Monday, March 15, 2010

Teaser Tuesday

For Teaser Tuesday this week, I give you a little more of my MG WIP. Unfortunately, Ms. MG Muse is playing coy, and I haven't gotten too far in writing it yet. Darn muses can be stubborn. Or perhaps it's a sign I should stick to YA. <----things that keep me up at night.

Anyway, this takes place after the blurb mentioned at the bottom of this post.

***

By the time they arrived home, Gavin came to the conclusion he would’ve been better off going to school in his swimming trunks. His shoes squished over the welcome mat, his socks perhaps permanently suctioned to his skin, and rain drops slid down his cheeks and dripped off his nose. The Weather Man needed to be fired.

Lainey ran inside first, immediately met by their mother.

“Not on the carpet.” His mom ushered Lainey to the side and stared at Gavin. “Well, hurry up, come in! You guys are soaked to the bone.” She growled. Gavin was pretty sure it was to herself. She did that often. “I knew I should’ve sent an umbrella just in case. ‘All day sunshine’ my rear.”

Lainey giggled.

Mom, always prepared, handed her a towel and a set of clothes. “Hurry up and change.”

Gavin watched his sopping wet sister leave a small river trailing behind her as she stepped into the half bathroom under the stairs.

“How was school?” His mom asked, then attacked him with a towel over the head, rubbing so fast he had to wonder if he’d have any hair left when she finished.

“Ag, mom, cut it out!” He pushed her hands away, running his own through his untamable, even curlier-now-wet, mop of hair. He didn’t fail to notice the downturn of her lips and irritated green eyes beneath a sheet of brown bangs.

He almost forgot about the necklace. “You’ll never guess what hap—”

“All yours, electro-boy.”

Gavin quirked a brow at the attempted insult. Lainey rolled her eyes and pointed to his hair. Oh, right, crazy hair. “Lame, Lainey. Very, very lame.” He brushed past her with a bundle of dry clothes and stepped into the bathroom.

“Wait one second.”

Gavin flinched and stopped in his tracks at that tone in his mom’s voice. The kind of tone that meant a grounding was coming, or even worse, all of his Gordon McGrim stuff would be packed and thrown in the attic for an unknown amount of time. What had he done, now?

His mom’s hands rested high on her hips and that all-knowing glare she was so good at giving set her face to match the tone. Uh oh. If only he could remember what he’d done wrong.

“You never answered. How was school?”

“Uh, erm.” Gavin fidgeted with the dripping cords of his brown hoodie. “Fine?”

She stepped over to the foyer table. Lainey stopped halfway up the stairs, no doubt to be nosey. Next to the skinny lamp sat a small pile of papers. Familiar papers. Research papers. Oh, man. Not good.

In one motion, she whisked them in her hands, and was suddenly in his face, waving them. “This was due today, wasn’t it?”

“Well—”

The papers smacked her thigh and she sighed. “Really, Gavin? What excuse are you going to give me, now?”

“I forgot?”

“Good thing ‘forgot’ starts with an ‘F’, because I’m fairly sure that’s what you’re getting in history.”

7 comments:

  1. I love your teasers from this! The voice is great, and there's some funny lines in there. You can definitely write MG, I think!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Don't let your muse get you down. This is great MG. And you can write it! Demand the muse to come forth.

    Hahaha! Easy for me to say since I've been wordless for 2 weeks.

    But I'm finally writing again! :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Oh, thanks you two! Very encouraging to hear. I guess we're our hardest critics. I always feel I can write it better. Glad it's working out so far! Thanks for reading :)

    ReplyDelete
  4. I thought this was good. It's young adult, right?

    ReplyDelete
  5. Very cute, Christa! Definitely keep going! :)

    ReplyDelete
  6. Thanks, Mary. It's Middle Grade. Thanks Sunna!

    ReplyDelete
  7. I think you have a great voice. I'd love to hear more of this. If you are interested in getting a critique of the first chapter, you can come submit at my site. We've got some testimonials up there of critique's we've done. (it's free of course--we just all really like critiquing and feel it builds our own skills.) Good luck with this! :)

    ReplyDelete