Announcing the March 1st 5 Pages Workshop with Mentor Tracy Deebs

Note: The workshop is full! We'll post the entries on Monday at noon. Even if you didn't make it into the workshop, please do come by and critique, lurk, and learn from Tracy! It's a great opportunity to apply lessons learned from other manuscripts.

Our April workshop will be mentored by Lauren Bjorkman and will open for entries on April 6th.

Martina

Sadly, our February workshop is over. The participants all did amazing work. Seriously, the transformations on some of these pages left me speechless. Thanks so much to the fabulous Nikki Loftin for being such a wonderful mentor! And as always, thanks to Lisa Gail Green, who always knows exactly what to say and how to get to the heart of the problem to help coax out the best in a WIP.

And hey, did you hear the news? Tiffany Johnson from our December Workshop signed with an agent and is already out on sub with her manuscript after tuning up her pages, and Lori Goldstein from the January Workshop has just followed suit. Lori's manuscript also just made it to the top ten in our Pitch +250 contest, along with Dana Edwards, another workshop veteran. Woot!!!!! Congrats to them all!


ABOUT TRACY DEEBS - MARCH MENTOR

Tracy collects books, English degrees and lipsticks and has been known to forget where—and sometimes who—she is when immersed in a great novel. At six she wrote her first short story—something with a rainbow and a prince—and at seven she forayed into the wonderful world of girls lit with her first Judy Blume novel. From the first page of that first book, she knew she’d found her life-long love. Now a writing instructor at her local community college, Tracy writes YA novels that run the gamut from dark mermaids and witches to kissing clubs and techno-Armageddon stories… and she still has a soft spot for Judy Blume.

Ready to learn more? Visit Tracy on her website and follow her on Twitter.

Tempest Unleashed

by Tracy Deebs

Tempest Maguire is happy with her decision to embrace her mermaid nature and live among her mother’s clan within the ocean’s depths. Even though training to one day ascend the throne for the aging mermaid queen is rigorous, she finds refuge in the arms of Kona, the selkie who first opened her up to her mermaid side. But when word comes that one of her brothers has been gravely injured on land, Tempest immediately rushes to his side—which also brings her back to her old flame, Mark. And in her absence, a deadly battle begins raging at the hands of Tempest’s old nemesis, the sea witch Tiamat. As the dangerous war erupts, Tempest’s two loves—Kona and Mark, sea and land—will collide for the first time, both to protect her and to force her to choose.

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Doomed

by Tracy Deebs

Beat the game. Save the world.

Pandora’s just your average teen, glued to her cell phone and laptop, surfing Facebook and e-mailing with her friends, until the day her long-lost father sends her a link to a mysterious site featuring twelve photos of her as a child. Unable to contain her curiosity, Pandora enters the site, where she is prompted to play her favorite virtual-reality game, Zero Day. This unleashes a global computer virus that plunges the whole world into panic: suddenly, there is no Internet. No cell phones. No utilities, traffic lights, hospitals, law enforcement. Pandora teams up with handsome stepbrothers Eli and Theo to enter the virtual world of Zero Day. Simultaneously, she continues to follow the photographs from her childhood in an attempt to beat the game and track down her father, her one key to saving the world as we know it. Part The Matrix, part retelling of the Pandora myth, Doomed has something for gaming fans, dystopian fans, and romance fans alike.

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Final February Workshop Revisions Posted and March Workshop Announcment

The final revisions are posted for our February workshop mentored by the fabulous Nikki Loftin! Scroll down to see the changes and let the writers know what you think. What have they done well? What could still stand a bit of improvement or focus?

Have a manuscript you'd like to whip into shape? Our March Workshop will open for entries at noon on March 2nd. Our March mentor will be the marvelous Tracy Deebs. Want to learn more?

Read the Workshop Rules

ABOUT TRACY DEEBS - MARCH MENTOR

Tracy collects books, English degrees and lipsticks and has been known to forget where—and sometimes who—she is when immersed in a great novel. At six she wrote her first short story—something with a rainbow and a prince—and at seven she forayed into the wonderful world of girls lit with her first Judy Blume novel. From the first page of that first book, she knew she’d found her life-long love. Now a writing instructor at her local community college, Tracy writes YA novels that run the gamut from dark mermaids and witches to kissing clubs and techno-Armageddon stories… and she still has a soft spot for Judy Blume.

Ready to learn more? Visit Tracy on her website and follow her on Twitter.


ABOUT NIKKI LOFTIN - FEBRUARY MENTOR

Nikki Loftin is the debut author of THE SINISTER SWEETNESS OF SPLENDID ACADEMY (Razorbill, 2012), which Publishers Weekly called “a mesmerizing read,” and Kirkus Reviews called “deliciously scary and satisfying.”

Nikki’s short children’s fiction has appeared in Boy’s Life and Pockets magazines, among others. She also writes literary fiction, poetry, and essays for adults, and has been published in numerous literary journals and anthologies. Her essay will be included in the upcoming anthology, Dear Teen Me: Authors Write Letters to Their Teen Selves (Zest books, Nov. 2012). Nikki is represented by Suzie Townsend of New Leaf Literary Agency.

Nikki enjoys public speaking, and served as keynote speaker at the Houston Writer’s Guild conference in the spring of 2012, as well as a presenter at libraries, SCBWI conferences and meetings, and various panels and workshops throughout the year. She is an active member of the Austin SCBWI, the Writer’s League of Texas, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA), and the Junior League of Austin.

Her home on the web is www.nikkiloftin.com.

ABOUT THE SINISTER SWEETNESS OF SPLENDID ACADEMY

“A mesmerizing read…a fantasy that feels simultaneously classic and new.”—Publishers Weekly

“A pinch of Grimm, a dash of Greek mythology and a heaping helping of fresh chills make for an irresistible contemporary fairy tale…Deliciously scary and satisfying.”--Kirkus

Lorelei is bowled over by Splendid Academy--Principal Trapp encourages the students to run in the hallways, the classrooms are stocked with candy dishes, and the cafeteria serves lavish meals featuring all Lorelei's favorite foods. But the more time she spends at school, the more suspicious she becomes. Why are her classmates growing so chubby? And why do the teachers seem so sinister?

It's up to Lorelei and her new friend Andrew to figure out what secret this supposedly splendid school is hiding. What they discover chills their bones--and might even pick them clean!

Mix one part magic, one part mystery, and just a dash of Grimm, and you've got the recipe for a cozy-creepy read that kids will gobble up like candy.

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1st 5 Pages February Workshop - Nolen Rev 2

Rebecca Nolen
Historical Fantasy/Middle Grade
The Dry /revision two
September 1895

Chapter One

There was a lot of dark in the house in Jeffersonville, Virginia, several long halls, lots of doorways, and countless deep corners. Shadows lurked like monsters waiting to pounce until morning light shattered them.
Elliot Sweeney liked mornings. He spread his arms to embrace the sun's warmth. He picked up the photograph he had unearthed last night, buried beneath rodent-soaked newsprint in an old cupboard crammed between other discards that shared the attic with him. Who was the boy next to his Uncle Nat? If it was his long lost cousin, why was his picture hidden in the attic?
He pushed the photo into a pocket. Then he gathered string, his favorite marble, a compass, and an empty fountain pen, and put them in other pockets.
He folded his father's letter and put it in an inside pocket, next to his heart.
He had a lot of pockets.
The skitter-scratch of tiny claws on wood made his skin creep. His father told him creaks and groans were natural to an old house. But when his father left for the newspaper assignment several months ago, the creaks and groans grew to a clodhopping clatter that could not be natural.
Now, he made it his business to leave the house every day, and stay away all day.
He tip-toed down the stairs. As he approached his uncle's study door he heard the 'clink' 'clink' 'clink' of coins and the low mutterings of Uncle Nat counting his money. As he reached the landing, the study door opened behind him. He turned to face his uncle.
The old man peered down at him. "Why are you still here?"
"My father hasn't returned."
"Is that my fault?"
"No, sir, but -"
"Never mind! I'm busy." His uncle shut the door.
Elliot stared at the closed door. He didn't understand. He would never understand. He ran the rest of the way down the stairs.
In the kitchen he filled his father's army-issue canteen with water, and a glass besides.
The back door opened. The cook arrived, dabbing sweat from her red face. She motioned him nearer. "Is today one of your business days?"
"Yes, ma-am."
She took a small loaf of bread from the pantry and handed it to him. He stuffed it in a pocket and said, "Thank you."
She put a finger to her mouth. "You know not to disturb your uncle."
He nodded and watched her pull something from her apron. She grabbed his empty hand, put a wad of paper money in his palm and curled his fingers around it. She bent close and whispered, "For new shoes. Twelve-year-old boys are growing boys."
How had she known he needed new shoes? He pulled her close enough to smell the tar soap she used and said in her ear, "I'll pay you back."
Her eyes were wet as she shooed him away with her apron.
The front door closed behind him with a sound like a sigh. He clambered down the plank steps to the sapling he worked to keep alive in the deathly dry. Something squirmed at his feet. It was a fishing worm twisting in the dust. He picked it up and laid it under a leaf at the base of his little tree and dumped the water from his glass over it.
"You saved that worm," the man's voice startled Elliot.
He looked up at the gawky man smiling down at him from the other side of the yard's iron fence. Everyone in town thought Morgan Johns was simple. They called him a changeling, but Elliot liked him so he said, "No use in letting something like that die."
"This dry 's just about killin' ever-thing."
"I reckon."
"I got somethin'." The man held out a shiny watch case. "Here."
"I can't take that off you."
"It's mine so I can give it to you."
Elliot shook his head. "But why?"
"I see you go down to the station ever day waitin' for yer paw. You gonna need this watch. Open it."
Elliot took the watch. He popped the case open. All the dials and levers clicked and turned inside the crystal of the watch face. It ticked loudly. But the watch ran backward. It was just about the strangest but most beautiful thing he'd ever seen. He looked up at Morgan John's smooth face, the way his eyelids blinked slow over large eyes, the glint of silver in his mouth.
The man nodded. "Can you read the time on it?"
"It says eight o'clock."
"See? I can too. We about the only two people in the world, I reckon, can tell its time. So you take it."
"Maybe. Okay. Just today."
"You goin' to the station?"
"The train's due at nine. Might be early. Sometimes is."
"Okay. See you again, Elliot Sweeney."
Morgan Johns left with his long awkward strides towards the other side of the dirt road. Mule-drawn wagons swayed past. Some loads were the size of small houses. Dust billowed, floating like a red haze. When he looked again, Morgan Johns was gone.
He took off for the station, his mouth dry already. He kicked at small pebbles. He couldn't give in to thirst. The water in the canteen had to last all day. A messenger in an old uniform hurried past. He hoped what news he carried wasn't bad. He would never forget the telegram. Sam Sweeney disappeared, it read. Disappeared. Just like the children he went looking for. His stomach hurt thinking about it still. This marked the ninety-first day since he began his vigil. The ninety-second since his father left.
But something strange took a-hold of him this morning. He had a feeling deep inside where it mattered most that today would be different.
The station looked empty. That meant he had time before the train's arrival to read the newspaper's headlines. It was good to practice reading. He crossed the platform to the news stand. He spotted a drawing of his father's face on the front page. His heart did a double-time thump. Why? He read the caption:
SEARCH ABANDONED ~ For missing Newspaper man ~Well-known for his Campaign Against CHILD LABOR

