like when the forest had been alive. She had seen pictures of the world before, lush and green with all the colors of the spectrum represented. She shuddered at the thought of that running through her body. But the world she lived in was dark, forest nothing more than a negative of itself. The Great Wars had seen to that and the only time the forest ever looked green to her was in the dark, through her night vision contacts.
“So what’s the plan?”
“I’m going up hill to the big trees.”
“We were told to stay low and take it slow” Janip asked.
“No, we were told not to go high. I’m not going high, just midway,” Imp snickered and then added, “and I promise to walk there slowly.”
“You’re impossible.”
Imp picked a rock up and rubbed it on the fabric next to her mic, “What I can’t hear you there’s a lot of static today.”
“Very funny,” Janip sighed.
“See what?”
“I saw a…” she stopped mid sentence and frowned. She hadn’t really seen anything. “Like a ripple.”
“A ripple?” Janip questioned.
“Yeah. Like when you look at your reflection in water and then poke the surface and it ripples.”
“Are you seeing these?” Imp asked Janip.
“There’s no way you can do a merge to that. I mean maybe by the end of the week we can give it a try when we’ve gotten more practice in…”
“I was fine on the way up here,” Imp lied, thankful she had waited to turn her headset on, “We’re doing it now.”
“No way. Anything happens to you and it’s my ass that’s in trouble. Well, yours and mine but yours will be dead, so I’m more concerned about mine.”
“Jan…”
“Why would you even want to try that?”
“There has to be eight to nine trees in that formation, the data stream is going to be gigantic. This one merge will give us at least double the points the other teams get. You were the one bitching about rankings earlier. Are you in or not?”
Imp crossed her arms and looked further up the hill as she waited for her Navigator’s response. Her headset remained silent. She noticed a smaller grouping of three trees a few yards away and crossed the short distance to get a better look. The branches of this group were also entwined but, unlike the larger group their trunks were spaced further apart, allowing just enough room for Imp to wriggle between them. A grin spread across her full lips. Being the smallest of the Slayers had its advantages.
Genre: YA/ Dystopic
Title: Axiom
Imp reached back and slid the suits probe into her spinal port. Grabbing her long dark hair she twisted it into a ponytail, pulled the stealth suit hood over it and tucked her hair inside. She slid her gloves on and activated the suit. Her body hummed with excitement as the sensors embedded in the fabric gathered data from her surroundings and sent it snaking through her nervous system. Black and charcoal colored patches bloomed across the surface of the suit, resembling a long dead field of poppies. They bled into one another until they covered every inch of the suit making it impossible to distinguish Imp from her surroundings. She held her hand out and wriggled her fingers, straining to see them against the backdrop of the forest.
Defying orders to take it slow, she sprinted through the forest. The suit shifted colors rapidly to match the passing scenery, forcing an extreme amount of data through her body. The exhilaration of the tingling gave way to the unnerving sensation of a thousand tiny rats gnawing on her nerves. Imp pushed harder until the world began to dim at the edges of her vision and her stomach felt like it might divorce itself from breakfast.
She stopped and lurched over, palms resting against her thighs and gulped in air. It tasted stale and stung her nose but it was a cool. The air displaced the burning in her lungs and after a moment the lightheaded feeling slipped away. Confident she wasn’t going to pass out; she began negotiations with her stomach about the fate of her breakfast. This was not at all how she had envisioned starting her stealth suit training.
A few moments later Imp and her stomach had reached an agreement and she stood up slowly. She stepped forward gingerly as if checking to make sure the ground was still solid and finding it sound took another step. She had barely gone a foot when a horrible thought dawned on her. She whipped her head around and surveyed her surroundings. Had anybody seen her? The area appeared to be clear but with a zone full of camouflaged trainees she couldn’t be sure. She sighed, the last thing she needed today was to catch a load of flack from her fellow trainees. She swore that some of them – O.K. most of them – took great pleasure in looking for and pointing out the tiniest mistake in her performance. Not that that happened often, but she didn’t plan on handing them any opportunities. She began slowly through the woods again, this time taking her time getting used to the data transfer.
As she walked she tried to imagine what the transfer would’ve felt like when the forest had been alive. She had seen pictures of the world before, lush and green with all the colors of the spectrum represented. She shuddered at the thought of that running through her body. But the world she lived in was dark, forest nothing more than a negative of itself. The Great Wars had seen to that and the only time the forest ever looked green to her was in the dark, through her night vision contacts.
Lightning lacerated the sky overhead, followed by the rumble of thunder. The storms came more often these days, but they never brought rain. Even if they had, Imp wasn’t sure the ground was capable of being fruitful anymore. There wasn’t much that thrived outside the base nestled inside the mountain. Except those she had been trained her entire life to hunt.
Imp reached up and flicked her headset on. A series of numbers and letters streamed across the heads-up display embedded in the hood.
“Janip, you there?” Imp asked.“Yep, where you been?” came Janip’s voice from her headset. “The other teams have their stats coming in already. We’re falling down the ranking girl.”
“Yeah, because the other teams are slackers and doing merges with these little trees down low.”
“So what’s the plan?”
“I’m going up hill to the big trees.”
“We were told to stay low and take it slow” Janip asked.
“No, we were told not to go high. I’m not going high, just midway,” Imp snickered and then added, “and I promise to walk there slowly.”
“You’re impossible.”
Imp picked a rock up and rubbed it on the fabric next to her mic, “What I can’t hear you there’s a lot of static today.”
“Very funny,” Janip sighed.
Imp jogged up the hill and ticking through combat stances in her head, a trick she had learned in survival training for externalizing pain. That seemed to help keep her mind off the data flow and the queasiness stayed at bay. Several feet up the hill she made a quick right and headed toward a small grove of trees she had noticed on the map. As she neared it, she caught a fleeting glimpse of something from the corner of her eye. She stopped and turned toward the direction of the movement. The backdrop of the forest rippled slightly. Her hand fluttered to the empty holster on her belt.
“Jan, did you see that on your display?” Imp whispered.“See what?”
“I saw a…” she stopped mid sentence and frowned. She hadn’t really seen anything. “Like a ripple.”
“A ripple?” Janip questioned.
“Yeah. Like when you look at your reflection in water and then poke the surface and it ripples.”
Shifting her weight from one foot to the other to change her perspective, Imp continued towards the space where she had seen movement. While she had a great respect for her commanding officers who had assured the trainees that the zone had been swept and locked down for training and there would be no need for weapons, she had an even greater respect for her intuition. And right now hers was screaming that she wasn't alone.
“Probably someone having trouble with their stealth suit. The system’s been kind of glitchy today and there are a couple of suits that aren’t reliably tracking. I don’t see anything near you on the map,” Janip said.Some of the tension relaxed from Imp’s body but her hand still firmly gripped the empty holster. Over the past year five Slayers had disappeared while on duty, the most recent being Larkin. Imp had no plans for being number six. She continued to the grove, pausing a few times to check behind her. Whatever had had seen seemed to be gone. Perhaps Janip was right; it was just someone in a glitchy suit that had passed by.
Imp stopped just short of the grove as if she had hit an invisible wall. Brow furrowed she stared at the grove trying to resolve what she was seeing. She had assumed the large dark spots on the map indicated trees that were larger than those on the forest floor. But now, standing before them she could see that wasn’t the case. These trees, though much smaller, were positioned so closely together that it was difficult to distinguish one from the next. Their branches entwined, twisted by the ancient winds and froze in time by petrifaction. They reminded Imp of a group of survivors, clinging to one another for safety. She supposed in some ways they were. While the trees below had begun to crack and break, losing branches as the stone got too heavy for the trunk to support, these had managed to defy the years and remain as they were in life. Stone monuments unto themselves.“Are you seeing these?” Imp asked Janip.
“There’s no way you can do a merge to that. I mean maybe by the end of the week we can give it a try when we’ve gotten more practice in…”
“I was fine on the way up here,” Imp lied, thankful she had waited to turn her headset on, “We’re doing it now.”
“No way. Anything happens to you and it’s my ass that’s in trouble. Well, yours and mine but yours will be dead, so I’m more concerned about mine.”
“Jan…”
“Why would you even want to try that?”
