MG Entry #5 - The Ethan Project

Name: Andrea Mack
Title: The Ethan Project Genre: MG Contemporary Word Count: 40,000

Hook:

When two cousins she’s never met move in, Molly promises to help to keep her recently-divorced mom from stressing. Even if she has to share her room and her friends with messy, overly-dramatic Joy. But when she starts a project to get Joy’s mute brother to talk, helping could cost Molly her best friend and destroy her fragile family.

Line:

I had to fix what had happened with Joy and Kayla before it put a big crack in the foundation of our friendship.

Sinker:

When I showed Kayla where I had to put my houses she totally knew how I felt. We stared at my big work table, pushed up against the wall of the under-the-stairs storage cupboard. In the Dungeon.

She said, “This is so not a creative environment. Is that a spider web?”

I swiped away the faint thread hanging down from the stair railing. My houses didn’t belong here. Neither did my baskets of supplies. Or the plans Dad and I had drawn up. I bet if he hadn’t moved a thousand miles away, this wouldn’t have happened. I’d at least have had the chance to think of another place for them. But he was gone and Mom was in panic mode.

“Mom says it’ll be fine once we get a lamp.” As if brightening up the dinginess of the basement would make up for taking away my beautiful sunny craft room.

Kayla wrinkled her nose at my computer, on the floor with its disconnected monitor. Then she looked at my houses again. “Molly, I think you need a sign in case one of them comes down here.”

I opened a folder sitting on the table and pulled out a piece of paper. It said:

DON’T TOUCH MY HOUSES.
DON’T TOUCH MY PLANS.
ASK MOLLY IF YOU WANT
TO BORROW ANY SUPPLIES.

I put it back in the folder. “Mom saw it on her way to the laundry room. She said it wasn’t very welcoming. I’m saving it, just in case.”

***

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