The approaching train whistled and whooshed into the station bringing with it every kind of dust and dry from fourteen counties around. Elliot stared at the line of cars, listened to the huffing train engine, sucked in the throat-drying diesel smoke. No! Not even if every human on the face of this old earth gave up on his father, he would not! He would find his father.


With a lump the size of a fist in his throat, he bought a ticket and boarded

1st 5 Pages February Workshop - Balter Rev 2

Name: Steve Balter
Genre: YA Contemporary 14 & up
Title: I WISH I COULD FLY

I wish I could fly.

Maybe if I just close my eyes tight enough. Maybe then I can run away, fly away.

I try.

I squeeze so hard I think they might burst.

But I can’t escape−−−the smell, the heat, the flesh.

They’re so damn heavy.

They smother me.

He smothers me.

The metal bedframe creaks in rhythm and I focus on the beat, plead for it to quicken, to signal that the end is near.

A drip of sweat hits my shoulder, violating me in a way that somehow feels worse. I try to tilt, to let it run, to get it off of me. I can’t, and it burns a hole in my skin.

“Do you like it, Baby?”

I wonder if he has a daughter. Does he call her Baby, too?

I hear a siren in the distance. It gets louder, closer. I can see the glow from the blue and red lights as they speed by outside the motel window. They don’t stop for me.

He shudders, and it’s over.

He rolls off, and I can breathe.

He gets dressed, and I can live.

He throws money on the nightstand, and I can eat.

The door slams shut and I lie still, staring up at the cracked ceiling that blocks my view to heaven. I wonder what it’s like.

I guess now I’ll never know.

#######

I curl up on the green sofa at The Beat Coffeehouse on Fremont, the same as I have every morning for the past eight months, but it’s not the same. Nothing’s the same. Even the coffee tastes different, more acidic. Everyone’s staring at me, judging me like there’s a fire-branded ‘W’ on my forehead:

W-HORE.

I grab my knees and pull tight, get as small as I can. The shame feels too familiar−−−and this time I deserve it. My dad used to tell me I deserved it then, but I knew he was lying. I can’t lie to myself.

“Annie, you okay?”

Beth, one of the waitresses, is standing in front of me. I realize I’ve been crying, “Yeah,” I say.

“You sure?” Her silver eyebrow piercing catches a glint of light as it lifts.

“Yeah, thanks.”

Beth hands me a napkin and turns away. She walks over to a table nearby and places her hand on the shoulder of the guy sitting there.

“Can I get you anything else?” she asks. Her hand squeezes, just a little.

He smiles at her in a way that makes me sure her tip just got bigger.

I duck my head and open my Webster’s dictionary. It’s one of the only things I brought with me when I ran away. My handwriting is on the inside cover and the looping script looks so innocent. I was twelve when I wrote it. I can still hear my seventh grade teacher, Ms. Mahoney, lecturing us: “A strong vocabulary is the foundation for success. The words you choose define you. So choose them wisely.”

I believed her then, and I’ve studied every day since, building my foundation for success. But right now, I’m not sure anymore, about anything. I flip to a random page. One word sticks out: Alone. What are the odds of opening to that page? One in two hundred and twenty-nine actually, point four three percent.

Alone: adjective \ə-ˈlōn\, separated from others.

Here’s a new definition for you, Merriam.

Alone: noun \ə-ˈlōn\, Annie, sixteen-year-old-girl−−−mother dead, father an abusive asshole−−−living on the streets of Vegas with no friends, no money and now turning tricks to survive.

That’s frickin’ alone.

I usually spend all morning here at The Beat, but today I can’t sit still. I feel like if I keep moving maybe I can outrun my thoughts. I grab my backpack and sneak out into the dry desert heat. I walk down the sidewalk, trying to focus on the people, the cars, anything else. But I can’t stop thinking about it. And damn it, I can’t stop crying. It’s kind of ridiculous. I mean seriously, what did I expect?

The money, seventy-five lousy bucks, is folded up in my front pocket and the corner digs into my thigh with each step. It disgusts me. Are his fingerprints still on it? I think for a moment about throwing it in the trashcan on the corner. But I need it. And that would make what I did even worse.

I head north on Las Vegas Boulevard, following my normal route to the public library. It’s a great place to get out of the midday heat, to get lost in the stacks, and the stories. I love to read; to be transported to different places, different times. I turn the corner and stop for a second, looking up at the stone building. The front steps are like St. Peter, guarding the Pearly Gates.

Sugar is sitting on the top one, waiting for me, her plastic platform shoes on the step next to her.

“You’re early, Sweetness,” she says.

“I know.”

It’s true. I usually get here around lunchtime, but it’s only 10:30. Sugar knows me so well. I met her not too long after I got to Vegas. She’s the only person I trust.

“It’s not like you.” She smiles and her gold teeth reflect the unfiltered sun.

I flop down next to her and throw my pack to the side. “No, it’s not.”

She reaches over and takes my face in her hands, turning it toward her.

“You been cryin’?” Her calluses scratch against my cheeks and the tips of her long fingernails rest on my temples.

“Yeah.”

“What for?”

It’s a simple question. But the answer seems so complicated. My lip quivers. I feel the tears well up and then Sugar’s face blurs. I blink and they run down my cheeks.

“I… I did it last night. I needed the money.”

“Oh, Sweetness.”

I collapse into her arms and she grabs me−−−holds me so tight I melt into her body. Her soft lips kiss the top of my head.

I’m shaking, tears pouring out of me.

“I’m so sorry, Sugar. Oh God, I’m so sorry.”

She cradles me, rocking me back and forth like a little baby.

“Me too, Child. Sweet Jesus, me too.”

1st 5 Pages February Workshop - Mezher Rev 2

Name: Helene Mezher
Genre: YA Science Fiction
Title: Untitled

Eighteen-year-old prodigy Edge Gray should have had no problem deciphering the maps. Scattered on the desk, they showed the known half of the planet in beautiful cartographer calligraphy that, unfortunately, tested Edge's control. Her hands shook, and strands of hair clung to the sweat on her cheeks. She handled dangerous chemicals in her research. Each night, she snuck through the Dome without a scratch. Surely she could analyze these symbols and trace her mother's location.

Her thoughts stalled when she heard a familiar assured step. "I'm in the back," she said as the pressure in her chest lessened. "Grab gloves and get your ass over here!"

"Well, well, what's the junkie up to now?" Sage said, his teasing tone echoing through her empty house. As the thump of his boots neared, Edge pasted a smile on her face--not just for him; pretense calmed her frayed nerves. Then she returned to work, reminded of her creed.

She did not deal in personal truths or unwieldy emotions. She dealt in hard facts and cold observations, and her mother's desk was a mess of paper and pens and cracked computer screens. There was a lot of data to organize.

Some seconds passed before a droll voice said, "No death-defying activities tonight, E? I'm shocked. So, so shocked."

Sage leaned against the front of the desk, his arms crossed. When Edge was younger and her mother less in demand, August would tell her stories about Earth. One involved an iceberg with a fourth of its mass floating on the ocean, and the rest hidden to those who passed. Sage was that iceberg: tall and lean but undoubtedly present, saturating the room with an indelible force. She might never discover what he hid, but it didn't matter. He was solid and steady, and harsh and proud, and the best friend she had ever had.

"Hey, there's plenty of light left for a good run through the dome-ways. Don't discount me yet." Then worry wrenched Edge, and her grin faded. "Actually that was a lie. I can't tonight. I... She's gone, Sage."

Without hesitation, he secured his spot at her side and observed her in that frozen way he had, gaze fixed and no muscle twitching. Sometimes his attention bothered her, so she would return his look. You want people to stop? Stare at them until they focus elsewhere. In her experience, most people seemed uncomfortable with being caught, judgment so clear in their eyes. Sage was no exception, though he tried to withhold his opinions until she asked for them.

Tonight Edge welcomed his looks, his observation. His presence was instant comfort, a warmth that erased the dread of absence.

He cleared his throat. "What happened?"

Gratitude filled her; he knew which questions to ask. "I tried calling, but the connection failed. I... All I could hear was static. Like her ear bud was damaged, and there's only noise left."

"Did you try tracking the IP address?"

"Nothing there."

"How did the static come through?"

She shook her head.

"What about her partner? Jameson or whatever his name is?"