“There has to be eight to nine trees in that formation, the data stream is going to be gigantic. This one merge will give us at least double the points the other teams get. You were the one bitching about rankings earlier. Are you in or not?”
Imp crossed her arms and looked further up the hill as she waited for her Navigator’s response. Her headset remained silent. She noticed a smaller grouping of three trees a few yards away and crossed the short distance to get a better look. The branches of this group were also entwined but, unlike the larger group their trunks were spaced further apart, allowing just enough room for Imp to wriggle between them. A grin spread across her full lips. Being the smallest of the Slayers had its advantages.
1st 5 Pages July Workshop - Hollinbeck Rev 1
Rosi Hollinbeck
Middle Grade Historical Fiction
The Incredible Journey of Freddy J.
Chapter One
Big News
Freddy’s mother turned her face toward the sun.
“Read one more chapter, Freddy.”
Treasure Island was a favorite of them all. Trudy put the wooden egg into another sock and threaded a thick needle with thin yarn. Emmi brought a bowl of potatoes, sat on the edge of the porch, and began peeling.
Freddy read, but it wasn’t long until Momma’s eyes began to close.
“Momma needs to go in, Freddy,” Emmi said. “Trudy, can you turn down her bed please? My hands are messy.”
Freddy helped Momma up. When she laid her hand on his arm, it was as if a dry autumn leaf had landed there. Sometimes he thought he should carry her, but she was so fragile; he was afraid she would break or fly away on a puff of wind.
Freddy searched his memory, trying to figure out when she had first gotten sick. It was a few days before Christmas. Now in August, she still stayed in bed most of the day.
With his chores done and Momma napping, Freddy went out to play. After hitting a home run, Freddy penguin-walked to the base and back, twirling the stickball stick, just like Charlie Chaplin twirling his cane in The Goldrush. The boys guffawed and Rudy fell off the curbstone, he laughed so hard. Freddy grinned.
In the distance, Freddy heard the streetcar bell and his grin disappeared. “Rudy, meet me by the car barn after supper, will ya?” he called. He ran to his front porch and grabbed the tin pail. The buttons on his knickers were loose, and the heavy cuffs flapped against his shins. He might only be ten, but Poppa wouldn’t like it if Freddy looked like a bum. The car was still a block away. Dropping the pail, he buttoned his knickers below his knees.
Squat, brick tenement buildings and a rusty overpass carrying busy Chicago traffic stood across from him. Someday he would design beautiful bridges and elegant skyscrapers like those in the Loop. Someday. If he studied hard in school. And he would. No dirty factory work for him.
Poppa stepped from the streetcar and handed Freddy a quarter. “No vasting time. Ve got some tings to talk about. Come straight home from de Schenke.”
Poppa turned and walked away.
“Well, that don’t sound like good news,” Freddy muttered as he walked to the speakeasy behind the grocery store. Prohibition had sent all the bars into back allies.
Freddy hurried. He had seen the back of Poppa’s hand enough times to know not to make him wait.
Freddy pushed through the heavy door and put his pail on the bar. He could barely see over the tall counter, but Otto knew who he was and what he wanted. And he knew better than to give Freddy a pail of foam.
“How you doin’, kid?” Otto smiled down at him. “Got a quarter today?”
Freddy slapped the quarter down and watched Otto fill the pail and scrape foam off with a knife before setting the lid on. The Cubs game blared from the radio behind the bar. Grover Cleveland Alexander was pitching against the Boston Braves, and the Cubs weren’t doing too well.
“Stupid Cubs! When’s the last time they had a real team?” some guy at the bar growled.
Someone answered, “Got Alexander and Lefty Tyler in 1918 and dat was sposta do it. It’s been eight years and nothin’!” He slammed his mug on the bar and pointed to it, letting Otto know he wanted another.
“Hey!” Freddy said. “Alexander’s a great pitcher. If anyone can help the Cubbies pull this out, it’s him.” Freddy didn’t like hearing guys talk bad about the Cubs. He loved them and would like to hang around to listen to the game but didn’t dare.
Otto pushed the pail across, shook his head slightly, and said, “Don’t you know bein’ a Cubs fan is gonna break your heart, kid?” All the men laughed.
Freddy walked as quickly as he could without sloshing. It was only two blocks to home, but the heavy wire handle cut into his hands. His arms ached by the time he set the pail on the sink-board. He pumped cool water to help work the kinks from his fingers.
When he turned around, Poppa loomed over him. Poppa had changed out of his dirty work clothes and was ready for his beer. He lifted the lid on the pail and nodded with a satisfied look. “No vasteful foam. Das ist gut. And you didn’t spill none. Ya. Sehr gut.”
Good he got it right. Sometimes it seemed he couldn’t do anything to please Poppa.
Poppa took a heavy glass mug from the cupboard and dipped it into the beer. He drained the mug without a breath and filled it again. Sitting heavily at the kitchen table, he kicked another chair out from under it.
“Come. Ve talk.” He nodded toward the chair.
A whisper of feet shuffled behind the partly-closed door to the hallway. His older sisters peeked between door and frame. Emmi crouched down so Trudy could see over her, and Emmi wiggled her forefinger at Freddy as if waving hello. Freddy crossed his eyes and made a face. Emmi covered her mouth, but Trudy shook her head.
Freddy sat. His feet didn’t quite reach the floor, and he swung them without thinking.
Poppa drank another half glass of beer and wiped flecks of foam from his bushy mustache. His sharp blue eyes drilled through Freddy and pinned him there.
“Momma been getting sicker and sicker. Doctor says she needs more medicine and food. More meat and such. You vant Momma to get better, don’tcha?” Poppa said.
“Of course, Poppa. We all want Momma to get well.”
Trudy had stayed home from school since third grade to help around the house. Poppa said girls didn’t need to go to school, so when Momma got sick, Emmi stayed home too. Even though Trudy was only fourteen and Emmi twelve, they took care of all Momma’s needs, cooking for her and dressing her, gently bathing her and helping her turn so she wouldn’t get sores. No one knew what was wrong. Even the doctor didn’t know.
But they all worried – his sisters and even his grown brothers, Walter and Karl, who came by at least two or three times a week after work.
Poppa picked up the salt shaker and sprinkled some in his beer. “Dey are cutting back hours at da factory. Dey only gonna pay us to vork ten hours each day and only half a day on Saturdays.” He stared at the table top, then picked up the glass and drained it again. “You’re gonna need to go, Freddy. Ve can’t afford to keep you.”
Freddy heard a quiet sob from behind the door. When he looked, Trudy was gone, but Emmi remained, her eyes wide and full. Freddy swallowed hard.
“What do you mean go, Poppa? Go where?” Freddy tried to look into his Poppa’s eyes, but Poppa wouldn’t look at him. Poppa took his jackknife out, opened the little blade, and started to clean the black from under his cracked, blunt fingernails.
Poppa wouldn’t look up. “Ve don’t got enough. You’re a man now. You need to go.”
“Poppa,” Freddy said, almost a whisper, “Please, Poppa. I don’t know where to go. I can find milk bottles and turn ‘em in. Or carry shopping for rich ladies. I have to get your beer every day. The girls can’t do that. Maybe Otto down at the bar will lemme sweep and mop. I won’t eat much. I can —”
“Stop!” Poppa thundered, his fist hitting the table hard. The salt shaker fell over, spilling on the table top. Freddy stared. That was bad luck. He should throw some over his shoulder, but he couldn’t move.
Poppa stood and walked to the sink-board to fill his glass.
Freddy stared at the pail. It had cost a quarter. A QUARTER! And Poppa had one every day. But he couldn’t afford to keep his son.
Middle Grade Historical Fiction
The Incredible Journey of Freddy J.
Chapter One
Big News
Freddy’s mother turned her face toward the sun.
“Read one more chapter, Freddy.”
Treasure Island was a favorite of them all. Trudy put the wooden egg into another sock and threaded a thick needle with thin yarn. Emmi brought a bowl of potatoes, sat on the edge of the porch, and began peeling.
Freddy read, but it wasn’t long until Momma’s eyes began to close.
“Momma needs to go in, Freddy,” Emmi said. “Trudy, can you turn down her bed please? My hands are messy.”
