ALT D-3: Dorkboy

NAME: Nicola Call
MENTOR: Jennifer Malone
TITLE: DORKBOY
GENRE: MG contemporary
WORD COUNT: 56,000 words

PITCH:

DorkBoy’s given himself the Ultimate Makeover.  He’s now The Boss.  Epic. Until his pain-in-the-butt little brother trashes the head-jock’s skateboard and infects him with Pinworm Plague.  This demands a plot of Machiavellian genius.  Game on.

FIRST 250 WORDS:

Today: Sixth Grade Graduation. And I’m not gonna let the door hit my butt on the way out.

Tomorrow: Junior High Orientation Day. Where I’m going to reinvent myself. Like, the Ultimate Extreme Makeover.

I’m gonna be so cool, nobody will recognize me. Plan A, the makeover. Plan B, the new nickname. A cool skateboarding nickname, to be precise. Tomorrow is going to be The First Day of the Rest of my Life.

Ten minutes, and sixth grade will be over. Thank God.

Some of the kids are laughing. Maybe the principal actually said something funny. Cosmic.

Bam! Someone’s yearbook hits the back of my head.

“DorkBoy – look!” My best friend, Sarjit, shoves me in the back and points at the window.

The kids are hanging over one another to look. Everyone’s laughing now, including the parents at the back.

At the podium, the principal gives up talking. Nobody’s listening, anyway.

The girls at the front start shrieking. “O.M.G! It’s
Cromwell McCleary’s little brother!”

It is my brother.

At the window.

With a pickle up his nose.

There’s a clatter at the back of the room as my mom runs out the door.

Hysterical screams erupt again. The girls are shrieking, the boys fist-bumping and laughing. My brother has reappeared, this time with two pickles. One protruding from each nostril. I pick up my yearbook, shove it into my backpack, and leave. Nobody even notices.

They’re all too busy watching Pickle-Boy dancing his pickle dance outside the window.