Edge gave him the look, which, as always, made Sage laugh. "Do you think that I would snoop through her things without having considered every possibility?"

"All right, but I know you, E, and I know that you didn't call the authorities. They're an option too." She closed her eyes when he squeezed her hand, his fingers as rough as the crystals in lab. "You work for the government, so you know they're not all bad."

"They haven't done anything for her." She took a deep breath as the weight of fear pressed on her throat. "As long as she promises to return with goodies, they're happy. When she doesn't, they send her on impossible trips. Maybe this time it was too much for her. And why should they care if she chose to stay away? Or if she was trapped somewhere? One less mouth to feed in this overcrowded shithole."

Sage sighed and rubbed her back. The friction should warm her.

It didn't.

"How many people leave the Dome? Think about it. She and her crew and who else? You're the history nerd. You know the answer. No one would risk leaving without a contingency like hers. None of them care!"

"No one can replace August Gray," he whispered.

A tear stained her cheek, stinging through the cold.

He tucked a stray strand behind her ear and waited until she met his gaze. "No one can replace you."

Her voice was small but steady. "There are only two people I trust. Am I right to include you?"

He watched her face in that still way, then her hands, which shook as she created two piles: useful and useless. "You want to leave," Sage said. "You want to find her on your own. And you want me to help."

The tear smarted at the edge of her mouth, salt lingering. It was no benediction, nothing like the twenty-year-old who stood steadfast beside her in form-fitting clothes, his wide eyes glaring and flat nose flaring. Her lips cracked when she smiled, a bittersweet pleasure. He knew her well.

"Edge," he said as he gripped her shoulders, nails digging into skin, an anchoring bite that she relished. "This is too much."

She squeezed his hands. "I know that it's arrogant, dangerous even. Stupid, too, but you're my best friend and I... I need you."

He closed his eyes, and after a few moments, he nodded.

When Sage bent over the papers, Edge could feel her pounding heart. Whether her pulse sped due to fear or excitement, she didn't know. She knew, however, that she had found her beginning. Adventure took on a form of its own making, but this time her name would inscribe its edges. The biologist would find her mother.


CHAPTER TWO:

When Sage strapped the wings to his back, he cursed the cruelty of circumstance. The metal wires were clamped to his skin. His arms dragged from the weight, but still unwelcome excitement coursed through his body. Standing on Edge's roof, he thought about the luxury of adventure. How even Edge, in her privilege, had thought nothing of handing her friend the extra wings that she and her mother had the money to buy. She had programmed them to glide toward his house with a smile as bright as her orange highlights. For her, little was wrong or out of place. Circumstance was cruel, yes, but not as cruel as the dream that he lost; the hope that ignorance provided. Sage tried not to dwell on the past, but historians were saddled with that blessing. Historians, he mused, and his family.

"Hey, you. You." Edge punched him in the shoulder. He gave her his best dry stare, and she grinned. "No frowning, Sage rage. If I'm not brooding, you can't either."

"Am I brooding? I didn't realize."

"Your sarcasm doesn't fool me. I know you're excited. I can smell the hormones. Mmm, you smell good."

He blinked. "You can't smell adrenaline."

"Maybe I'm a superhuman soldier with super strength and speed and senses. Maybe I'm an android." She paused. "Or, if you want to be boring, I could just have more olfactory receptors than you. Did you consider that? No? No? How disappointing, my friend."

"Remind me why we're friends."

She laughed and started skipping in circles around him. He knew that she was thrilled about their clue, about the prospect his brother presented, but her energy still astounded him. It was almost as if she were overcompensating for earlier.

1st 5 Pages February Workshop - Carroll Rev 2

Name: Kessie Carroll
Genre: YA urban fantasy
Title: Storm Chase

Carda was already in a bad mood. Getting mugged made it worse. But totaling his car put the finishing touches on a really bad day.

It was almost summer break, and his college professors had piled homework on the freshmen. When Carda would rather be outside driving his newest RC car, or playing videogames under the air conditioning, instead he had to spend endless hours writing essays and researching topics for his English major. Most of his grade hinged on a research paper, and even his chosen topic, the history of race cars, couldn't improve the grind.

May in Phoenix, Arizona was already hot enough to kill. Carda slogged out to his car with thirty pounds of books in his backpack, and heat rose from the asphalt in waves. His skin seared. Being a redhead, his skin burned easy anyway. If he didn't get skin cancer from the sun, then he'd get some other cancer from the gallons of sunscreen he'd absorbed through his pores.

As he slouched along the endless rows of cars in the Arizona State University parking lot, he noticed three guys standing around the spot where he'd parked his red Miata. Their laughter echoed across the parking lot. Carda clenched his teeth and walked a little faster. They'd better not be pranking him again--just because he was eighteen and they were all twenty-one--

One of the guys made eye contact with him and jerked his head at his friends. Rayne Mistral. He was short, thin, built like a weasel, and tormented Carda whenever possible. Rayne dashed away between the cars, and his two friends followed him.

Carda sprinted the last ten feet to his car, then swore.

They'd let the air out of both rear tires.

It took twenty minutes to limp the Miata to the nearest gas station. The car's air conditioning never cooled off with the engine running so low, and Carda's temper rose with every minute in the broiling cab. Why couldn't he be out here taking classes he wanted to take? Auto shop was his first choice, but his mother had overruled him. "You're smart, Carda. You'd thrive in a field where you use your mind. Not scraping around in the dirt in some shop somewhere."

As he refilled his tires at the air pump, his cellphone chimed. He pulled it out and glanced at a text from his sister, Michelle. "Already home. Where are you?"

"At the gas station. Don't ask." He tucked the phone in his pocket again and glanced over the Miata's roof at a pastel-green Volkswagon Beetle parked beside the pumps. A college-age girl leaned against it, fanning herself with a sun hat. From this distance she was all curves with dark hair and long, tanned legs. For some reason she wore cat ears and a tail. She looked away as soon as he lifted his head.

Carda grinned. Being ogled by a hot girl made up for the aggravation of being pranked.

Someone tapped his shoulder. Carda turned and faced a man in a black business suit and silver sunglasses that completely concealed his eyes. A suit? In hundred-degree weather?

The stranger held up one hand and curled his fingers like claws.

Carda's entire body crushed inward on itself. His arms pressed against his chest, his knees bent and he sank to the pavement. The air left his lungs in a long moan as his heart struggled in his chest. Panic and disbelief washed through him. What the heck was happening? Somehow this guy was crushing him to death without touching him!

As he fell, Carda flung himself sideways and rolled into his attacker's legs. The man shifted sideways to avoid him, and the crushing sensation lightened. Carda grabbed the man's left knee to trip him.

His hands burned.

The crushing sensation stopped. The man yelled and stumbled backward, grabbing his leg where Carda had touched him. Then he ran two steps and vanished.

Pushing himself to his hands and knees, Carda stared wildly around. How could his attacker vanish? Maybe he'd run behind the cars. The sun was in Carda's eyes and he couldn't see anyway.

As he climbed to his feet, gasping air into his compressed lungs, the girl with the ears and tail ran up. Her eyes were wide and her auburn hair flew around her face. "Oh my gosh! Are you okay?"

He flexed his arms and shook his legs. No pain. "I think I'm okay. I still have my wallet, even."

The girl spun in a circle, one hand pressed to her mouth. "I didn't see where he went. Get out of here, quick, before he comes after you again!"

"Okay, okay." Carda climbed into his car, bemused. Such a weird thing to happen, even if nothing had really come of it. But the girl's frantic terror echoed his own panic. He glanced around the gas station as he pulled out. The man in the suit had completely vanished. Freaky.

The delay getting on the road dumped Carda in the middle of the four-thirty traffic rush between Tempe and Mesa. Traffic oozed along at forty miles an hour, then slowed to ten miles an hour at the 101 junction.

The air conditioning roared comfortingly. Maneuvering through traffic, Carda pondered his weird day. How had that guy crushed him like that? Some kind of force field? Maybe he had some kind of military secret weapon. The girl had acted like she knew who he was, though. An uneasy tremor passed through his stomach. Was a killer on the loose and he'd missed it in the papers? Not like he followed the news much, but...

Traffic stopped ahead, and he slammed on his brakes. Carda's red Miata pulled up beside a white '78 Firebird, complete with bird logo on the hood. Rayne grinned at Carda from the driver's seat.

Oh, right. Carda clenched his teeth and gripped his steering wheel with both hands. As if Rayne hadn't made this school year miserable enough with his hazing--now Carda was stuck beside him on the clogged highway under the pitiless sun.

Rayne hung one arm out his window and waved his middle finger.

Carda's blood pressure spiked. He drew a deep breath and exhaled slowly. Rayne couldn't bait him into anything. Traffic would move in a minute, and he wouldn't have to look at the pathetic jerk in the muscle car anymore.

Traffic crept forward and sped up. Rayne gunned his engine, cut in front of Carda and roared away up the highway. Carda pressed his back into his seat, shifted gears and shot after him. "I'm not racing," he said aloud. "I'm accelerating to the speed limit."

1st 5 Pages February Workshop - Tulli Rev 2

Jude Tulli
YA Fantasy
Smoldering Ember

One

As a little girl I always wanted to be Princess Salandra, but now, as I hold her and her tears trickle down the back of my neck, I don't even want to be me anymore. I didn't think princesses were allowed to cry.

"I won't let anything happen to you." I don't know where the words came from, and she'd be wise not to believe them. She turned seventeen a month ago, and I'm a quarter of a year behind.

I'm not ready for any of this.

The bunker is tiny and smells like worms; a single room with a large door carved into the hillside, hidden with a layer of grass and mud and held fast with remnants of a rusted lock. I crush a handful of toadstool gills and cast them at the wall. A pale white glow throws long shadows and I snuff out the torches before the smoke venting out the top gives away our location.

I brush Salandra's hair back from her drowning brown eyes. I'm struck by the courage that wells up behind her tears, even in the midst of terror. She wants to ask, "Why me?" but she doesn't. She is far braver than I.