Freddy helped Momma up. When she laid her hand on his arm, it was as if a dry autumn leaf had landed there. Sometimes he thought he should carry her, but she was so fragile; he was afraid she would break or fly away on a puff of wind.
Freddy searched his memory, trying to figure out when she had first gotten sick. It was a few days before Christmas. Now in August, she still stayed in bed most of the day.
With his chores done and Momma napping, Freddy went out to play. After hitting a home run, Freddy penguin-walked to the base and back, twirling the stickball stick, just like Charlie Chaplin twirling his cane in The Goldrush. The boys guffawed and Rudy fell off the curbstone, he laughed so hard. Freddy grinned.
In the distance, Freddy heard the streetcar bell and his grin disappeared. “Rudy, meet me by the car barn after supper, will ya?” he called. He ran to his front porch and grabbed the tin pail. The buttons on his knickers were loose, and the heavy cuffs flapped against his shins. He might only be ten, but Poppa wouldn’t like it if Freddy looked like a bum. The car was still a block away. Dropping the pail, he buttoned his knickers below his knees.
Squat, brick tenement buildings and a rusty overpass carrying busy Chicago traffic stood across from him. Someday he would design beautiful bridges and elegant skyscrapers like those in the Loop. Someday. If he studied hard in school. And he would. No dirty factory work for him.
Poppa stepped from the streetcar and handed Freddy a quarter. “No vasting time. Ve got some tings to talk about. Come straight home from de Schenke.”
Poppa turned and walked away.
“Well, that don’t sound like good news,” Freddy muttered as he walked to the speakeasy behind the grocery store. Prohibition had sent all the bars into back allies.
Freddy hurried. He had seen the back of Poppa’s hand enough times to know not to make him wait.
Freddy pushed through the heavy door and put his pail on the bar. He could barely see over the tall counter, but Otto knew who he was and what he wanted. And he knew better than to give Freddy a pail of foam.
“How you doin’, kid?” Otto smiled down at him. “Got a quarter today?”
Freddy slapped the quarter down and watched Otto fill the pail and scrape foam off with a knife before setting the lid on. The Cubs game blared from the radio behind the bar. Grover Cleveland Alexander was pitching against the Boston Braves, and the Cubs weren’t doing too well.
“Stupid Cubs! When’s the last time they had a real team?” some guy at the bar growled.
Someone answered, “Got Alexander and Lefty Tyler in 1918 and dat was sposta do it. It’s been eight years and nothin’!” He slammed his mug on the bar and pointed to it, letting Otto know he wanted another.
“Hey!” Freddy said. “Alexander’s a great pitcher. If anyone can help the Cubbies pull this out, it’s him.” Freddy didn’t like hearing guys talk bad about the Cubs. He loved them and would like to hang around to listen to the game but didn’t dare.
Otto pushed the pail across, shook his head slightly, and said, “Don’t you know bein’ a Cubs fan is gonna break your heart, kid?” All the men laughed.
Freddy walked as quickly as he could without sloshing. It was only two blocks to home, but the heavy wire handle cut into his hands. His arms ached by the time he set the pail on the sink-board. He pumped cool water to help work the kinks from his fingers.
When he turned around, Poppa loomed over him. Poppa had changed out of his dirty work clothes and was ready for his beer. He lifted the lid on the pail and nodded with a satisfied look. “No vasteful foam. Das ist gut. And you didn’t spill none. Ya. Sehr gut.”
Good he got it right. Sometimes it seemed he couldn’t do anything to please Poppa.
Poppa took a heavy glass mug from the cupboard and dipped it into the beer. He drained the mug without a breath and filled it again. Sitting heavily at the kitchen table, he kicked another chair out from under it.
“Come. Ve talk.” He nodded toward the chair.
A whisper of feet shuffled behind the partly-closed door to the hallway. His older sisters peeked between door and frame. Emmi crouched down so Trudy could see over her, and Emmi wiggled her forefinger at Freddy as if waving hello. Freddy crossed his eyes and made a face. Emmi covered her mouth, but Trudy shook her head.
Freddy sat. His feet didn’t quite reach the floor, and he swung them without thinking.
Poppa drank another half glass of beer and wiped flecks of foam from his bushy mustache. His sharp blue eyes drilled through Freddy and pinned him there.
“Momma been getting sicker and sicker. Doctor says she needs more medicine and food. More meat and such. You vant Momma to get better, don’tcha?” Poppa said.
“Of course, Poppa. We all want Momma to get well.”
Trudy had stayed home from school since third grade to help around the house. Poppa said girls didn’t need to go to school, so when Momma got sick, Emmi stayed home too. Even though Trudy was only fourteen and Emmi twelve, they took care of all Momma’s needs, cooking for her and dressing her, gently bathing her and helping her turn so she wouldn’t get sores. No one knew what was wrong. Even the doctor didn’t know.
But they all worried – his sisters and even his grown brothers, Walter and Karl, who came by at least two or three times a week after work.
Poppa picked up the salt shaker and sprinkled some in his beer. “Dey are cutting back hours at da factory. Dey only gonna pay us to vork ten hours each day and only half a day on Saturdays.” He stared at the table top, then picked up the glass and drained it again. “You’re gonna need to go, Freddy. Ve can’t afford to keep you.”
Freddy heard a quiet sob from behind the door. When he looked, Trudy was gone, but Emmi remained, her eyes wide and full. Freddy swallowed hard.
“What do you mean go, Poppa? Go where?” Freddy tried to look into his Poppa’s eyes, but Poppa wouldn’t look at him. Poppa took his jackknife out, opened the little blade, and started to clean the black from under his cracked, blunt fingernails.
Poppa wouldn’t look up. “Ve don’t got enough. You’re a man now. You need to go.”
“Poppa,” Freddy said, almost a whisper, “Please, Poppa. I don’t know where to go. I can find milk bottles and turn ‘em in. Or carry shopping for rich ladies. I have to get your beer every day. The girls can’t do that. Maybe Otto down at the bar will lemme sweep and mop. I won’t eat much. I can —”
“Stop!” Poppa thundered, his fist hitting the table hard. The salt shaker fell over, spilling on the table top. Freddy stared. That was bad luck. He should throw some over his shoulder, but he couldn’t move.
Poppa stood and walked to the sink-board to fill his glass.
Freddy stared at the pail. It had cost a quarter. A QUARTER! And Poppa had one every day. But he couldn’t afford to keep his son.
Monday, 9 July 2012
July 1st 5 Pages Entries Are Up for Comment
Our July 1st Five Pages Workshops entries are posted below for comments. We invite everyone to participate by providing kind, courteous comments about how these opening pages are working.
We are fortunate to have two fantastic guest mentors this month. Please give them a warm welcome!
Happy reading,
Martina and Lisa
About Sarah Ockler
Sarah Ockler is the bestselling author of Bittersweet, Fixing Delilah and the critically acclaimed Twenty Boy Summer, a YALSA Teens' Top Ten nominee and IndieNext List pick. She is a championship cupcake eater, coffee drinker, night person, and bookworm. When she’s not writing or reading, Sarah enjoys taking pictures, hugging trees, and road-tripping through the country with her husband, Alex. Visit her website or find her on Twitter or Facebook.
About Becca Puglisi
Becca is a YA writer who lives in south Florida and, ironically, hates the weather. During hurricane season, you can find her cursing the heat, stalking Jim Cantore, and adding to her stash of emergency supplies. She is one half of the dynamic duo behind the fabulous blog, THE BOOKSHELF MUSE, and one of the co-authors of the must-have book for writers, THE EMOTION THESAURUS.
We are fortunate to have two fantastic guest mentors this month. Please give them a warm welcome!
Happy reading,
Martina and Lisa
About Sarah Ockler
Sarah Ockler is the bestselling author of Bittersweet, Fixing Delilah and the critically acclaimed Twenty Boy Summer, a YALSA Teens' Top Ten nominee and IndieNext List pick. She is a championship cupcake eater, coffee drinker, night person, and bookworm. When she’s not writing or reading, Sarah enjoys taking pictures, hugging trees, and road-tripping through the country with her husband, Alex. Visit her website or find her on Twitter or Facebook.
 |  |  |
About Becca Puglisi
Becca is a YA writer who lives in south Florida and, ironically, hates the weather. During hurricane season, you can find her cursing the heat, stalking Jim Cantore, and adding to her stash of emergency supplies. She is one half of the dynamic duo behind the fabulous blog, THE BOOKSHELF MUSE, and one of the co-authors of the must-have book for writers, THE EMOTION THESAURUS.
