QK Round 3: ELEPHANTS NEVER FORGET versus FAKE HEIRS DO IT BETTER
Entry Nickname: Elephants Never Forget
Title: THE IVORY NEEDLE
Word Count: 72K
Genre: YA Contemporary Fantasy
Query
Only two are yet remaining,
Precious magic ever waning . . .
That’s just part of the mysterious message 16-yr-old Chessie receives when she’s forced to visit her great-grandmother for the summer. Bad enough Gram lives in middle-of-nowhere, Kenya. But when Chessie’s contacted by the spirit of Jhelani, an eons-dead elephant, things take a total left turn toward weird. Communicating with cryptic songs and strange symbols, Jhelani’s message slowly emerges: if someone cannot save the last of her once-immortal tribe, the Earth may pay an unknown price. Freaked out and overwhelmed, Chessie shuts down, breaks communication, and refuses to help.
Meanwhile, Kenyan teen Daniel can’t feed his family when his crops fail. Desperate for work, he’s coerced into a gang of poachers with their sights set on a huge payday: the remaining elephants of Jhelani’s tribe. Just this one job, he swears. Then he’ll find honest work. Hold his head up again.
Chessie finally comes to a decision. She wants to be the kind of person who, as Gram would say, “grabs life by the tusks.” But by the time she finds the missing elephants, the poachers are closing in. With elephants charging and bullets flying, Chessie’s taken prisoner and her world and Daniel’s collide. To survive, Chessie must conquer her fears and seize a dangerous opportunity to escape. And Daniel must decide where he’ll draw the line: thief, poacher, or accessory to murder.
First 250
When your family falls apart, I suppose you shouldn’t expect anything to be the same again. Not even your mother’s smile.
Mom’s goofy I-love-my-life smile hadn’t been seen in months, and I’d become all too familiar with the distant impostor that had replaced it. But the smile she wore right now? Pretty sure I’d never seen that one before. Like something you’d grab at the mall without stopping to try it on, it was too tight and way too bright.
And she was cooking, for the first time in months. “Mom? What’s going on?” I dropped into a kitchen chair and watched her pull something from the oven.
“Roast chicken? Dibs on the drumstick,” Bent shouted, slamming his scrawny ten-year-old frame into the chair nearest the chicken. He leaned across the table, freckled nose practically up the bird’s butt, and took a deep sniff. “Look, Chessie, mac-n-cheese, too.”
Mom set a tray of steaming cornbread on the table and sat down, still beaming. “Your great-gram has invited us to visit her. In Africa.”
I paused, forkful of mac-n-cheese halfway to my mouth. My stomach felt hollow. I had the feeling no amount of mac-n-cheese was going to fill it, not even one with four gourmet cheeses and a crispy crumb topping. “Can you get enough time off for a trip like that?”
Her smile flickered like the lights during a thunderstorm, right before the power went out for good. “I . . . I can’t go. But you two will go without me.”
VERSUS
Entry Nickname: Fake Heirs Do It BetterTitle: The First Law of LoyaltyWord Count: 97kGenre: YA Fantasy
Query:
Every night, seventeen-year-old Arun climbs above the muddy streets into the grand hotels of the foreign district to steal the foreigners’ treasures. Her gang is her family, and serving one’s family is more important than any laws.
When her cousin, Jaruk, is kidnapped by a lord, her loyalties are torn. Although gang rules forbid her from meddling with politics, she can’t abandon him to the lord’s schemes. Jaruk and a few other boys his age are being tortured to learn how to recreate the dead royal family’s magic. The lord plans to put a fake prince he can control on the empty throne and needs this magic to prove the boy's legitimacy.
Arun breaks Jaruk out from behind the walls of the lord's home, but there will be nowhere to hide when the lord’s new “prince” controls the country. To protect Jaruk, Arun must outwit the lord and discredit his prince by creating her own more convincing fake heir. If she fails, not just Jaruk, but the entire country will suffer at the hands of the lord's fake prince. But to succeed in pulling off such a high-profile con, she must break all of the gang’s rules, turn her back on the life she thought she wanted, and betray those she considered family.
First 250 Words:
Through the smoky haze clouding the dockside inn, I stole glances at the two foreign sailors who’d made the poor decision to stand next to me. My first marks of the night. They watched my accomplice, Petch, move three cards in circles on our table. Their thick, hairy arms folded across their chests gave them an intimidating edge, but their wide blue eyes and vapid expressions said they were suitably ignorant.
Petch stopped shuffling the cards. "Which one is the phoenix?" he shouted. The din of the off-key piano and men bellowing along to the foreign tune nearly swallowed his words. I placed a silver coin on the middle card. He flipped it, showing me the multi-colored bird, the symbol of our queen, her virtuousness and her power, gone perhaps forever from our land. Black smudged the curling, peacock-like tail. I sent a silent apology for Petch shoving her into the grime like that.
I turned to the sailors. "You look intrigued." I spoke their language for them and tried to make my voice feathery and cute—not so easy with all the noise. The stench of booze and sweat strangled me, the pressing heat like chains.
One grunted. The other ignored me. What I wouldn’t have given to be with my brothers, slinking through the darkness, instead.
Petch pushed me two silver coins. Now came the part where I persuaded these sailors to throw their money at the game, thus convincing Boss Suttirat I wasn't a completely incompetent con artist.
