TITLE: The Allergy Club
GENRE: Contemporary YA
Madison went on what was supposed to be a day trip with The Allergy Club, but they got stuck overnight, so she missed her other club's car wash fundraiser. Since the club is a secret, Madison had told her friends she was spending the evening with her family. (Hank is Hailey's brother.)
I climbed out of Hank’s car and sprinted to Hailey in the corner of the grocery store parking lot. A nurse had cleaned up my knee, but a shooting pain still accompanied my every step. I tried not to wince and just focus on Hailey. She threw a sponge into an empty bucket, then set it next to the coiled up hose and a stack of leftover flyers.
“I’m so incredibly sorry,” I said, wishing I’d spent the drive coming up with better words. “There was a bit of a disaster, and we just got back.”
“We, being your family?”
I nodded, inwardly gulping.
“Yeah, that really explains why your parents called my house last night freaking out that you were gone. And my brother was gone all night, too. What, y’all ‘fell asleep somewhere,’ but nothing really happened? Is that what you’re going to pull?”
“No. Gosh no! It’s not that at all.”
“Then what is it?”
A stream of water trickled past us on the concrete. Jamie and Nandita stopped putting away the signs about ten feet away, and I could sense them watching. The concrete would probably be much more accepting of everything I couldn’t say, but I forced my eyes up to Hailey’s.
“I so wish I could tell you, but I just can’t. And you know I can’t keep a secret. So please believe me—it’s important it’s a secret.”
I didn’t believe that so much at first. I thought it was just a club that thought too much of itself. No club could truly need to be a secret.
But the club took in the parts of each of us that made our daily lives a bit of a struggle—the parts of us we couldn’t change. And we didn’t want them to become a bigger deal by talking about them to everyone in our lives. We didn’t want them to become the things that defined us, but we needed a place to deal with them, so eventually we could be free.
That didn’t make sense to me when I joined. When I just wanted to know how to get food into my stomach and not end up in pain. But now it was one of the only things in the world I was certain of.
“I don’t believe you. And I can’t believe that whatever you were doing was more important than this. We really needed you.”
A little thing--there are extra words. For example, "cleaned up" can be "cleaned," "my every step" can be "every step," and "coiled up" can be "coiled."
ReplyDeleteLove this--"What, y’all ‘fell asleep somewhere,’ but nothing really happened?”
More extra words:
"A stream of water trickled past us [strike-->on the concrete.<--] Jamie and Nandita stopped putting away the signs [strike--> about ten feet away, and I could sense them watching.<--because it's clear they're close and paying attention]"
The rest of this is great. I was really hooked--kept reading it for pieces of what the club was.
Good scene, although the emphasis was more on the MC's internal thoughts than her friend's anger.
ReplyDeleteI'd add "usually" to: ...you know I usually can’t keep a secret, since she IS keeping this one.
The timeline of three paragraphs before the last one seems to be in the wrong order, and could be tightened into one:
I'd joined mainly to find out how to get food into my stomach and not end up in pain. When they swore me to secrecy, I thought they were stuck up, but I realized the club helped us with things each of us struggled with—things we couldn’t change. We didn’t want them to become a bigger deal by talking about them to everyone in our lives. We didn’t want allergies to become what defined us.
I'm intrigued by this club! Sounds like you have a great premiss for a story here. "…the club took in parts of us that made our daily lives a bit of a struggle . . . we didn't want them to become the things that defined us, but we needed a place to deal with them." Love this concept! I'd read this book.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, I didn't really feel the anger here. If real, raw anger is important to Hailey's character in this scene, I'd perhaps address that element during your editing.
The scene is well written, but since we're thinking about anger, I'm looking for more anger from Hailey. She seems at first not to care whether Madison was late or not. Of course she does. But at that point, Madison starts thinking about why she now realizes it's important to keep the Allergy Club a secret. This dilutes her interaction with Hailey and again downplays the anger.
ReplyDeleteI don't know how important it is that the two are at odds. It might be good to ramp up the emotion to increase tension.
Becky
I liked the explanation of the allergy club. To me, it was the most interesting thing here. But, like Becky, I think it kills the tension you're raising with Hailey's anger. Is there some way you could include that before their argument, or after the argument ends?
ReplyDeleteAs far as the anger goes, it doesn't seem to have really happened yet, probably because we don't get Hailey's reaction to Madison's explanation. It seems what you've shown here is a prelude to it, and the brunt of it is just about to come in whatever follows. I don't know if that's how it plays out, but it's the way it seems to me after what I've read.
Overall, it's written well, and things follow logically.
I am SO intrigued by this allergy club. I like the younger YA voice here. This is making me think of a modern spin on old faves like Babysitters Club and The Saddle Club books aimed at tweens. Is this what you are going for? Because it sounds perfect for those readers, as a series too. Ok, I am gushing.
ReplyDelete(Seriously though, food allergy club for kids? How timely can you get. This is such a great hook.)
I agree about filler or wordy phrases. Watch for words like thought or felt and see if you can rephrase to remove them.
Wishing you lots of luck querying or pitching this!