1st 5 Pages July Workshop - Cook-Raymond
Sarah Cook-Raymond
YA urban fantasy
THE DEFENDERS
Chapter One: To Know or Not to Know
“Toby, don’t be rude; people are waiting,” snaps Mom.
Grudgingly I make my way downstairs. It’s been two weeks since Dad died but relatives I’ve never heard of keep coming out of the woodwork. Mom insists the more the merrier but without merriment it’s just more people, and a hell of a lot more lasagna.
All they want to do is reminisce. None of them want to talk about the fact that he was killed in the highest security area of the city. Or that he was killed. Or that they haven’t found who did it. But that’s all I can think about.
“Ohhhhh Toby,” they say in one communal breath, their eyes widening as they take me in. I’m wearing the same recycled Cage the Elephant T-shirt and flannel pajama bottoms I have every other day. I make no attempt to tame my wicked morning fro’ hawk either. I feel like shit, no point in pretending otherwise.
You’d think I’d been assigned the role of grieving widow in this family drama. My mother is dressed up, her bobble-head nodding along agreeably to everything these people say. I don’t know how she does it. I’ve heard her crying in her sleep but by day she’s someone else, someone pleasant and agreeable and completely foreign to me.
“Thanks for coming,” says Shelly, shaking hands and hugging people like a seasoned politician. Shelly’s two years younger than me but she’s a mini-me of our mother. Together they’re in on trying to sell the image: family moving on. I’m the only one who’s failing.
I shuffle around the room, let people wrap their arms around me and stifle cries against my shoulder. But I don’t recognize any of them. Not really. Not even family. It’s like we only have this one thing in common now and nothing more. I want to shout at them, tell them they’re supposed to try to keep it together for us, not the other way around, but I’m drained of everything, even my voice.
In truth, it feels like I’m underwater ebbing slowly in this tide of people but drowning all the same.
I turn to escape but get cornered again. “So, how are you doing?” asks a balding man, his gut threatening to send shirt buttons flying everywhere.
I whisper the lie. “Okay.” It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out the truth. I don’t normally forgo personal hygiene. I don’t know why anyone even bothers asking.
“Well it can’t be easy,” says beer gut. No shit.
“How did you know my dad?”
“Mark and I worked together. Long time ago, before he became a defense contractor. I’m so sorry.” I nod and try to show some teeth. I have no idea if I achieve a smile or a sneer.
Worst of all is the quiet that follows.
“Excuse me,” I say and duck out of the room. I can’t breathe. It’s like someone vacuumed up all the air in this place. Just hearing his name sends a ferocious uprising of grief through me. It reminds me I’m the man of the house now,though I feel anything but.
…Yet that’s the thing—the thing I can’t shake. My father wasn’t a man. He was a force. He was a Marine, ex-Special Forces, intuitive as all hell, and with the body of a linebacker—because he used to be one. Who would be out of their mind enough to take him on? Who could be skilled enough to win? It doesn’t make any sense.
How could this have happened to him…to me…to us? I only think the question but it seems to well up in the back of my throat. I shuffle down the hall, looking to my left and right but no one’s around, not here anyway.
Reaching out, my trembling hand rattles the knob. Polite conversation snakes its way down to me. All this stupid talking but no one’s really saying anything. Not really. No one willeven answer my questions. They’re not even acknowledged, even by Mom. She’s the worst.
Yet there’s no way they haven’t wondered. It’s as if any talk about Dad is unbearable. As if they’d rather not know. But,for me, that’s not an option.
I have to.
I push into Dad’s study and close the door softly behind me. The hinge squeaks as I do—like a tiny little cry that only I can hear.
Chapter Two: Puzzle Pieces
At once it smells like him. I breathe in deeply. It’s that painful ache I can’t help but prod.
I would never admit this. Especially aloud. Especially because it sounds crazy…but I’m homesick for him. Can that even exist? Is that why I have to do this…?
I move over to his desk and slide into the chair. I have no idea what I’m looking for or where to look for it. I pull at one drawer after another after another. Only…they’re all empty. His entire desk is.
I swat at the computer. Maybe Dad kept all of his files electronically. I lean into the leather chair and wait for the screen to change.
Only it doesn’t.
I power it on and off. I control + alt + delete. I pray to the Norton Antivirus gods. But it doesn’t work. None of it. It’s just a black screen.
A black screen with one flashing—taunting—white bar.
F-U-C-K Y-O-U, I pound out on the keyboard. Suddenlyeven the white bar disappears. My heart sinks. Even the computer won’t talk to me.
I swing the chair around and scan the room. I haven’t been in here many times. It’s Dad’s own version of a man cave.
I get up and head over to the bookshelf. Half of it is filled with baskets full of old newspapers. Dad used to joke that in another life he was a historian—that’s why he keeps all these stories. Sometimes they’re even the same story, just different papers.
I move up to the next shelf and run my fingers over the couple of books housed here. An encyclopedia. A dictionary. Boring.
My eyes scan the room and settle on the only thing that’s left. My Mom, sister, and me. The three of us. Left behind. Ireach out and pick up the photograph, my fingers digging into the corners of the frame as I do. I can’t peel my eyes away.
We’re in Annapolis. It’s summer certainly. But what year?I know this. I should know this… The harder I seek it,however, the further it seems to get. A groundswell of frustration builds. Angrily, I yank open the back of the frame for the answer.
There’s another picture in here instead, carefully tucked behind the other. Slowly I pull it out and hold it before me. It’sfaded with the corners curling up but there’s no mistaking it. It’s my father and another man, both in uniform.
"Toby?” the door rattles in a knock.
My heart jumps. “Yeah?”
“What are you doing in there, dear?” asks Mom. “Are you okay?” she whispers.
“Yeah, fine. I’ll be right out.”
“Oh, okay,” she says quickly.
I stare down at the photograph, at the dark figure beside my father. I don’t have to try to memorize his face; it’s alreadyburned in the back of my mind. Quickly I tuck the picture back.
I grab Dad’s laptop and tuck it under my arm as I go.Under the door I see Mom’s feet. A long, shallow sigh escapes my lips but I force myself to move towards her, and to face the strangers in our house once again.
“Whatcha doin’?” asks Mom. Only she’s no longer asking about Dad’s study but the computer I’m clutching tightly to my side. The one she’s practically talking to.
“Get caught up,” I try to say casually. I may even shrug. I don’t know. I’m a shit actor and an even worse liar.
“Maybe even go back to school tomorrow.” It’s meant as a total kiss-up, bullshit answer but as soon as I say it, I mean it. I need to see Simon. I need to get out of this place…
“Please?” I add. I don’t mean for my voice to snag, but it does…just a little…right at the end. Mom doesn’t point it out.
Instead, she reaches towards me. I expect the laptop to be ripped from my arms. I end up in a deep hug instead.
“Of course,” she whispers into my hair. “Whatever you want.”
YA urban fantasy
THE DEFENDERS
Chapter One: To Know or Not to Know
“Toby, don’t be rude; people are waiting,” snaps Mom.
Grudgingly I make my way downstairs. It’s been two weeks since Dad died but relatives I’ve never heard of keep coming out of the woodwork. Mom insists the more the merrier but without merriment it’s just more people, and a hell of a lot more lasagna.
All they want to do is reminisce. None of them want to talk about the fact that he was killed in the highest security area of the city. Or that he was killed. Or that they haven’t found who did it. But that’s all I can think about.
“Ohhhhh Toby,” they say in one communal breath, their eyes widening as they take me in. I’m wearing the same recycled Cage the Elephant T-shirt and flannel pajama bottoms I have every other day. I make no attempt to tame my wicked morning fro’ hawk either. I feel like shit, no point in pretending otherwise.
