Secret Agent #3

TITLE: Life Set Sail
GENRE: YA YA Fantasy

I know three things about séances: (1) if done right, (supposedly) you can talk to the dead, (2) you need candles, lots and lots of candles, and (3) witches perform them.

No, scratch that. Wiccans perform them. My friend Abigail was quick to point that out the first time I called her a witch. “Wicca is a spiritual practice; a peaceful polytheistic religion. We don’t ride brooms, Mae.”

If there was a contest to see who’s weirder, me or Abby, she’d win. Hands down, 100%, no questions asked, win. And tonight I’m supposed to help her conduct her first séance, because, like always, she managed to coerce me into her weird little world.  I should get a gold medal for this crap.

I can only hope “talking to dead people” isn't as scary as it sounds. Abby knows I can’t even sit through half a horror movie before I go running out of the theater with my tail between my legs. So this better not be scary. And it’s not like she's trying to contact a long lost relative or someone cool like Eleanor Roosevelt. No, that would make too much sense. Abby’s trying to find a boyfriend, a new dead boyfriend. She’s been scanning the school’s microfilm for weeks, looking at old newspaper obituaries, trying to find “the one.” 

My best friend, the freak.

 

Secret Agent #2

TITLE: THE WAY IT IS, 1959
GENRE: MG Historical Fiction

CHAPTER ONE: WORRIES AND SURPRISE VISIT

“Patsy, stop that infernal daydreaming!” The words whooshed out of Mother like air from a punctured bicycle tire. Then after a sharp inhale, “Don’t you drop that sheet in the dirt!”

“Yes, ma’am.” I grabbed the wet sheet corner and sniffed the unmistakable scent of Clorox. Mother would have a hissy-fit for sure if I let go of that sheet. Dang it, Mother always interrupted my daydreams.

I swiped away a sweat mustache with the back of my free hand, then licked the salt from my lips. Boy Howdy, Mother thinks August and chores go together like bread and mayonnaise.

Perspiration dripped onto the lenses of my glasses. Do they make glasses with windshield wipers? I pushed the mother-of-pearl frames up for the umpteenth time. I wish I’d pulled my hair into a ponytail this morning. It hung thick around my neck and shoulders like the Cowardly Lion’s mane in The Wizard of Oz.

The sweet scent of honeysuckle drifted towards me from branches draped over the fence behind the clothesline. Daddy’ll be home in a few hours, I thought, and pressed my lips together. That uneasy-butterfly-feeling began in the pit of my stomach as it did every day around 5:30.

Everything changed when Daddy came home in the evenings. Then I felt as if I was waiting in the chair at the dentist office where the sound of drilling cavities always gave me the heebie jeebies.

Secret Agent #1

TITLE: Big Bright Thing
GENRE: Adult Contemporary Women’s Fiction

  The children were crying again. I shoved the pizza bagels in the toaster and rushed to the living room, afraid of what I’d find-a limb tangled in a chair leg, a head bleeding from an impact with the corner of a table. 

    But Judith and Pomona were just tugging on either side of a tablet, crying over who got to choose which app to play. 

    I took the tablet away. The crying intensified. 

    “When we fight, we lose screen privileges,” I said. 

    “That’s not fair!” said Pomona. “I was playing with it, and she took it from me!” 

    As wrong as it was to punish Pomona for something her sister allegedly did, I couldn’t reward her for having a tug-of-war with a two-year-old. “She’s only two,” I said. “She doesn’t know better.” 

    “She knows better! She’s smiling!” 

    I turned around to see Judith’s face switch from an amused smile to raging tears. “Judith, I see you’re upset, but you can’t take things from your sister.” Her crying increased in volume, drowned out only by the fire alarm that started blaring in the kitchen. 

    I pushed past the girls and ran to the kitchen expecting to find a wall combusting from some sort of internal electrical fire, but it was only the toaster oven, emitting black smoke from where the cheese had melted off the bagels and hit the heating coils. 

    I pulled out the bagels. They had a grey tinge on top. 



 

Secret Agent Submissions One Week From Today

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SECRET AGENT CONTEST -- Coming Up!

Hello, writing friends!

Submissions for our next Secret Agent Contest are 3 weeks from yesterday (where has the summer gone?). Here's everything you need to know:

(Please note: This is NOT the call for submissions! The contest will open on Monday, August 24.)

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*To enter, please use THE SUBMISSION FORM HERE.
*THIS WILL BE A LOTTERY: The submission window will be open from NOON to 6:00 PM EDT, after which the bot will randomly select 50 entries.
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* You may submit A DIFFERENT MANUSCRIPT if you've participated in any previous Secret Agent contests in the past year.
* Only ONE ENTRY per person per contest. If you send more than one, your subsequent entry(ies) will be rejected.
* Submissions are for THE FIRST 250 WORDS of your manuscript. Please do not stop in the middle of a

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As always, there is no fee to enter the Secret Agent contest.

This month's contest will include the following genres:

MG and YA Historical Fiction

MG  and YA Fantasy

MG and YA Narrative Nonfiction

MG and YA Epistolary

Adult Upmarket (NO genre fiction--high fantasy, romance, etc.)

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