QK Top 16: YA Fantasy

Entry Nickname: Supergeeker
Title: SUPERGEEK
Word Count: 60,000 words
Genre: YA Fantasy

Query:

Fifteen-year-old Talis Brooks has been called a lot of things. Geek. Sad Virgin. Chesty McNoBoobs. But when puberty kicks in overnight, Talis doesn’t just go up a cup size, she gains the strength and agility of a superhero. Suddenly she can toss around 250-pound bullies, fight like a ninja and her butt totally fills out her jeans.

Talis knows what could happen if she doesn’t keep her new powers a secret (government conspiracies! Lab experiments on her brain! Uncomfortable probing!) But when pretty boy Cole is almost stabbed by rogue band geeks, a masked Talis can’t help but save him. Cole and his friends have become targets of a mysterious gang of social misfits, out to take down the popular elite. With her classmates in danger, Talis creates a secret identity to protect them-- even the mean evil bitches out to socially destroy her.

Now Talis is stuck in a love triangle between her, Cole, and her superhero alter ego, her every super move is being tracked and tweeted, and, oh yeah, there’s that psychotic gang situation.

As the gang’s attacks spiral out of control, Talis must figure out a way to stop them before someone, you know. . . dies.

First 250 words:

I just don’t want to die. Of humiliation. Besides getting straight A’s, that’s pretty much my only goal this year.

Coach Marshall, evil fiend in tiny man shorts, is out to thwart my plans. When he divides us up for volleyball, he puts me in with the Beautiful People. This is not where I belong.

Marshall busts me sneaking onto my usual court—the one with my asthmatic friend Jane, Weird Cape Billy and the kid wearing a helmet. My people. He waves me over to the last court. “Talis, I told you, you’re over there today.”

“Coach—” I say, but he’s already moved on, yelling at two freshmen beating each other with the soft baseball bats.

Obviously whoever made PE mandatory isn’t an easy bleeder with little to no physical coordination. I put it off until sophomore year, hoping I’d get breasts before having to engage in the horror of group showers. Unfortunately, puberty is eluding me.

I take my time walking over. I pull up my gym shorts, which are always sliding down, even with the top rolled. I try to look busy, pretending to read the safety guidelines listed on the wall. While I’m admiring the rules and regulations, I get a weird tingly feeling on the back of my neck, like someone’s staring at me. When I look, I lock eyes with just about the worst person possible.

“Are you lost little girl?” Shawna Soto, tyrant of the sophomore class, master of the well-timed slut bomb, purveyor of eating disorders, is talking to me.