You’d think I’d been assigned the role of grieving widow in this family drama. My mother is dressed up, her bobble-head nodding along agreeably to everything these people say. I don’t know how she does it. I’ve heard her crying in her sleep but by day she’s someone else, someone pleasant and agreeable and completely foreign to me.
“Thanks for coming,” says Shelly, shaking hands and hugging people like a seasoned politician. Shelly’s two years younger than me but she’s a mini-me of our mother. Together they’re in on trying to sell the image: family moving on. I’m the only one who’s failing.
I shuffle around the room, let people wrap their arms around me and stifle cries against my shoulder. But I don’t recognize any of them. Not really. Not even family. It’s like we only have this one thing in common now and nothing more. I want to shout at them, tell them they’re supposed to try to keep it together for us, not the other way around, but I’m drained of everything, even my voice.
In truth, it feels like I’m underwater ebbing slowly in this tide of people but drowning all the same.
I turn to escape but get cornered again. “So, how are you doing?” asks a balding man, his gut threatening to send shirt buttons flying everywhere.
I whisper the lie. “Okay.” It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out the truth. I don’t normally forgo personal hygiene. I don’t know why anyone even bothers asking.
“Well it can’t be easy,” says beer gut. No shit.
“How did you know my dad?”
“Mark and I worked together. Long time ago, before he became a defense contractor. I’m so sorry.” I nod and try to show some teeth. I have no idea if I achieve a smile or a sneer.
Worst of all is the quiet that follows.
“Excuse me,” I say and duck out of the room. I can’t breathe. It’s like someone vacuumed up all the air in this place. Just hearing his name sends a ferocious uprising of grief through me. It reminds me I’m the man of the house now,though I feel anything but.
…Yet that’s the thing—the thing I can’t shake. My father wasn’t a man. He was a force. He was a Marine, ex-Special Forces, intuitive as all hell, and with the body of a linebacker—because he used to be one. Who would be out of their mind enough to take him on? Who could be skilled enough to win? It doesn’t make any sense.
How could this have happened to him…to me…to us? I only think the question but it seems to well up in the back of my throat. I shuffle down the hall, looking to my left and right but no one’s around, not here anyway.
Reaching out, my trembling hand rattles the knob. Polite conversation snakes its way down to me. All this stupid talking but no one’s really saying anything. Not really. No one willeven answer my questions. They’re not even acknowledged, even by Mom. She’s the worst.
Yet there’s no way they haven’t wondered. It’s as if any talk about Dad is unbearable. As if they’d rather not know. But,for me, that’s not an option.
I have to.
I push into Dad’s study and close the door softly behind me. The hinge squeaks as I do—like a tiny little cry that only I can hear.
Chapter Two: Puzzle Pieces
At once it smells like him. I breathe in deeply. It’s that painful ache I can’t help but prod.
I would never admit this. Especially aloud. Especially because it sounds crazy…but I’m homesick for him. Can that even exist? Is that why I have to do this…?
I move over to his desk and slide into the chair. I have no idea what I’m looking for or where to look for it. I pull at one drawer after another after another. Only…they’re all empty. His entire desk is.
I swat at the computer. Maybe Dad kept all of his files electronically. I lean into the leather chair and wait for the screen to change.
Only it doesn’t.
I power it on and off. I control + alt + delete. I pray to the Norton Antivirus gods. But it doesn’t work. None of it. It’s just a black screen.
A black screen with one flashing—taunting—white bar.
F-U-C-K Y-O-U, I pound out on the keyboard. Suddenlyeven the white bar disappears. My heart sinks. Even the computer won’t talk to me.
I swing the chair around and scan the room. I haven’t been in here many times. It’s Dad’s own version of a man cave.
I get up and head over to the bookshelf. Half of it is filled with baskets full of old newspapers. Dad used to joke that in another life he was a historian—that’s why he keeps all these stories. Sometimes they’re even the same story, just different papers.
I move up to the next shelf and run my fingers over the couple of books housed here. An encyclopedia. A dictionary. Boring.
My eyes scan the room and settle on the only thing that’s left. My Mom, sister, and me. The three of us. Left behind. Ireach out and pick up the photograph, my fingers digging into the corners of the frame as I do. I can’t peel my eyes away.
We’re in Annapolis. It’s summer certainly. But what year?I know this. I should know this… The harder I seek it,however, the further it seems to get. A groundswell of frustration builds. Angrily, I yank open the back of the frame for the answer.
There’s another picture in here instead, carefully tucked behind the other. Slowly I pull it out and hold it before me. It’sfaded with the corners curling up but there’s no mistaking it. It’s my father and another man, both in uniform.
"Toby?” the door rattles in a knock.
My heart jumps. “Yeah?”
“What are you doing in there, dear?” asks Mom. “Are you okay?” she whispers.
“Yeah, fine. I’ll be right out.”
“Oh, okay,” she says quickly.
I stare down at the photograph, at the dark figure beside my father. I don’t have to try to memorize his face; it’s alreadyburned in the back of my mind. Quickly I tuck the picture back.
I grab Dad’s laptop and tuck it under my arm as I go.Under the door I see Mom’s feet. A long, shallow sigh escapes my lips but I force myself to move towards her, and to face the strangers in our house once again.
“Whatcha doin’?” asks Mom. Only she’s no longer asking about Dad’s study but the computer I’m clutching tightly to my side. The one she’s practically talking to.
“Get caught up,” I try to say casually. I may even shrug. I don’t know. I’m a shit actor and an even worse liar.
“Maybe even go back to school tomorrow.” It’s meant as a total kiss-up, bullshit answer but as soon as I say it, I mean it. I need to see Simon. I need to get out of this place…
“Please?” I add. I don’t mean for my voice to snag, but it does…just a little…right at the end. Mom doesn’t point it out.
Instead, she reaches towards me. I expect the laptop to be ripped from my arms. I end up in a deep hug instead.
“Of course,” she whispers into my hair. “Whatever you want.”
1st 5 Pages July Worskshop - Marie
Author: Anne Marie
Genre: YA Urban Fantasy
Title: The Serpent's Covenant
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
CHAPTER ONE
I’m the girl plagued by voices that no one else can hear. I’d trade my right kidney for them to leave me alone. Not even Rian, my younger brother, believes they exist. The voices don’t care about me. They chatter day and night about changing seasons, serpents, and warriors in a strange language that I somehow understand.
If they were only in my head -- which is what Grandmother says -- they’d talk to me all the time and follow me everywhere, right? But they never go beyond the boundary of my house’s four walls. They never talk to me either. That is, until tonight.
From the dark corner of my bedroom, a voice speaks directly to me, “Cori, you don’t belong here, you know.”
“Who are you?” I whisper into the void, the covers pulled tautly beneath my chin, my heart beating furiously against my ribcage.
“Join us,” another voice begs from under my bed.
Deep in the marrow of my bones, I shiver. I wipe the palms of my hands against my pajama bottoms and gulp in air. “Join who?”
“Don’t ask questions, wanji ceĥpi. Join us, and we won’t drive Rian to madness.”
“Or take him away,” a voice says, close to my ear. Gritty and ancient.
Coarse laughter floats past me like the rough sound of a violin played wrong. Every muscle tenses to race into Rian’s room and protect him. Or hide in there. The possibility of something grabbing me from under the bed keeps me from moving an inch. I can’t decide whether to stay or go, so I tuck myself deeper beneath my sheets. I bit the inside of my cheek, hoping this is a dream. The sharp sting tells me differently. The wrist I broke when I was nine throbs from twisting the sheets between my fingers. Even after six years, it burns as sharply as the day I snapped it.
Rational thoughts, if you can be rational when you’re hearing voices, take over. The voices don’t have bodies, or if they do, they’ve never shown themselves or touched me. Then again, they’ve never talked to me either. I spring from bed, feet barely touching the polished wooden floor, and run out of my room into the hallway. A shape moving down the street causes strange shadows to play on the walls and catches my attention.
The window that looks down onto the front lawn sparkles as the streetlight glints through the beveled glass. I can’t quite make out the shape. Pressing my forehead to the glass, I see a boy. He’s wearing sweat pants but neither shoes nor shirt. It looks like he’s been jogging. Under the streetlight I see sweat trickling down his back. He pauses on the sidewalk in front of our house. Pauses and turns around to look right at me.