Title: THE IVORY NEEDLE
Word Count: 72K
Genre: YA Contemporary Fantasy
Query
Only two are yet remaining,
Precious magic ever waning . . .
That’s just part of the mysterious message 16-yr-old Chessie receives when she’s forced to visit her great-grandmother for the summer. Bad enough Gram lives in middle-of-nowhere, Kenya. But when Chessie’s contacted by the spirit of Jhelani, an eons-dead elephant, things take a total left turn toward weird. Communicating with cryptic songs and strange symbols, Jhelani’s message slowly emerges: if someone cannot save the last of her once-immortal tribe, the Earth may pay an unknown price. Freaked out and overwhelmed, Chessie shuts down, breaks communication, and refuses to help.
Meanwhile, Kenyan teen Daniel can’t feed his family when his crops fail. Desperate for work, he’s coerced into a gang of poachers with their sights set on a huge payday: the remaining elephants of Jhelani’s tribe. Just this one job, he swears. Then he’ll find honest work. Hold his head up again.
Chessie finally comes to a decision. She wants to be the kind of person who, as Gram would say, “grabs life by the tusks.” But by the time she finds the missing elephants, the poachers are closing in. With elephants charging and bullets flying, Chessie’s taken prisoner and her world and Daniel’s collide. To survive, Chessie must conquer her fears and seize a dangerous opportunity to escape. And Daniel must decide where he’ll draw the line: thief, poacher, or accessory to murder.
First 250
When your family falls apart, I suppose you shouldn’t expect anything to be the same again. Not even your mother’s smile.
Mom’s goofy I-love-my-life smile hadn’t been seen in months, and I’d become all too familiar with the distant impostor that had replaced it. But the smile she wore right now? Pretty sure I’d never seen that one before. Like something you’d grab at the mall without stopping to try it on, it was too tight and way too bright.
And she was cooking, for the first time in months. “Mom? What’s going on?” I dropped into a kitchen chair and watched her pull something from the oven.
“Roast chicken? Dibs on the drumstick,” Bent shouted, slamming his scrawny ten-year-old frame into the chair nearest the chicken. He leaned across the table, freckled nose practically up the bird’s butt, and took a deep sniff. “Look, Chessie, mac-n-cheese, too.”
Mom set a tray of steaming cornbread on the table and sat down, still beaming. “Your great-gram has invited us to visit her. In Africa.”
I paused, forkful of mac-n-cheese halfway to my mouth. My stomach felt hollow. I had the feeling no amount of mac-n-cheese was going to fill it, not even one with four gourmet cheeses and a crispy crumb topping. “Can you get enough time off for a trip like that?”
Her smile flickered like the lights during a thunderstorm, right before the power went out for good. “I . . . I can’t go. But you two will go without me.”
VERSUS
Entry Nickname: Fake Heirs Do It BetterTitle: The First Law of LoyaltyWord Count: 97kGenre: YA Fantasy
Query:
Every night, seventeen-year-old Arun climbs above the muddy streets into the grand hotels of the foreign district to steal the foreigners’ treasures. Her gang is her family, and serving one’s family is more important than any laws.
When her cousin, Jaruk, is kidnapped by a lord, her loyalties are torn. Although gang rules forbid her from meddling with politics, she can’t abandon him to the lord’s schemes. Jaruk and a few other boys his age are being tortured to learn how to recreate the dead royal family’s magic. The lord plans to put a fake prince he can control on the empty throne and needs this magic to prove the boy's legitimacy.
Arun breaks Jaruk out from behind the walls of the lord's home, but there will be nowhere to hide when the lord’s new “prince” controls the country. To protect Jaruk, Arun must outwit the lord and discredit his prince by creating her own more convincing fake heir. If she fails, not just Jaruk, but the entire country will suffer at the hands of the lord's fake prince. But to succeed in pulling off such a high-profile con, she must break all of the gang’s rules, turn her back on the life she thought she wanted, and betray those she considered family.
First 250 Words:
Through the smoky haze clouding the dockside inn, I stole glances at the two foreign sailors who’d made the poor decision to stand next to me. My first marks of the night. They watched my accomplice, Petch, move three cards in circles on our table. Their thick, hairy arms folded across their chests gave them an intimidating edge, but their wide blue eyes and vapid expressions said they were suitably ignorant.
Petch stopped shuffling the cards. "Which one is the phoenix?" he shouted. The din of the off-key piano and men bellowing along to the foreign tune nearly swallowed his words. I placed a silver coin on the middle card. He flipped it, showing me the multi-colored bird, the symbol of our queen, her virtuousness and her power, gone perhaps forever from our land. Black smudged the curling, peacock-like tail. I sent a silent apology for Petch shoving her into the grime like that.
I turned to the sailors. "You look intrigued." I spoke their language for them and tried to make my voice feathery and cute—not so easy with all the noise. The stench of booze and sweat strangled me, the pressing heat like chains.
One grunted. The other ignored me. What I wouldn’t have given to be with my brothers, slinking through the darkness, instead.
Petch pushed me two silver coins. Now came the part where I persuaded these sailors to throw their money at the game, thus convincing Boss Suttirat I wasn't a completely incompetent con artist.
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