I shouldn't be here. I would thank my mother, but I don't expect to visit whatever wonderland the wicked inhabit in the next life. She claimed I could handle this, but then she was always pushing me into trouble. From the very first day I snapped my fingers to light a candle, she began selling my gifts for wealth and social status.

"You've never heard of Ember Ahti, the Girl with the Flaming Curls who turns gold into fire?" Mother had a way of making sure it was never her idea that they should pay. "She is tired," she would pretend to resist, and they'd offer twice as much. A big shrug to distract, a little sleight of hand and the gold went in her pocket and a few toadstool gills went foof into flames. Old money is so easy to fool.

I don't know why it surprises me that her dying wish will be the death of me, too. If only it were swift and final.

The magic light on the wall flickers and fades as if a breeze blew it out, yet the air inside is still as lead. My heart prickles and turns cold. Blackness swallows us. It's got to be darker than a world with no sun.

"What's that?" A touch of panic captures the princess' voice.

I snap to light my face and gesture for us to remain quiet, but the light doesn't come. Toadstool gills again, then, though I didn't want to use them all up so soon. They spark but refuse to glow.

Fairy dust! I burn through a few gold's worth and the dark refuses to yield. Whatever we're up against, it's got magic, too, and shadow spells to best my light.

Salandra finds me with her outstretched hands and clasps me tight. She whispers, "I don't want to die."

BOOM!

Something's tapping on the wall from outside. The princess shivers, or maybe it's me. My hands are shaking.

BOOM!

It's testing the hill, listening, I suspect, for a hollow sound. A sound like that the door will make just before the lock surrenders.

"Is there any other way out?" I try to sound like I'm not desperate. "A secret tunnel, maybe? Please say yes."

BOOM!

"Yes."

"Perfect! Where?"

"Up through the--"

BOOM!

"--ventilation shaft."

BOOM!

"It's getting closer to the door. How long can you hold your breath? Please say a minute."

"Longer. Why?"

BOOM!

"Perfect! Take a deep breath and hold it until I tell you to breathe again. If you breathe it'll break the spell." I take the princess' hand, then drop a djinni tear and smash it with my heel. Pity; I'll probably never get another one.

The princess' hands turn to smoky wisps in my wispy smoke. I stay beneath and shepherd her toward the vent above; of the two of us I suspect I've got the most experience in navigating as a puff of smoke. Mother made me do it once at a party.

BOOM! The sound of the door breaking off its hinges is unmistakable.

The princess gasps.

"Nooooooooooo!" I reach for her hands with my tendrils, but they turn back to hands too late, and she falls before me. I hit the ground and feel in all directions.

Nothing.

Hooves stomp the ground and a shrill neigh echoes through the bunker. I have to cover my ears. Whatever it is storms out, leaving me untouched but for the scrapes on my knees from the fall.

"Your Highness?" I whimper. "Please say something." I know she's gone, but I don't want to believe it. Mother was right. She's been kidnapped, and it's all my fault.

Two

The darkness recedes and I am left alone with regret. This can't be it. There must be something more I can do.

But what? Not a hoof-print to be found. Whatever it is, it covers its tracks.

Mother! She knew I would fail. She set me up to fail!

"Promise me," she said just before they found her. "Promise you'll stop the plot to kidnap a princess from each kingdom." That's what I'm supposed to do with a few parlor tricks and all that potential she never stopped blathering on about.

"Protect first," she said with that one-sided smile that meant something awful was about to happen to me but she wouldn't be there to see it. "Then rescue any you've lost. They won't hurt any until they have all." That's what Mother told me, and it's clear she knew enough to be worth killing. "Follow the kingdoms south to north and west to east," she said. "If you fail, get moving before they charge you with treason or put a bounty on your head."

When I emerge from the princess' not-so-secret-after-all bunker, I've missed the sunset but the stars lend me solace, twinkling with joy as if the world wasn't any different from a moment ago. Though there's a chill in the air, it's so much warmer than the magical night the enemy cast upon me.

I check my pockets to make sure my spell components didn't go up in smoke. Fairy dust has a way of disappearing on you when you need it most. Not that I have that much left anyway.

I rip the last eye of peacock feather from my bodice and hope they have peacocks in Quakkao as I toss it up toward the rising moon. It hisses and twists and grows into a gloriously plumed firebird.

"Lovely streaks of blue in your wings." I hop upon his crackling back and he lifts me up, high above the rolling countryside. This is the best parlor trick I know.

"If Mother was right, Quakkao is next. Princess Mercy will be in danger."

He nods and lifts me above a thin layer of cloud cover. The stars shimmer so cheerfully they lighten my heart despite my wishing I could snuff them out one by blissful one. The land below looks peaceful in the scant moonlight. Any other night I would never guess a war was brewing.

I tell the stars and earth together, "I will not lose another princess, nor will I rest until Princess Salandra is safe at home." They don't seem affected by my resolve, but it feels good to say out loud what I've been feeling since that dreadful moment the door burst open.

The firebird continues to rise and I feel lighter than air, drifting at speeds ships only know in the chaos of storms. I'm mesmerized by the sight of the treetops passing below, and I hold tight to the bird's fiery neck as I begin to nod off.

I'm not sure how long I've slept before I awake to the sensation of falling. The bird's flames spout all around me. I look down.

On the ground ahead runs a mass of pitch blackness. Flying at top speed, we're gaining!

The dark overtakes us. Even the burning form beneath flashes not a sliver of light inside my eyes. I snap my fingers. Nothing, just like last time.

"Remind me to learn some new spells if we get to Quakkao, please."

The firebird dives. It's a good thing I haven't eaten since yesterday morning or I'd lose my stomach.

"Don't attack it! Are you trying to get us killed?!"

I hold on and squeeze my useless eyes so tight I'm forced to smile.

Stomping hooves. A high-pitched neigh that makes me wish I could close my ears. The whoosh of burning wings setting fire to the air.

Something sharp pierces my thigh. Blood trickles like rain down my leg. Now it's a downpour. I'm being sucked dry!

"Up, you fool! Up! This is why I hate relying on magic!"

We speed ahead, out of range of the creature's pall of darkness. I welcome the return of the light though it stings almost as much as my wound.

"Wait! Down!" There's a boy facing the black as it hurtles toward him. He's just standing there, like a crazy person. Is he trying to get himself killed?

"Swoop!" The bird does and I grab the idiot by his armpits and he climbs up behind me as the dark overtakes us all. "Up! Faster!"

The light returns. The dark behind us slows to a stop. The enemy must need to rest, while my bird can fly all night while I sleep. Finally an advantage.

I regain some control of my nerves and lose all restraint of my tongue. "What's the matter with you?" I'm more than a little angry that he almost got himself killed, and not just because he could have gotten me killed trying to save him. "Are you blind or stupid?"

"The first one," he replied. "How about you?"

"Oh. Sorry, I didn't--you don't have a--" I turn my head to catch a look at his face. Honest nose. Kind brown eyes, which he leaves open. Guess they're good for something.

"Cane? I dropped it somewhere. It's fine; I can make a new one. . .again," he laughed, then stopped suddenly. "Do I smell blood?"

"It's nothing." I press my robe into my leg and wince not just because it hurts but because it was a new robe.

"Shouldn't I be hot? I hear the crackle of flame."

"The firebird is safe when you're with me. Magic, of course. Don't try to ride one alone."

"Good idea. Where are we going?"

"I'll drop you off with your family if they're close."

"No, but thank you. I was a burden they could no longer shoulder."

Pity. He seems about my age. Much too young to be cast out from family. "Where would you like me to take you?"

"With you."

"Out of the question! Besides, you don't want--You don't even know me, let alone where I'm going. It's too dangerous. I'd never forgive myself if you got hurt because of me."

"Sounds like a nice way of saying you don't trust me." He runs his hands along my hairline to my forehead, then lingers over my temples, rubbing. Tension melts; his touch is lighter than any healer's. He proceeds to trace the arches of my eyebrows, the outlines of my eyes, the slope of my nose that I've never before wished so hard was gentler. Even the indent between my nose and mouth, whatever it's called; I have no idea, and I can't exactly stop to think now. My heart starts to flutter when he touches my lips, and it makes no sense but I don't really want him to abandon them for my chin, though he does. "I know you now. . ."

"Ember," I finish his sentence. "Ember Ahti. I'm not sure that's all it takes to know someone, and either way, I don't know you."

"Sterling. Pleasure. What's that rider got against you, anyway?"

"That thing had a rider?!"

"Didn't you hear her whispering commands or were you too busy shouting your own? A bit obvious, aren't we? Light and noise are always less subtle than dark and silence. Wouldn't you agree?"

I don't know what to say. This is definitely a distraction I don't have time to deal with. "Wait, the rider's a her?!"

"See? You can't afford not to take me with you."

I lean back as we fly, exhausted, and he catches me and rubs my shoulders just where I hadn't even noticed they hurt. "They're headed for Princess Mercy."

"I know." Well, I'd been pretty sure up until now. Now, I know. "How do you know?"

"The rider said Salandra's been delivered and Mercy is next, and the way she said it made it sound like she has it in for the princess. You know, as opposed to making some grand plan to exercise compassion. What happened to Princess Salandra? Is she all right?"

"You can stay until the first time you cause trouble." I don't know if it's the right decision, but he's rubbing my shoulders again and it feels too good to ask him to stop. "Faster, firebird! To Quakkao."

First Revisions Posted in the February 1st 5 Pages Workshop

What a fun workshop this is! Thanks so much to the fabulous Nikki Loftin for her mentorship and guidance on the five manuscripts we're working with this month.

Want to see what a difference the comments have made and how the authors interpreted them? Jump in! We'd love to have you tell us what you think.