I back away from the window into Rian’s wide-open doorway. The soft light of his nightlight -- which he won’t admit he uses -- illuminates his bunk bed. I climb the ladder to the top, pausing to watch him in the lower bed. He clutches his pocketknife. Some kids sleep with security blankets; he sleeps with the red Swiss Army knife that used to belong to Dad. Rian snores drowning out the voices in my room. It’s the most comforting sound in the world.
Thousands of constellations, carefully drawn with glow-in-the-dark paint, shine across his ceiling. The familiarity of the star clusters soothes me. This used to be our room until Grandmother decided that it wasn’t appropriate for a sister and brother to share a room. The clock on the dresser ticks faintly. When I look over it’s gone from just after midnight to four in the morning. Sleep eludes me and my thoughts return to the strange boy. Did he see me, or did he see the reflection of the streetlight against the glass?
On the other side of the house, Grandmother gets up for the day. One shouldn’t say such things about their only living relatives, but she’s a mean old lady. Her family comes from a long line of wealthy pioneers and politicians. She has enough money that she doesn’t have to work. In spite of that, or maybe because of it, she’s been the Chair of the Surgery Department for almost three decades. She’s brilliant. Cold and distant like the stars painted across Rian’s ceiling. Sometimes I think she got promoted to keep her out of the patients’ rooms after surgery. She probably tells them “pain is temporary” and makes them run up and down the concrete stairs to “get the blood pumping”.
The click of her heels on the wooden floor signals it’s time for me to return to my room. Exhausted from another sleepless night, I stumble down Rian’s ladder. The bunk bed makes him seem half his fourteen years. Before I leave, I pull the sheets up around his shoulders. He doesn’t move, his blond hair sticks out at irregular angles and his eyes move in REM sleep behind closed lids. That kid could sleep through anything, and I wouldn’t want it any other way.
My bare feet don’t make a sound as I sneak back to my room.
“Bad dreams again, Cori?” Grandmother asks. She’s in an expensive pantsuit with bobby pins holding up her perfect coif. The stern look she never loses -- even in her wedding photographs -- is held in place with make-up and a bitter heart. She never asked to raise her grandchildren. Honestly, we never asked for it either.
“No, ma’am,” I say. It’s easier to lie than explain I’m now having conversations with imaginary things. I don’t want a repeat of four years ago when she took me to see a priest. We’re not even religious, so I told her that exorcism was passé in the 21st century. She didn’t laugh.
“I have several committee meetings this week, so I’ll be later than usual,” -- seven or eight’s usual -- “Please make sure to keep an eye on Rian. Call Mrs. Waterstone if you need anything, and get started on your summer reading list.”
“Yes, ma’am.” I turn in the direction of my room.
Grandmother makes a slightly disappointed noise. “Aren’t you forgetting something?”
Damn, not even six in the morning and I’ve already managed to upset her. I walk toward the smell of L’Heure Bleue perfume and underlying tobacco. The sun’s barely up, and she’s already had her first cigarette of the day. She smokes from her balcony, hiding the ashtray and trying to cover it up with perfume and breath mints. Rian and I have known she smoked since we were dropped off at her doorstep, red-eyed and orphaned, at three and four years old. I’m not sure why she tries to hide it. Maybe because it takes away from the image of health and vice-free living she pretends to embody.
I kiss the cheek she offers me and say, “Have a good day at work.” Her face is soft and smooth. Hard to believe it covers such an adamantine woman.
“I’ll call in a couple of hours,” she says, pulling the phone off her hip.
Grandmother might be detached, but in her own way she cares fiercely for our well-being. There will be no more unexpected deaths in the Anders family. Not on her watch.
* * *
I nap in the afternoon. It’s enough to convince my brain to function better, though not enough to make the dark smudges under my eyes go away. It’s Thursday. I haven’t slept for more than three hours at a time in the past nine days. I’ve got to figure out what’s going on before it’s too late. Sure, I hear voices all the time, but now they’re threatening Rian. I wish I could spend the night at Maya’s house. The voices can’t follow me there.
The problem is that Maya’s in Europe. Grandmother almost let me go with her until she found out that Maya’s parents weren’t going. Instead, Vivica’s mothers had agreed to chaperone. Grandmother doesn’t think they’re very responsible. After all, they let us dye our bangs flamingo pink at the end of term. Not to mention, they’re lesbians. Clearly, they can’t be trusted.
Rian walks into the office where I’m lounging on the leather sofa. He twirls his pocketknife across his knuckles. Another trick to add to the number of skills he’s been working on. Grandmother gave it to him when he crossed the bridge from Cub Scouts to Boy Scouts. Since that day, I’ve never seen him without it.
Genre: YA Urban Fantasy
Title: The Serpent's Covenant
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
CHAPTER ONE
I’m the girl plagued by voices that no one else can hear. I’d trade my right kidney for them to leave me alone. Not even Rian, my younger brother, believes they exist. The voices don’t care about me. They chatter day and night about changing seasons, serpents, and warriors in a strange language that I somehow understand.
If they were only in my head -- which is what Grandmother says -- they’d talk to me all the time and follow me everywhere, right? But they never go beyond the boundary of my house’s four walls. They never talk to me either. That is, until tonight.
From the dark corner of my bedroom, a voice speaks directly to me, “Cori, you don’t belong here, you know.”
“Who are you?” I whisper into the void, the covers pulled tautly beneath my chin, my heart beating furiously against my ribcage.
“Join us,” another voice begs from under my bed.
Deep in the marrow of my bones, I shiver. I wipe the palms of my hands against my pajama bottoms and gulp in air. “Join who?”
“Don’t ask questions, wanji ceĥpi. Join us, and we won’t drive Rian to madness.”
“Or take him away,” a voice says, close to my ear. Gritty and ancient.
Coarse laughter floats past me like the rough sound of a violin played wrong. Every muscle tenses to race into Rian’s room and protect him. Or hide in there. The possibility of something grabbing me from under the bed keeps me from moving an inch. I can’t decide whether to stay or go, so I tuck myself deeper beneath my sheets. I bit the inside of my cheek, hoping this is a dream. The sharp sting tells me differently. The wrist I broke when I was nine throbs from twisting the sheets between my fingers. Even after six years, it burns as sharply as the day I snapped it.
Rational thoughts, if you can be rational when you’re hearing voices, take over. The voices don’t have bodies, or if they do, they’ve never shown themselves or touched me. Then again, they’ve never talked to me either. I spring from bed, feet barely touching the polished wooden floor, and run out of my room into the hallway. A shape moving down the street causes strange shadows to play on the walls and catches my attention.
The window that looks down onto the front lawn sparkles as the streetlight glints through the beveled glass. I can’t quite make out the shape. Pressing my forehead to the glass, I see a boy. He’s wearing sweat pants but neither shoes nor shirt. It looks like he’s been jogging. Under the streetlight I see sweat trickling down his back. He pauses on the sidewalk in front of our house. Pauses and turns around to look right at me.
I back away from the window into Rian’s wide-open doorway. The soft light of his nightlight -- which he won’t admit he uses -- illuminates his bunk bed. I climb the ladder to the top, pausing to watch him in the lower bed. He clutches his pocketknife. Some kids sleep with security blankets; he sleeps with the red Swiss Army knife that used to belong to Dad. Rian snores drowning out the voices in my room. It’s the most comforting sound in the world.
Thousands of constellations, carefully drawn with glow-in-the-dark paint, shine across his ceiling. The familiarity of the star clusters soothes me. This used to be our room until Grandmother decided that it wasn’t appropriate for a sister and brother to share a room. The clock on the dresser ticks faintly. When I look over it’s gone from just after midnight to four in the morning. Sleep eludes me and my thoughts return to the strange boy. Did he see me, or did he see the reflection of the streetlight against the glass?
