Son of a Pitch Entry: The School

Title: The School

Age and Genre: YA/Contemporary

Word Count: 62,000

 

Query:

High achieving student media journalist Asia Bowman and her best friend have successful futures planned that include college, careers in broadcasting, and getting out of their poor, nowhere town forever. But for now, Asia attends a federally funded charter school focused on helping underserved students, a program run by Derek Hollis, the former Major League Baseball hero turned mayor. Asia is happy to do her part to promote the school’s success and to live up to her mother’s high expectations for her grades and behavior. She doesn’t even mind that her mother is dating the mayor and working as an assistant in the principal’s office. Yet when school resources disappear, her favorite teacher is killed, and an FBI agent accuses her mother of embezzlement, Asia’s dreams for her future threaten to crumble as she hustles to stay one step ahead of the law and the Russian mob in order to keep her mother and herself alive. 

In my 60K word YA contemporary novel, Veronica Mars meets the Firm as a high achieving student’s media project exposes corruption in her school, implicating the mayor of her city as well as her own mother. Caught between the FBI’s demands that she surrender evidence and the Russian gangsters that want her silenced forever, Asia Bowman is running out of time in THE SCHOOL.

First 250:

Millions of people watched me lie. You were probably one of them. Did you believe the things I said? You shouldn’t have. There never was such a thing as reality television. Reality has always belonged to the one with the best story.

The studio people in Los Angeles did my hair so that it lay flat and twisted into a bun worthy of a ballerina on a stage. Mom would be happy when she saw that at least my hair was tamed. They powdered my face, glossed my lips, and curled my eyelashes.

When they were done, I was a geisha girl, unrecognizable to myself. Getting ready for my interview was what I imagine getting ready for prom would have been like.

After sitting in the green room by myself for half an hour, a man took me to the set where it was hot enough under the lights to melt my makeup. I almost wished the layer on my face would dissolve in the heat and glare. Then my mask would slide into my lap and everyone would see the real me.

I had thought about wearing the friendship bracelet Jamie made me in ninth grade. If she saw the frayed yarn on my wrist she would know that I still cared and would maybe want to be my friend again. I didn’t end up wearing it. Jamie knew I was sorry. It just wasn’t enough in her mind to make up for what I did and what happened after.