As always, we invite you to read along, comment, learn with us, and cheer the writers on. We've got one more round of revisions after this one though, so if you want to chime in with helpful comments, please do so by Thursday so the writers have time to revise again.

1st 5 Pages February Workshop - Tulli Rev 1

Jude Tulli
YA Fantasy
Smoldering Ember

"Some creatures belong to the night, but there is one that is the night, and it carries the dark on its back." -- Phenomena That Cannot Be Yet Are, Volume 89, p. 2,741

One

I always wanted to be Princess Salandra, but now I don't even want to be me anymore. Who would have said ten years ago that the prodigal Girl with the Flaming Curls who turns gold into fire with a wave of her hand could have failed so completely on the eve of her seventeenth birthday? No one, that's who. The taste of ashes seizes my throat and I swallow it back down, unable to stop replaying the horror in my mind.

Salandra's ocean blue eyes struck wide with panic. I'll never forget. How her tears graced my shoulder as I held her tight and promised I wouldn't let anything happen to her.

I was never ready for any of this.

My heart prickled and turned cold when darkness overtook the middle of the day. I summoned light through every sweat-flooded pore and heaved fire with each shallow breath. I used up every last bit of fairy dust and toadstool gills. Nothing penetrated the wall of pitch this whateveritwas brought.

The Thing I Could Not See tore Salandra from my embrace as she screamed and I was left a whimpering heap of failure. "Take me, too!" I shouted, "Or haven't you the gall to face a Fire Mage in the fairness of light?"

When the darkness receded, I was left alone with my regret. There must have been something more I could have done. But what? I tried to follow, but there was no trail of any kind at all.

Mother said I could handle this, but then she was always pushing me into trouble. From the very first day I snapped my fingers to light a candle, she began selling my gifts for wealth and social status. A little sleight of hand and the gold went in her pocket and a few toadstool gills went foof into flames. Old money is so easy to fool.

So it should have come as no surprise that her dying wish would be the death of me, too. If only it were swift and final.

Stop the plot to kidnap a princess from each kingdom. That's what I'm supposed to do with a few parlor tricks and all that potential Mother never stopped blathering on about. Anyone can see I'm off to a roaring start.

Protect first. Then rescue any you've lost. They won't hurt any until they have all. That's what Mother told me, and it's clear she knew enough to be worth killing. I always said we should have moved back to Littleville, but she had set her eyes on a baron if not the prince. Well look where it got us. I could have been home on the farm with a cup of warm milk and a block of aged cheese right now, hearing about this terrible news from the shepherd boy next door as his long dark hair gently lifted as the breeze swept in through the open doorway.

His face dissolves into another vision of Salandra's terror. I shake my head but I can't dispel it. Follow the kingdoms south to north and west to east, Mother said. If you fail, get moving before they put a bounty on your head.

The bitch knew I would fail. She knew and yet she made me promise!

When I emerge from the princess' not-so-secret-after-all bunker, I've missed the sunset but the stars lend me solace, twinkling with joy as if the world wasn't any different from yesterday. Though there's a chill in the air, it's so much warmer than the magical night the enemy cast upon me.

I check my pockets to make sure my reagents haven't disappeared. Not that I have any left worth mentioning.

I rip the last eye of peacock feather from my bodice and hope they have peacocks in Quakkao as I toss it up toward the rising moon. It hisses and twists and grows into a gloriously plumed firebird.

"Lovely streaks of blue in your wings." I hop upon his crackling back and he lifts me up, high above the squalid city. This is the best parlor trick I know.

"If Mother was right, Quakkao is next. Princess Mercy will be in danger."

He nods and lifts me above the cloud cover, and the stars shimmer so cheerfully they lighten my heart almost as much as I want to snuff them out one by blissful one. The land below looks peaceful in the scant moonlight. Any other night I would never guess a war was brewing.

I tell the stars and earth together, "I will not rest until Princess Salandra is safe at home." They don't seem affected by my resolve, but it felt good to say out loud what I'd been feeling since that dreadful moment.

We continue to rise, and I feel lighter than air, drifting at speeds ships only know in storms. Watching the treetops pass below is mesmerizing, and I hold tight to the bird's fiery neck as I begin to nod off.

I'm not sure how long I slept before a dream of falling awakens me. It's not just a dream; we are falling! His flames spout all around me. I look down.

Behind us on the ground runs a mass of pitch blackness. Despite our flying at top speed it's gaining.

The dark overtakes me. Even the burning form beneath flashes not a sliver of light inside my eyes. I snap my fingers. Nothing. Of course; just like last time.

"Damn it! Remind me to learn some new spells if we get to Quakkao, please."

The firebird dives. It's a good think I haven't eaten or I'd lose my stomach.

"Don't attack it! Are you trying to get us killed?!"

I hold on and squeeze my useless eyes so tight I'm forced to smile.

Stomping hooves--hooves! A brusque and guttural neigh, the whoosh of my bird's wings setting fire to the air.

Something sharp pierces my thigh, and blood trickles like rain down my leg. Now it's a downpour. I'm being sucked dry!

"Up, you fool! Up! This is why I hate relying on magic!"

I welcome the return of the light though it stings almost as much as my wound. "Wait! Down!" There's a boy facing the black as it hurtles toward him. He's just standing there, like a crazy person. Is he trying to get himself killed?

"Swoop!" The bird does and I grab the idiot by his armpits and he climbs up behind me as the dark overtakes us all. "Up! Faster!"

The light returns and I lose control of my tongue. "What's the matter with you?" I'm more than a little angry that he almost got himself killed, and not just because he could have gotten me killed trying to save him. Not that I've really noticed in the seconds I've known him, but if I had to guess I'd say he has a sense of calm about him. "Are you blind or stupid?"

"The first one," he replied. "How about you?"

"Oh. Sorry, I didn't--" I turn my head to catch a look at his face. Honest nose. Kind brown eyes, which he leaves open. Guess they're good for something.

"It's fine," he laughed. "You're bleeding!"

"It's nothing. How do you know?"

"I felt the blood on your robe when you lifted me. And shouldn't I be uncomfortably warm or something? I hear the crackle of flame and see red shadows dancing around. I'm not utterly blind; I can still sense light and dark."

"The firebird is safe when you're with me. Magic, of course. Don't try to ride one alone."

"Wasn't planning on it. So where are we going?"

"I'll drop you off with your family if they're close."

"We're not. Close. I'm a burden to them."

Pity. He seems about my age. Much too young to be cast out from family. "Then where would you like me to take you?"

"With you."

"You don't even know me, let alone where I'm going. It's too dangerous."

He runs his hands along my hairline to my forehead, then lingers over my temples, rubbing. Tension melts; his touch is lighter than any healer's. He proceeds to trace the arches of my eyebrows, the outlines of my eyes, the slope of my nose that I've never before wished so hard was gentler. Even the indent between my nose and mouth, whatever it's called; I have no idea, and I can't exactly stop to think now. My heart starts to flutter when he touches my lips, and it makes no sense but I don't really want him to abandon them for my chin, though he does. "I know you now. . ."

"Ember," I finish his sentence. "Ember Ahti. I'm not sure that's all it takes to know someone, and either way, I don't know you."

"Sterling. Pleasure. What's that rider got against you, anyway?"

"Rider? How do you know there was a rider?"

"Didn't you hear her whispering commands or were you too busy shouting your own? A bit obvious, aren't we? Light and noise are always less subtle than dark and silence. Wouldn't you agree?"

I don't know what to say. This is definitely a distraction I don't have time to deal with.

"See? You can't afford not to take me with you."

I lean back as we fly, exhausted, and he catches me and rubs my shoulders just where I hadn't even noticed they hurt. "They're headed for Princess Mercy."

"I know." Well, I'd been pretty sure up until now.

Now, I know. Lucky for us, we seem to be faster. "Fly onward, firebird!" I shout, then remember the mysterious rider probably has ears.

I can whisper, too. "To Quakkao."

1st 5 Pages February Workshop - Mezher Rev 1

NAME: Helene Mezher
Genre: YA Science Fiction
Title: Untitled

Eighteen-year-old Edge, budding scientist and indeterminate prodigy, was claimed by the promise of adventure. It stalked her every waking thought, her every late-night craving. Adrenaline pulsed through her veins. When she discovered an unknown molecule, her first thoughts ran to the possibilities it offered. When she traveled home via the Light Generators, she wished that she could feel their tremendous speed. And when darkness descended on her domed shelter, she thrilled. On most nights, darkness marked the time to play, to explore.

Tonight, it marked the time to worry.

Unfortunately, sorting the papers on the desk was proving more difficult than she thought. It was too easy to lose herself in the markings. Terra incognita, one map said, in that cartographer calligraphy, highlighting half of the planet. The rest was covered with the rivers and valleys that her mother had found on her previous missions. Edge could analyze the chemical composition of the maps, but no lab test would tell her where August Gray was or why their ear bud connection had failed.

Her thoughts stalled when she heard a familiar assured step. "I'm in the back," she said as the pressure in her chest lessened. "Grab gloves and get your ass over here!"

"Well, well, what's the junkie up to now?" Sage said, his teasing tone floating through the house. Edge returned to her work with a sad smile.

If Edge was honest with herself, she might admit to the curiosity that August inspired as a famous traveler. She might admit to the hurt that their separation evoked. Despite her best efforts at avoidance, that reality persisted; missing her mother and wishing that she could accompany August on her government sponsored trips. But Edge did not deal in personal truths or unwieldy emotions. She dealt in hard facts and cold observations, and her mother's desk was a mess of paper and pens and cracked computer screens. There was a lot of data to organize.

Some seconds passed before a droll voice said, "No death-defying activities tonight, E? I'm shocked. So, so shocked."

Sage leaned against the front of the desk, his arms crossed. When Edge was younger and her mother less in demand, August would tell her stories about Earth. One involved an iceberg with a fourth of its mass floating on the cold ocean, and the rest hidden to those who passed. Sage was that iceberg: tall and lean but undoubtedly present, saturating the room with an indelible force. She might never discover what he hid, but it didn't matter because he was solid and steady, and harsh and proud, and the best friend she had ever had.