On the other side of the house, Grandmother gets up for the day. One shouldn’t say such things about their only living relatives, but she’s a mean old lady. Her family comes from a long line of wealthy pioneers and politicians. She has enough money that she doesn’t have to work. In spite of that, or maybe because of it, she’s been the Chair of the Surgery Department for almost three decades. She’s brilliant. Cold and distant like the stars painted across Rian’s ceiling. Sometimes I think she got promoted to keep her out of the patients’ rooms after surgery. She probably tells them “pain is temporary” and makes them run up and down the concrete stairs to “get the blood pumping”.
The click of her heels on the wooden floor signals it’s time for me to return to my room. Exhausted from another sleepless night, I stumble down Rian’s ladder. The bunk bed makes him seem half his fourteen years. Before I leave, I pull the sheets up around his shoulders. He doesn’t move, his blond hair sticks out at irregular angles and his eyes move in REM sleep behind closed lids. That kid could sleep through anything, and I wouldn’t want it any other way.
My bare feet don’t make a sound as I sneak back to my room.
“Bad dreams again, Cori?” Grandmother asks. She’s in an expensive pantsuit with bobby pins holding up her perfect coif. The stern look she never loses -- even in her wedding photographs -- is held in place with make-up and a bitter heart. She never asked to raise her grandchildren. Honestly, we never asked for it either.
“No, ma’am,” I say. It’s easier to lie than explain I’m now having conversations with imaginary things. I don’t want a repeat of four years ago when she took me to see a priest. We’re not even religious, so I told her that exorcism was passé in the 21st century. She didn’t laugh.
“I have several committee meetings this week, so I’ll be later than usual,” -- seven or eight’s usual -- “Please make sure to keep an eye on Rian. Call Mrs. Waterstone if you need anything, and get started on your summer reading list.”
“Yes, ma’am.” I turn in the direction of my room.
Grandmother makes a slightly disappointed noise. “Aren’t you forgetting something?”
Damn, not even six in the morning and I’ve already managed to upset her. I walk toward the smell of L’Heure Bleue perfume and underlying tobacco. The sun’s barely up, and she’s already had her first cigarette of the day. She smokes from her balcony, hiding the ashtray and trying to cover it up with perfume and breath mints. Rian and I have known she smoked since we were dropped off at her doorstep, red-eyed and orphaned, at three and four years old. I’m not sure why she tries to hide it. Maybe because it takes away from the image of health and vice-free living she pretends to embody.
I kiss the cheek she offers me and say, “Have a good day at work.” Her face is soft and smooth. Hard to believe it covers such an adamantine woman.
“I’ll call in a couple of hours,” she says, pulling the phone off her hip.
Grandmother might be detached, but in her own way she cares fiercely for our well-being. There will be no more unexpected deaths in the Anders family. Not on her watch.
* * *
I nap in the afternoon. It’s enough to convince my brain to function better, though not enough to make the dark smudges under my eyes go away. It’s Thursday. I haven’t slept for more than three hours at a time in the past nine days. I’ve got to figure out what’s going on before it’s too late. Sure, I hear voices all the time, but now they’re threatening Rian. I wish I could spend the night at Maya’s house. The voices can’t follow me there.
The problem is that Maya’s in Europe. Grandmother almost let me go with her until she found out that Maya’s parents weren’t going. Instead, Vivica’s mothers had agreed to chaperone. Grandmother doesn’t think they’re very responsible. After all, they let us dye our bangs flamingo pink at the end of term. Not to mention, they’re lesbians. Clearly, they can’t be trusted.
Rian walks into the office where I’m lounging on the leather sofa. He twirls his pocketknife across his knuckles. Another trick to add to the number of skills he’s been working on. Grandmother gave it to him when he crossed the bridge from Cub Scouts to Boy Scouts. Since that day, I’ve never seen him without it.
1st 5 Pages July Workshop - Lawson
Name: J. Lawson
Title: Nooks & Crannies
Genre: Middle Grade Historical Mystery
First Five Pages:
Just past three o’clock in the afternoon, when schools across South London were releasing much-adored children by the bucketful, Tabitha Crum was let into the cold as well. Parsnips and carrots, she thought. That’s what I’ll slip out of the stew for Pemberly. He won’t like them, of course, but hidden pets cannot be picky. Now that family supper planning was taken care of, Tabitha walked along with her personal thoughts, which were pleasant enough company considering the unexpected delivery that had come to the classroom minutes before the final bell.
In smallish steps that would delay the passage home, she clutched and pinched and rubbed the pretty envelope that had been delivered to just one other classmate, letting her fingernail scratch at the seam. The glue was of a stubbornly good quality, and Tabitha’s nails were of a woefully short length—a poor combination when hoping to surreptitiously open and reseal an object one has been ordered to leave closed.
With only twenty students in her class at St. Augustine’s, the smooth rectangles with maroon wax seals had caused a certain amount of attention. The two recipients had been given strict instructions not to open them, but to pass the envelopes to their parents. And so Tabitha, being quite an obedient child, had resisted the temptation to open it. Besides, if there was anything Tabitha loved, it was a mystery—it was best to let this one hauntingly linger before it turned out to be nothing of consequence.
And doubly besides, the beastly thing wouldn’t be opened unless by tearing the paper.
It was lovely to look at. Tabitha suddenly had an odd urge to give the paper a kiss and place it in a glass frame, where its possibilities would never be rusted or tarnished.
The cobblestone streets of Village Wiltingshire were made eerie and muted by thick fog. It had been creeping up since morning, irritating everyone but the tea shops, which thrived in such weather. Tabitha peered through it, occasionally testing with her free hand, pressing and flicking at whiteness that always seemed to be just a step ahead.
It’s almost like something in a Professor Pensive novel, she mused. And next, a woman will appear in the mist, begging someone to solve the mysterious haunting of her third cousin’s potting shed. And this secret note in my fingertips will contain a coded message or veiled threat upon both of us.
Professor Pensive always knew the answers to puzzling questions. ‘Every curious situation leaves signs of its origin,Tibbs,' he was known to say to his tubby partner, Timothy Tibbles. Try as Tabitha might, though, there were very few clues pointing to what might have prompted this.
The evidence thus far:
-Whatever the contents, they were only meant for two children, not all of them. This selective nature indicated that she and the other recipient held something in common.
-The quality of the paper and seal was clearly high. Tabitha doubted such nice things would be used to deliver low quality correspondence such as an advertisement for tooth powder or puppies.
-Miss Morrow had seemed pleased to give something so special to Tabitha, but seemed genuinely unaware of its meaning. The envelopes had been hand carried by a city-wide messenger service. The boy, in handing the items to her teacher, had no knowledge of the origin either.
-The wax seal was engraved with a lovely lake scene with two swans.
In short, she had very little to work with. It would be easier to think inside a tea shop. Or anyplace warm. Professor Pensive always did his thinking in a corner booth of his favorite pub, tucked away near the a cheerfully blazing hearth, sipping port and chewing pensively on his pocket watch chain. Tabitha had no desire to drink port and no money to buy a pocket watch, but the basic principle remained. Cold dampened the brain’s deduction abilities.
As though placing a mark of approval on the statement, Tabitha’s breath sent puffs of white into the fog. Her cheeks were developing a tart ache and matched a crisp, reddened apple in the hand of the local paper seller on the sidewalk ahead. Both cheeks and fruit were a splash of color in the otherwise grey October afternoon.
“Hello, Mrs. Barrow. Chilly day.”
The woman gave a grim look at the sky. “Something’s brewing. Hello, dear. Anything today?”
Tabitha shook her head. “Not today, thanks.”
“What have you got there?” She bobbed her head at the envelope.
“Not a clue.” Tabitha scooted around the cart. “Have a nice evening.”
“Something’s brewing,” Mrs. Barrow repeated, frowning until her face looked like a wrinkled apple doll.
“Oh, it’s just a bit of fog.”
She began gathering her wares. “You’d best get home quickly, before the path disappears from sight. I’ll be doing the same.”
Tabitha nodded and moved along, half-wishing the path would disappear so that she could open the envelope, later claiming that it could have been a map or instructions to find emergency provisions.
Scratch, scratch. Scratchity-scratch. “It’s as though they sealed it together with spite,” Tabitha muttered to herself, earning an offended glance from a passing elderly lady. Whether it was the remark, her outgrown uniform and shabby coat, or a combination, Tabitha couldn’t be certain. Perhaps the woman was offended by children as a whole. Rather like her mum and dad.
