QK Agent Round: Fake Invisibility T-Shirt

Title: The Mostly Invisible Boy
Entry Nickname: Fake Invisibility T-Shirt
Word Count: 60K
Genre: MG Contemporary Fantasy

Query:

Eleven-year-old Casey Grimes is eternally the new kid, if he’s noticed at all. Despite his persistent friendliness, students at Vintage Woods Middle school look right through him. Bus doors slam in his face, no one remembers his name, and he feels more welcome in the woods than he does around kids. Then he scales a colossal oak and discovers an abandoned fortress. The forgotten sentry tree marks the border between his safe, suburban life and a wild frontier.

Eager for a change, Casey infiltrates Sylvan Woods, a secret forest society tasked with monster control. Shockingly, people here actually see him, but being seen is not enough. Posing as a Sylvan girl’s cousin, he enters Trickery School—a dangerous academy where classes are life-threatening, teachers are treacherous, and battles are as common as breakfast. For the first time in his life, he makes friends…but kids at Trickery have forgotten their ancient roots. Protection has become pretension, and civilians like Casey are despised. If anyone finds out he’s an imposter, he’ll be blacklisted and sent back across the border for life.

Keeping his identity hidden—while struggling to prove he fits—is hard enough, but the clock is ticking. A vicious breed of monster swarms Trickery, butcher beasts, who haven’t been seen for a hundred years. Casey and his new friends decipher a cryptic message and learn the truth: Sylvan Woods will be devoured and he’ll return to a life of being see-through…unless he can use his climbing knack to wake the magical Sentry Trees. But that will be difficult, since in Trickery, magic is so last century. And then there’s the dangerous question of where Casey actually belongs. 

THE MOSTLY INVISIBLE BOY is a 60,000-word, adventurous MG fantasy where WILDWOOD meets NEVERWHERE. It’s a stand-alone book with series potential.

My short story, “Leviathan’s Hook,” was published in Midnight Times. I’m a SCBWI critique group member and Pitch Wars alum. I spend much of my time wrangling kids in our hundred-year-old house, so like Sylvan Woods, I’m also tasked with monster control.

First 250:

Casey Grimes was invisible—at least most of the time.

He stood on the corner under a stop sign, jogging in place as his school bus sped down the street. It slowed to roll through the intersection and Casey sprinted alongside, smacking the door as his backpack bumped his spine. Sound and movement gave him a fighting chance to be seen. For a few seconds, anyway.

“Open up!” he yelled.

The driver squinted through the smudged glass, and Casey banged harder, until the brakes squealed and the accordion doors whooshed open.
“Where’d you come from?” the driver asked.

“Same place I always come from.” Casey jumped into the bus.

The driver shrugged and floored the accelerator.

The other two kids on Casey’s route always sat together in the back. He waved, but they kept right on talking, so he took his usual seat by the window, pressing the vinyl with sweaty palms. Don’t give up on the day yet, he told himself. Things might still change.

But they reached Vintage Woods Middle School and nothing was different.

Nothing at all.

“You new here?” A girl asked as Casey opened his locker.

“Of course not,” Casey said. “You’re Lydia, we sit next to each other in—”

But she’d already started talking to someone else. Casey slumped in defeat, but then Manuel walked past—they’d had a five second conversation once—and Casey whirled.

“Hey Manuel,” he said.

The boy’s gaze paused for a millisecond and slid away as if pulled by a magnet.