"Hey, there's plenty of light left for a good run through the dome-ways. Don't discount me yet." Then worry wrenched Edge, and her grin faded. "Actually that was a lie. I can't tonight. I... She's gone, Sage."

Without hesitation, he secured his spot at her side and observed her in that frozen way he had, gaze fixed and no muscle twitching. Sometimes his attention bothered her, so she would look at him, really and truly look. You want people to stop? Stare at them until they shift and adjust and focus elsewhere. In her experience, most people seemed uncomfortable with being caught, judgment so clear in their eyes. Sage was no exception, though he tried to withhold his opinions until she asked for them.

Tonight Edge welcomed his looks, his observation. His presence was instant comfort, a warmth that erased the dread of absence.

He cleared his throat. "What happened?"

Gratitude filled her; he knew which questions to ask. "The connection failed. I... We... All I could hear was static. Like her ear bud was damaged, and there's only noise left."

"Did you try tracking the IP address?"

"Nothing there."

"How did the static come through?"

She shook her head.

"What about her partner? Jameson or whatever his name is?"

Edge gave him the look, which, as always, made Sage laugh. "Do you think that I would snoop through her things without having considered every possibility?"

"All right, but I know you, E, and I know that you didn't call the authorities. They're an option too." She closed her eyes when he squeezed her hand; so small, so childish and naive within his. "You work for the government, so you know they're not all bad."

"They haven't done anything good for her." She took a deep breath as the weight of fear pressed on her throat. "As long as she promises to return with goodies, they're happy. When she doesn't, they send her on impossible trips to find ridiculous crap. Maybe this time it was too much for her. And why should they care if she chose to stay away? Or if she was trapped somewhere? One less mouth to feed in this overcrowded shithole."

Sage rubbed the small of her back and sighed.

"How many people leave the dome? Think about it. She and her crew and who else? You're the history nerd. You know the answer. You know no one would risk leaving without a contingency like hers. None of them care!"

"No one can replace August Gray," he whispered.

A tear marred her cheek.

He tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear and waited until she returned his gaze. "No one can replace you."

Her voice was small but steady. "There are only two people I trust. Am I right to include you?"

He watched her face in that still way, then her hands, which shook as she created two piles: useful and useless. "You want to leave," Sage said. "You want to find her on your own. And you want me to help."

The tear reached the edge of her mouth. It was no benediction, nothing like the twenty-year-old who stood steadfast beside her in form-fitting clothes, slanted eyes glaring and wide nose flaring as he sought her response. Her lips cracked when she smiled. He knew her well.

"Edge," he said as he gripped her shoulders. "This is too much."

She joined their hands and squeezed. "I know that it's arrogant, dangerous even. Stupid, too, but you're my best friend and I... I need you."

He closed his eyes, and after a few moments, he nodded.

When Sage bent over the papers, his body taut next to hers, Edge could feel her pounding heart. Whether her pulse sped due to fear or excitement, she didn't know. What she knew was that she had found her beginning. Adventure took on a form of its own making, but this time her name would inscribe its edges. This time she would find her mother.

CHAPTER TWO:

When Sage strapped the wings to his back, he cursed the cruelty of circumstance. The metal wires were clamped to his skin. His arms dragged from the attached weight, but he could feel the unwelcome excitement coursing through his body. Standing on Edge's roof, he thought about the luxury of adventure. How even Edge, in her privilege, had thought nothing of handing her friend the extra wings that she and her mother had the money to buy. She had programmed them to glide toward his house with a smile as bright as her orange highlights. For her, little was wrong or out of place. Circumstance was cruel, yes, but not as cruel as the dream that he once lost; the dream of false hope. Sage tried not to dwell on the past, but historians were saddled with that blessed burden. Historians, he mused, and his family.

1st 5 Pages Workshop - Carroll Rev 1

Name: Kessie Carroll
Genre: YA urban fantasy
Title: Storm Chase

Carda never intended to total his car.

The drive home from college seemed normal enough--Pheonix traffic always snarled up at the 202 interchange.

Carda drummed his fingers on the steering wheel and whipped from lane to lane. His red Miata was so much fun--like driving a go-kart. And the other guys kidded him about a Miata being a girls' car. No way, man. He was six feet tall and built like a bouncer--he could drive whatever car he liked.

Rayne Mistral's jibes stung the worst, though. "Is that your latest addition to your Hot Wheels set? Or is it a purse on wheels?"

Carda gritted his teeth. Little jerk. It was a good thing he never went in for physical violence. Although a sound whipping in a road race might show Rayne whose car was superior.

The image of his mother's disapproving face flickered in his mind's eye. "Carda, don't race your car on the highway anymore. No mother should have to bury her son." Guilt crept through him. He wasn't racing at the moment, was he? He was poking along through traffic, only changing lanes every few minutes.

As traffic slowed to a crawl, he pulled up beside a white vintage Firebird. Rayne's car. They made eye contact. Rayne sneered and threw Carda a one-fingered salute.

With a surge of temper to match his red hair, Carda held up three fingers and mouthed, "Read between the lines!"

Rayne revved his engine and bumped the pastel-green Beetle ahead of him. The driver looked over her shoulder, eyes wide. She was a cute brunette Carda's age, and the expression on her face filled Carda with protective rage. Nobody treated a cute girl like that and got away with it.

Rayne jerked his head at Carda.

"Oh, you wanna race?" Carda scanned traffic down the road. They'd almost passed the exit and in the distance the traffic jam was breaking up.

Rayne bumped the Beetle again. The girl inside it shot Carda a pleading look.

"Knock it off!" he yelled at Rayne, although his windows were rolled up. "You're scaring her to death!"

Rayne laughed and cut in front of him, nearly scraping the Miata's bumper. Carda hammered the horn and stomped the brake. Rayne would pay for that.

Traffic turned from thick sludge to a fast-flowing river. The Firebird shot away up the highway. Carda shifted into third gear, then fourth, eyes never leaving the Firebird's taillights. The Miata's engine screamed.

The Firebird caught up to three semi trucks passing one another, creating a rolling roadblock. Rayne had to slow down. Carda nudged alongside him and waved. Rayne snarled. They drove side by side, watching the trucks, hovering, ready to dive for the first opening.

The girl's Beetle drew up behind Carda. He glanced at her in the rearview mirror. She crouched over the steering wheel and stared back at him.

Was she wearing cat ears? Carda glanced over his shoulder. Sure enough. She was either a weirdo or incredibly hot.

Taking advantage of Carda's distraction, Rayne cut between the Miata and the Beetle. The girl slammed her brakes and honked. Carda swore.

The Firebird's bumper slammed into the Miata's fender.

The lightweight Miata spun out and skidded across two lanes. Panic adrenaline flooded Carda as he fought the steering wheel. Crap! He was totally roadkill!

An SUV smashed into the Miata. Additional horror kicked Carda in the gut as the car rolled and crumpled around him. Metal bent and glass shattered. The noise was terrifying. Oh crap I'm dead I'm dead--

A semi hit the Miata like a freight train. The car flew into the air, cleared the roofs of three other cars, and plunged toward the pavement. Carda clung to the steering wheel with every muscle in his body. I don't wanna die I don't wanna die!

Carda's palms burned.

The approaching road halted a foot from his windshield. Carda hung upside-down, teeth clenched. He had time to notice the seatbelt digging into his shoulder and stomach, and the multiple throbbing pains where he'd struck the car. Glass plinked from the shattered windshield to the road below.

He must be dead and his brain had stopped. That must be why everything had turned purple. Weren't there supposed to be angels when a person died? Or a bright light? Carda glanced around. No angels, but lightning danced over the frozen cars. Was there lightning in Heaven, or was that a Hell thing?

The road retreated from the windshield, which smoothed over and became solid glass again. The Miata slowly turned over and sank back to the road in its proper lane. The other cars ran backward up the freeway and the Firebird swung back onto his tail. Everything moved slowly, dream-like. Carda gasped long, deep breaths.

Still alive, then. He must have a concussion.

The purple tint and lightning faded away, and the world sprang back into motion. Again Rayne's Firebird cut between the Beetle and the Miata. This time Carda floored the gas before Rayne could clip him, and the Firebird fell behind.

Carda kept driving, scanning his mirrors, heart thundering in his chest. No wreck. Was this real?

Carda deserted the freeway at the next off-ramp. He dropped into a random Phoenix neighborhood composed of two-story houses and gravel yards sprinkled with acacia trees. There he parked at a curb and sat trembling, running both hands through his red hair. He checked his face in the rearview mirror. Green eyes stared back at him, glazed with shock, but there were no bruises. Good grief. Even if he hadn't been in a wreck, something had happened to him.

Carda opened the door, climbed into the desert sun and stood still as his stomach threatened to evacuate its contents. But after a moment the discomfort subsided and he slowly circled his car. It was a Mazda Miata MX-5 Roadster--his first love. No damage marred the body's perfect curves. He leaned against the passenger door and rubbed his face. Encroaching insanity, that's what it was.

Footsteps scraped on the sidewalk. Carda glanced up. A man in a black business suit and silver sunglasses stood on the sidewalk. Heck, in this neighborhood, suits were probably required dress. Where had he come from, anyway?

Carda straightened up. "Sorry, I only parked here for a minute."

The stranger slammed his thumbs into Carda's temples.

Carda yelped and fell against his car. Cold fingers dug into his skin and Carda's eyes threatened to pop from their sockets. Electricity sparked through his head, and for some reason an image of the lightning around his car flashed through his mind. Carda's muscles twitched and turned to water. He grabbed the man's wrists as he sank to the ground.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, Carda wanted to laugh in disbelief. First that terrible non-wreck, now a mugger. A sense of unreality drifted over him. This couldn't be happening.