Scents of lavender from a candle seller and warm bread from a baker reached out to waft sweet hellos in the pillowy air, and she nodded at Mr. Willoughby, who was seated in his usual spot at the front window table of Puddles Confectionary, receiving a cup of tea and two biscuits. Tabitha noted that they were chocolate, which was quite in order. She’d taken note that he allowed himself biscuits no more than twice a week, and only took chocolate ones on Thursdays. He waved back.
Mr. Willoughby had been taking his tea at Puddles for years. Tabitha had no idea if the elderly man had a job or not, but he was always somewhere along her path to and from school—buying a paper or reading on a bench near the school. Last year was when she finally learned his name, and, since then, they had exchanged pleasantries whenever they passed.
Approximately one block down, a scuffle was attracting calls of attention. As Tabitha grew closer, the invisible squirmish turned into a raggedy dog squirming in a butcher’s angry arms. Bursting free, the animal bumped and dodged pedestrians, weaved in and out of street lanterns, and stopped for a moment in front of Tabitha. From his mangy jaw dangled half of a fat sausage. His tail wagged madly.
“Why, you naughty boy,” she chided in jest. “You’ve gotten yourself an early supper, haven’t you?” The dog whimpered and leaned his head near her leg, waiting to be patted and scratched on the ears.
She leaned down obligingly. “What’s your story, I wonder—are you a runaway from a cruel family? Are you taking this to a wounded friend who’s been desperately hurt by a dastardly enemy? If you were in an Inspector Pensive book, you would be a messenger pup. I ought to hold you to be punished, you know,” she whispered, seeing the charging red-faced butcher. “But I shall give you a bit of a rub and send you off quick.”
But she didn’t have time. The dog scurried off, and the Butcher turned his glare toward Tabitha.
Title: Nooks & Crannies
Genre: Middle Grade Historical Mystery
First Five Pages:
Just past three o’clock in the afternoon, when schools across South London were releasing much-adored children by the bucketful, Tabitha Crum was let into the cold as well. Parsnips and carrots, she thought. That’s what I’ll slip out of the stew for Pemberly. He won’t like them, of course, but hidden pets cannot be picky. Now that family supper planning was taken care of, Tabitha walked along with her personal thoughts, which were pleasant enough company considering the unexpected delivery that had come to the classroom minutes before the final bell.
In smallish steps that would delay the passage home, she clutched and pinched and rubbed the pretty envelope that had been delivered to just one other classmate, letting her fingernail scratch at the seam. The glue was of a stubbornly good quality, and Tabitha’s nails were of a woefully short length—a poor combination when hoping to surreptitiously open and reseal an object one has been ordered to leave closed.
With only twenty students in her class at St. Augustine’s, the smooth rectangles with maroon wax seals had caused a certain amount of attention. The two recipients had been given strict instructions not to open them, but to pass the envelopes to their parents. And so Tabitha, being quite an obedient child, had resisted the temptation to open it. Besides, if there was anything Tabitha loved, it was a mystery—it was best to let this one hauntingly linger before it turned out to be nothing of consequence.
And doubly besides, the beastly thing wouldn’t be opened unless by tearing the paper.
It was lovely to look at. Tabitha suddenly had an odd urge to give the paper a kiss and place it in a glass frame, where its possibilities would never be rusted or tarnished.
The cobblestone streets of Village Wiltingshire were made eerie and muted by thick fog. It had been creeping up since morning, irritating everyone but the tea shops, which thrived in such weather. Tabitha peered through it, occasionally testing with her free hand, pressing and flicking at whiteness that always seemed to be just a step ahead.
It’s almost like something in a Professor Pensive novel, she mused. And next, a woman will appear in the mist, begging someone to solve the mysterious haunting of her third cousin’s potting shed. And this secret note in my fingertips will contain a coded message or veiled threat upon both of us.
Professor Pensive always knew the answers to puzzling questions. ‘Every curious situation leaves signs of its origin,Tibbs,' he was known to say to his tubby partner, Timothy Tibbles. Try as Tabitha might, though, there were very few clues pointing to what might have prompted this.
The evidence thus far:
-Whatever the contents, they were only meant for two children, not all of them. This selective nature indicated that she and the other recipient held something in common.
-The quality of the paper and seal was clearly high. Tabitha doubted such nice things would be used to deliver low quality correspondence such as an advertisement for tooth powder or puppies.
-Miss Morrow had seemed pleased to give something so special to Tabitha, but seemed genuinely unaware of its meaning. The envelopes had been hand carried by a city-wide messenger service. The boy, in handing the items to her teacher, had no knowledge of the origin either.
-The wax seal was engraved with a lovely lake scene with two swans.
In short, she had very little to work with. It would be easier to think inside a tea shop. Or anyplace warm. Professor Pensive always did his thinking in a corner booth of his favorite pub, tucked away near the a cheerfully blazing hearth, sipping port and chewing pensively on his pocket watch chain. Tabitha had no desire to drink port and no money to buy a pocket watch, but the basic principle remained. Cold dampened the brain’s deduction abilities.
As though placing a mark of approval on the statement, Tabitha’s breath sent puffs of white into the fog. Her cheeks were developing a tart ache and matched a crisp, reddened apple in the hand of the local paper seller on the sidewalk ahead. Both cheeks and fruit were a splash of color in the otherwise grey October afternoon.
“Hello, Mrs. Barrow. Chilly day.”
The woman gave a grim look at the sky. “Something’s brewing. Hello, dear. Anything today?”
Tabitha shook her head. “Not today, thanks.”
“What have you got there?” She bobbed her head at the envelope.
“Not a clue.” Tabitha scooted around the cart. “Have a nice evening.”
“Something’s brewing,” Mrs. Barrow repeated, frowning until her face looked like a wrinkled apple doll.
“Oh, it’s just a bit of fog.”
She began gathering her wares. “You’d best get home quickly, before the path disappears from sight. I’ll be doing the same.”
Tabitha nodded and moved along, half-wishing the path would disappear so that she could open the envelope, later claiming that it could have been a map or instructions to find emergency provisions.
Scratch, scratch. Scratchity-scratch. “It’s as though they sealed it together with spite,” Tabitha muttered to herself, earning an offended glance from a passing elderly lady. Whether it was the remark, her outgrown uniform and shabby coat, or a combination, Tabitha couldn’t be certain. Perhaps the woman was offended by children as a whole. Rather like her mum and dad.
Scents of lavender from a candle seller and warm bread from a baker reached out to waft sweet hellos in the pillowy air, and she nodded at Mr. Willoughby, who was seated in his usual spot at the front window table of Puddles Confectionary, receiving a cup of tea and two biscuits. Tabitha noted that they were chocolate, which was quite in order. She’d taken note that he allowed himself biscuits no more than twice a week, and only took chocolate ones on Thursdays. He waved back.
Mr. Willoughby had been taking his tea at Puddles for years. Tabitha had no idea if the elderly man had a job or not, but he was always somewhere along her path to and from school—buying a paper or reading on a bench near the school. Last year was when she finally learned his name, and, since then, they had exchanged pleasantries whenever they passed.
Approximately one block down, a scuffle was attracting calls of attention. As Tabitha grew closer, the invisible squirmish turned into a raggedy dog squirming in a butcher’s angry arms. Bursting free, the animal bumped and dodged pedestrians, weaved in and out of street lanterns, and stopped for a moment in front of Tabitha. From his mangy jaw dangled half of a fat sausage. His tail wagged madly.
“Why, you naughty boy,” she chided in jest. “You’ve gotten yourself an early supper, haven’t you?” The dog whimpered and leaned his head near her leg, waiting to be patted and scratched on the ears.
She leaned down obligingly. “What’s your story, I wonder—are you a runaway from a cruel family? Are you taking this to a wounded friend who’s been desperately hurt by a dastardly enemy? If you were in an Inspector Pensive book, you would be a messenger pup. I ought to hold you to be punished, you know,” she whispered, seeing the charging red-faced butcher. “But I shall give you a bit of a rub and send you off quick.”
But she didn’t have time. The dog scurried off, and the Butcher turned his glare toward Tabitha.
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