Title: SPLASH
Entry Nickname: Swimming with the Amoebas
Word Count: 62,000
Genre: YA Horror
Query:
Sixteen-year-old Maxine Spielman has no boobs, a fact which may ultimately save her life.
On the first night of summer, wearing a borrowed sundress and bra stuffed with toilet paper, Maxine and her friends break into Splash, the new water park scheduled to open in just two days. After some inept groping, Maxine retreats to the locker room while the others enjoy the water. When Maxine discovers someone else in the room, she can tell that something's not right based on the way he sits, the awkward tilt of his head, and how he doesn't respond when she turns on the lights. Something drips in the otherwise silent room, but it isn't water.
The next day, her friends are dead, killed by something that lives in the water. With nowhere left to turn, Maxine confides in her cute neighbor. But as the death toll increases, Maxine's suspicions grow more outlandish, causing him to dismiss her warnings and agree to take his litter sister to opening day.
To save her town and the boy she's fallen for, Maxine must shut down Splash. And she only has twenty-four hours to do it.
First 250:
Whoever came up with the high school end of year survey should be shot. Buried. Dug up and shot again. I mean, you make it through the whole year without suffering any permanent damage to your social standing and WHAM, out comes this survey so you know exactly where you rank at the start of summer. To make matters worse, it has the exact same question about me as last year.
Will Maxine Spielman get boobs this summer?
I pretend to stretch so I can watch the ruffles puff out on my cami. It's the fancy one with the extra ruffles right where it counts. But they don't move much despite my best efforts. Defeated, I lean back on my stool to minimize any skin contact with the gross black surface of the lab bench and turn my attention to Mr. Johnson.
Who needs boobs anyway?
"Come on folks," Mr. Johnson says and raises his arms for quiet. Two large pit stains in the shape of crescent moons darken his shirt. "I know it's the end of the year, but we can't get through sophomore biology without at least one class on the higher vertebrates. Now Aiden, give me one of the defining characteristics of mammals. What produced the milk you had on your cereal this morning?"
"A cow?"
"Yes, Aiden, very funny. But what specifically do cows have that, say, a salamander does not?"
"A mammary gland," he groans.
"That's right! Mammals have mammary glands."
Jeezus
VS
Title: The Takedown
Entry Nickname: I Kidnapped the Prom Queen 4 Spring Break
Word Count: 77,000
Genre: YA Thriller (Ownvoices)
Query:
Seventeen-year-old Rylee Gilmore is looking forward to spending spring break lounging lakeside with her best friend, Danni. But Rylee’s plans for a drama free week with her BFF are shot when Danni breaks the news she’s bringing along her current hook up, Jared Anthony—who just so happens to be the boyfriend of reigning Oakdale High mean girl, Sophie Ferguson. Even worse, he’s bringing his cousin, Drake, and any guy who shares DNA with Jared can’t be good.
But a chance meeting with Drake forty-eight hours before their planned trip changes Rylee’s mind, and now she can’t stop thinking about him. Except, Sophie changed her spring break plans, deciding instead to spend a romantic week alone with Jared instead of a Cancun vacay with her girls. Without Jared, Rylee knows her chances of getting to know Drake better could be ruined. Unless she and Danni stop spoiled Sophie from getting her way and plan the ultimate takedown.
Now Sophie is missing and no one has a clue what happened to her. But what started as a stupid prank has become dangerously real, and this takedown could have deadly consequences.
THE TAKEDOWN is best described as MEAN GIRLS meets JAWBREAKER.
First 250:
There are two kinds of seniors who ride the bus during their final year of high school: the poor kids and the losers. My best friend, Danni, and I were both. If you were lucky, at least one friend in your squad had a car, but since Danni was my only friend, we were pretty much limited to public transportation.
“Hey, beyotch,” she said as she made her way down the bus aisle.
“You’re seriously wearing a turtleneck today?” I said. “That’s the second time this week.”
Danni glanced down at herself as if she’d forgotten what she was wearing and shrugged. “So?”
“So…it’s like a thousand degrees outside. Aren’t you worried about having a heat stroke in that thing?” I fanned myself with a folder and pushed the damp hair off my forehead. Eighty degrees already and it was just morning. Another Forrest Hills, Texas scorcher. The armpits of my shirt were completely soaked, and I had to sit on my bookbag to keep the back of my thighs from sticking to the vinyl seat. Times like this made me wish more than ever for my own car with the AC on full blast.
“For your information, I’m not hot at all and I happen to like what I’m wearing,” she said.
“If you say so.” I decided not to mention the tiny beads of sweat dotting her hairline. At least the turtleneck covered Danni’s three day old hickey, courtesy of her latest boy-toy, Jared.