Electricity jolted down Carda's arms, and his palms flashed with searing heat.

The man swore and let go.

Carda's arms fell to his sides. He sat against his car with colored spots swimming before his eyes. His head throbbed and a smell of chlorine invaded his sinuses. Slowly the world swam back into focus.

His attacker had disappeared.

Carda dragged himself to his feet, shaking his head. Home sounded like a really great place to be right now. Home--where he could hide.

1st 5 Pages Workshop - Balter Rev 1

Name: Steve Balter
Genre: YA contemporary 14 & up
Title: I WISH I COULD FLY

I wish I could fly.

Maybe if I just close my eyes tight enough. Maybe then I can run away, fly away.

I try.

I squeeze so hard I think they might burst.

But I can’t escape---the smell, the heat, the flesh.

They’re so damn heavy.

They smother me.

He smothers me.

The metal bedframe creaks in rhythm and I focus on the beat, plead for it to quicken, to signal that the end is near.

A drip of sweat hits my shoulder, violating me in a way that somehow feels worse. I try to tilt, to let it run, to get it off of me. I can’t, and it burns a hole in my skin.

“Do you like it, Baby?”

I wonder if he has a daughter. Does he call her Baby, too?

I hear a siren in the distance. It gets louder, closer. I can see the glow from the blue and red lights as they speed by outside the motel window. They don’t stop for me.

He shudders, and it’s over.

He rolls off, and I can breathe.

He gets dressed, and I can live.

He throws money on the nightstand, and I can eat.

The door slams shut and I lie still, staring up at the cracked ceiling that blocks my view to heaven. I wonder what it’s like.

I guess now I’ll never know.



CHAPTER 1

My name is Jade and there’s something you should know---I don’t want to die.

It’s taken me a while to figure that out. I’d like to tell you how I came to that conclusion.

First off let me say that I know I was on a bad path. There’s no denying it. I can give you reasons, justifications and all, but in the end, what does it matter? A fact’s a fact. And I was heading nowhere fast---that is if you consider six feet under nowhere.

But six months ago, just after my sixteenth birthday, everything changed for me.

Up until then I guess you could say I had been down on my luck. I’d been living on the streets for a while, doing what I had to do to get by. Stuff I don’t really like to talk about.

It’s not important anyway.

What matters is that six months ago, late at night, on the Vegas strip, I met Captain Jack, and everything changed.

I wasn’t working that night. You can’t work every night. Besides, I had enough to get by on and when it was like that, when I didn’t have to worry about food for a few days, I took a break. I liked going down to the strip, the nice part, where all the fancy casinos are. It’s like a dream world.

I would stand for hours, leaning over the wall in front of the Bellagio Hotel, watching the fountain show---the colors, the dancing water, the music, it’s Vegas at it’s best. If you ever want to feel alive, stand in front of the Bellagio.

That night I felt as alive as I had in a long time. I was primed. I just knew something had to go my way. Just had a feeling, you know? Given the way my life had gone so far, I figured the odds were with me.

So there I was, leaning over the wall, listening to music blast out of the speakers, when fate tapped me on the shoulder.

I knew it was fate, because it was just how Sugar had described it.

God I miss Sugar.

I met Sugar not too long after I got to Vegas. She had been on the streets for a long time, longer than she could remember. She looked out for me, showed me the ropes. She always would tell me that the streets weren’t the life for me, that I was destined for something better.

One day I said, “How do you know, Sugar?”

And that’s when she sat me down on the bench at the bus stop and laid it all out for me.

“Sweetness,” (that’s what she always called me) “you different than the rest of us. I seen it in you since I first laid eyes on you.” Her gold teeth reflected the neon sign in the liquor store window. “You got somethin’ special. And one day, you gonna make somethin’ outta yourself.”

“You really think so?”

She placed a withered hand on my shoulder. I could see the abandoned tracks running down her arm. She drew in a breath, summoning strength.

“I know so, Sweetness. First off, ain’t nobody on these streets talk like you. Half the time I ain’t even know what you talkin’ about. You too smart for the rest of us. And you just a baby.”

She paused, studying my eyes, searching my soul---or maybe searching for her own.

“Sooner or later, someone’ll see that you ain’t belong here. Fate’s gonna tap you on the shoulder. And then you gonna be saved.”

“Fate?”

Sugar smiled.

“Sweetness. You know all them fancy words, but you ain’t know fate?”

Of course I knew what fate was. Page 258. After fat cat and before fated.

Fate: the will or principle or determining cause by which things in general are believed to come to be as they are, or events to happen as they do.

I knew what fate was. I just didn’t know that it could tap you on the shoulder. But it did.

That night, six months ago, I was leaning over the wall staring at the fountains, lost in the magic, when something hit me. Not like a thought, something actually hit me.

The desert nights can get pretty cold and windy. I don’t suppose as cold as some places, but I’ll bet windier than most. The wind was whipping that night, the spray from the fountains soaking me. But I didn’t care.

I was standing there, minding my own business, when something hit my shoulder. It was fate---in the form of a baseball cap.

It startled me from my trance. At first I thought a bird had pecked me. That’s what it felt like. I looked around, but didn’t see one.

“Sorry about that!”

Some guy was shouting over the wind, running down the sidewalk toward me.

“The wind blew it off my head.” He bent down next to me. When he stood up he had a baseball cap in his hand and an embarrassed look on his face. “Pretty windy tonight.”

“Don’t worry about it.” I turned back to the fountains, trying to slide back into my dream.

“Beautiful. Aren’t they?”

Get lost dickhead.

“I like when they shoot straight up. Amazing how high they go.”

I stared straight ahead. “I like watching them alone.”

“Yeah, sure. Sorry.” There was a pause. “Thanks for saving my hat.”

I turned my head. He was holding the blue cap up in the air.

“No problem.”

As he turned and walked away I caught a peek at his Rolex. That could get you killed in my part of town. I couldn’t help thinking he was dressed pretty nice for a guy wearing a baseball cap. Crisp shirt, clean jeans, polished shoes. Probably had some real cash, but didn’t need to show it off too much. On the streets I needed to make snap judgments about people: cop, freak, killer. It’s always the little things that tip you off. I was good at noticing the details that others missed. The guy in the blue baseball cap, he was chill.

He stopped a little ways down the wall and assumed the water watching position. I was beginning to feel bad for dissing him. From what I could see, he was damn cute. So what if he was probably almost twice my age. I could pull off looking a lot older, and usually did. I probably could have walked over to him and apologized for being rude and seen where it went. But I wasn’t that kind of person.

I never did anything that would make people take notice. Disappearing into the background was my specialty. I liked being invisible. Learned that early on. You could say it was drummed into me at home.

So there wasn’t much chance of me going up to this guy in front of the Bellagio and apologizing for being rude. I just stayed right where I was, staring straight ahead, and tried my best to disappear.

1st 5 Pages February Workshop - Nolen Rev 1

Rebecca Nolen
Historical Fantasy/Middle Grade
The Dry /revision one

September 1895

Fact: Wasps live in colonies that form self-contained communities ruled by one queen or foundress.

Chapter One

The early light slipped between smoky mountains, swept across the town's bell tower, and burst bright the edges of everything. Another dry dawn and the town of Jeffersonville, Virginia was slow getting to its feet. At the center of town a tall house sagged in shadow. The sunlight stretched to reach the topmost attic window of this house and peek inside.

The sun gilded a much-repaired counterpane before resting for a moment on a quiet cheek. Dark eyelashes fluttered under this vivid scrutiny.

Awake, twelve-year-old Elliot Sweeney spread his arms to embrace the warmth before tossing his covers aside. He picked up the photograph he had unearthed last night, buried beneath rodent-soaked newsprint in an old cupboard crammed between other discards that shared the attic with him. Who was the boy next to his Uncle Nat? And why was his photograph hidden in the attic?

He pushed the photo into a pocket of his jacket. He had a lot of pockets. Into these he put coins, his string, his favorite marble, a stash of bread, and his father's letter - his father's last letter. Months ago, he had taken the crumpled missive from the trash bin where Uncle Nat had tossed it. With care he folded the feather-soft paper and put it in his jacket's inside pocket, next to his heart.

The skitter-scratch of claws near his feet made his skin prickle. He studied the path through the mounded furniture. His escape. The light had banished the shadows that lurked like dragons in the corners. He was glad for the light. He didn't much care for dark.

There was a lot of dark in this house, several long halls, lots of doorways, and countless deep corners. And the noise - creaks and groans his father told him were natural to an old house - had grown to skittering, clodhopping, and clatter that could not be natural. For though his uncle lived somewhere in the house, he was alone, alone as single Mayfly. Because when his father left for the newspaper assignment, his uncle promptly forgot he was still there and had all the rooms locked. But he discovered the key to the attic door. So he moved up there, and found rag rugs and moth-riddled blankets for a bed. It was all he needed. No, not all. He needed his father.

Heedful to lock the attic door behind so nothing looked changed and he came back and had no where to sleep, he tip-toed down the stairs. As he approached his uncle's study door he heard the 'clink' 'clink' 'clink' and the low muttering of Uncle Nat counting his money. He had reached the steps to the ground floor when behind him the study door opened.

He turned to face his uncle.

As if Elliot were a ghost, the old man's face went deathly pale. Then he blinked and cleared his throat. "Why are you still here?"

"My father hasn't returned."

"Is that my fault?"

"No, sir, but -"

"Nevermind! I'm busy," his uncle said, and closed the door.

It was a dismissal. Elliot stared at the closed door. Why did Uncle Nat make a point of avoiding him, forgetting him, not speaking to him? He didn't understand it. He would never understand. He wiped his sweaty palms on his trousers and ran the rest of the way down the stairs.

In the kitchen he filled his father's army-issue canteen with water, and a glass besides. He hung the canteen with the strap across his chest. He had had to loop it twice and tie it because the original strap was too long.

The back door opened. The cook arrived, wiping sweat from her red face. She motioned to him with a finger to her mouth. He nodded and watched her pull something from her pocket. She grabbed his empty hand, put a wad of paper money in his palm and curled his fingers around it. She bent close and whispered, "For new shoes."

How had she known he needed new shoes? He pulled her close and whispered in her ear, "Thank you. I'll pay you back."

Her eyes were wet, as she shooed him away with her apron.

The front door closed behind him with a sound like a sigh. He clambered down the plank steps to the sapling he worked to keep alive in the deathly dry. Something squirmed at his feet. It was a fishing worm twisting in the dust. He picked it up and laid it under a leaf at the base of his little tree and dumped the water from his glass over it.

"You saved that worm," the man's voice startled Elliot.

He looked up at the gawky man smiling down at him from the other side of the yard's iron fence. Everyone in town thought Morgan Johns was simple. They called him a changeling, but Elliot liked him so he said, "No use in letting something like that die."

"This dry 's just about killin' ever-thing."

"I reckon."

"I got somethin'." The man held out a shiny watch case. "Here."

"I can't take that off you."

"It's mine so I can give it to you."

Elliot shook his head. "But why?"

"I see you go down to the station ever day waitin' for yer paw. You gonna need this watch. Open it."

Elliot took the watch. He popped the case open. All the dials and levers clicked and turned inside the crystal of the watch face. It ticked loudly. But the watch ran backward. It was just about the strangest but most beautiful thing he'd ever seen. He looked up at Morgan John's smooth face, the way his eyes blinked slow over large eyes. The glint of silver in his mouth.

The man nodded. "Can you read the time on it?"

"It says eight o'clock."

"See? I can too. We about the only two people in the world, I reckon, can tell it's time. So you take it."

"Maybe. Okay. Just today."

"You goin' to the station?"

"The train's due at nine. Might be early. Sometimes is."

"Okay. See you again, Elliot Sweeney."

Morgan Johns left with his long awkward strides towards the other side of the dirt road. Mule-drawn wagons swayed past. Some loads were the size of small houses. Dust billowed, floating like a red haze. When he looked again, Morgan Johns was gone.

He took off for the station, his mouth dry already. He kicked at small pebbles. He couldn't give in to thirst. The water in the canteen had to last all day. A messenger in an old uniform hurried past. He hoped what news he carried wasn't bad. He would never forget the telegram. Sam Sweeney disappeared, it read. His stomach hurt thinking about it still. When his father disappeared, life went all hard on the outside and squishy-yucky on the inside- like a durned bug. This marked the ninety-first day since he began his vigil. The ninety-second since his father left. But something strange took a-hold of him this morning. He had a feeling deep inside where it mattered most that today something different would happen.

The station looked empty. That meant he had time before the train's arrival to read the newspaper's headlines. He crossed the platform to the news stand. He spotted a drawing of his father's face on the front page. His heart did a double-time thump. What happened? He read the caption:

SEARCH ABANDONED ~ For missing ~ Newspaper man ~Well-known for his campaign ~Against CHILD LABOR

The approaching train whistled and whooshed into the station bringing with it every kind of dust and dry from fourteen counties around, seemed like. Elliot stared at the line of cars, listened to the huffing train engine, sucked in the throat-drying diesel smoke. No. This wasn't right. No! Not even if every human on the face of this old earth gave up on his father, he would not! He would find his father. With a lump the size of a fist in his throat, he bought a ticket and boarded the train.

1st Five Pages February Workshop – Nolen

Name: Rebecca Nolen
Genre: Middle Grade
Title: THE DRY

September 1895

Fact: Wasps live in colonies that form self-contained communities ruled by one queen or foundress.

Chapter One

Early light slipped between smoky mountains, swept across the town's bell tower, and burst bright the edges of everything. Another dry dawn and the town of Jeffersonville, Virginia was slow getting to its feet. At the center of town a tall house sagged in shadow. The sunlight stretched to reach the topmost attic window of this house and peek inside.

As usual Elliot Sweeney lay sprawled among books and broken toys. These were his treasures. The light banished the shadows that lurked like dragons in the corners. He splayed his fingers in the warmth. Perhaps today he would see his father again.

He tossed his covers aside. Last night he had found photos in an old cupboard crammed between other discards that shared the attic with him. A spark crackled as he touched first one and then another photograph, as if each held some secret that couldn't wait to be revealed. The new light was enough to dissect bits in the pictures he'd missed. He touched the face of a much younger-looking Uncle Nat, and his aunt – she'd been dead for some years – but who was this boy between them?

The boy's wispy fair hair stood on end. Bony wrists poked from sleeves. The boy's lopsided smile was a mirror image of Elliot's smile. In fact, the boy looked very much like Elliot. They could be twins. Except they weren't. The photographs were old. The boy would be older than twelve by now. He knew of a cousin lost after the war. Why did he get lost? And if Uncle Nat cared for his son, why were his pictures hidden in the attic?

Elliot had been living with his Uncle Nat ever since his father went to investigate the disappearance of a group of children from a coal mine in West Virginia. Most people paid little attention to the poorest of the poor at the coal mines. That's where his father was different from most people. His father told him there were four-year-old mine children picking slag from the coal until their hands bled and turned black with the coal dust that worked its way under the skin. There were children pushing and pulling coal bins and sometimes getting crushed between them. The stories just got worse from there. He was proud that his father paid attention. His father wrote the stories in the newspaper. His father told him about the sacrifice of one helping the many. Elliot didn't understand, though his father told him he needed to understand.

A week after his father left a telegram arrived. Sam Sweeney disappeared, it read. Disappeared. And Elliot was frightened. This big house was full of strange noises at night. Noises his father told him were natural to an old house. Without his father the skittering, clodhopping, clatter grew. After three months the nightly disturbances were monsters he could not get rid of. Not without his father.

His uncle owned this big old house. No one else lived here except his uncle and his uncle had forgotten that he lived here. All the rooms in the house were kept locked. Elliot found one key. It fit the attic door. The attic was freezing. With a thick rug, plenty of old blankets, and a drawer for his belongings, he had constructed a place of his own near the one window for light.

A lady from down the way came in to make meals for his uncle. She would shush Elliot, or she would wave her arms and shake her head when he came near. The fright in her face made her eyes widen until he wondered if they would pop out. He knew he had to keep quiet – something about helping Uncle Nat concentrate – but he couldn't understand why the cook never spoke. She left food for Elliot, hidden in the pantry. He was cold but not hungry.

And during the day the house rang with silence.

His uncle used to work for the railroad. He never saw him leave the house. Wherever he used to work he made a pot of money because he stayed home counting it. That was all he did. All day.

Elliot stuffed a good bit of day old bread into a pocket to keep from being too hungry at the train station. He added bits and pieces from his collection to other pockets. Coins, his marble, string, his father's letters, his cousin's picture. He had a lot of pockets.

In the kitchen he filled his father's army-issue canteen with water, and a glass besides and went out to the front porch. He clambered down the plank steps to the sapling he worked to keep alive in the deathly dry. Something squirmed at his feet. It was a fishing worm twisting in the dust. He picked it up and laid it under a leaf at the base of his little tree and dumped the water from his glass over it.

"You saved that worm," the man's voice startled Elliot.

He looked up at the gawky man smiling down at him from the other side of the yard's iron fence. Everyone in town thought Morgan Johns was simple. But Elliot liked him so he said, "No use in letting something like that die."

"This dry 's just about killin' ever-thing."

"I reckon."

"I got somethin'." The man held out a shiny watch case. "Here."

"I can't take that off you."

"It's mine so I can give it to you."

Elliot shook his head. "But why?"

"I see you go down to the station ever day waitin' for yer paw. You gonna need this watch. Open it."

Elliot took the watch. He popped the case open. All the dials and levers clicked and turned inside the crystal of the watch face. It ticked loudly. But the watch ran backward. It was just about the strangest but most beautiful thing he'd ever seen. He looked up at Morgan John's smooth face.

The man nodded. "Can you read the time on it?"

"It says eight o'clock."

"See? I can too. We about the only two people in the world, I reckon, can tell it's time. So you take it."

"Maybe. Okay. Just today."

"You goin' to the station?"

"The train's due at nine. Might be early. Sometimes is."

"Okay. See you again, Elliot Sweeney."

Morgan Johns turned and left with his long awkward strides towards the other side of the dirt road. Loaded wagons were already swaying up towards the center of town or down towards the train station. Mostly mules drew the wagons. Some loads were the size of small houses. Dust billowed as high as their reins and stayed there, floating like a red haze.

Elliot had to get one more thing before heading for the station. He tugged the big front door open without making a noise and tip-toed up the stairs. From behind his uncle's study door he heard the 'clink, clink, clink' of money being counted. He dashed up the stairs to his attic. There he found the scraps of paper that he'd rescued from the trash bin. Quick, before anything else happened, he left. The big front door closed behind him with a sound like a sigh of relief.

Yesterday his uncle came out of his study as Elliot slid past. The man's eyes were sunken in as if he hadn't slept for days. Upon spotting Elliot, first the man's face went white and then almost green before he let out a roar. "What are you still doing here?"

Today Elliot was free and out in the noisy open. He took off at a fast pace for the station. This marked the ninety-first day since he began his vigil. The ninety-second since his father left. He had a feeling deep inside where it mattered most that today something would happen.

The station looked empty. That meant he had time before the train to read the newspaper's headlines. He crossed the platform to the news stand. He spotted a drawing of his father's face on the front page. His heart did a double-time thump. He read the caption:

SEARCH ABANDONED For missing Newspaper man 

Well-known for his campaign Against CHILD LABOR

The whistle of the approaching train forced a decision. Even if everyone else had given up the search, he would not. He would find his father. With a lump the size of a fist in his throat, he bought a ticket and boarded the train.