The first 5 pages of my first book a 77K middle grade sci fi adventure. I am currently querying agents.
~
CHAPTER ONE
Fort Thymus
29,550 hb (twenty nine, five)
Flip’s alarm went off as usual at seven forty-five am. He shut it off and groaned. For a million reasons (or at least three), he needed a day away from grade six. Worse than school was what would happen after. He needed a way out, a way to avoid it all. So, Flip overrode his guilt and called to his mom that he was sick, even though he wasn’t.
Flip’s mom sank onto the edge of his bed, an island in a chaotic sea of toys and art projects. She knew he wasn’t sick, but for all the obvious reasons, she also knew her son needed a break. It meant a hard phone call later, but she let his lie do its job.
Flip faked another cough. His mom kissed him goodbye. He dug deeper into his blue-starred blanket as she navigated past a mash of battle-ready figurines. The latch clicked as she left.
He sighed with relief and let his head fall back onto his pillow. He could sleep in. He had won.
Except that he hadn’t. He just didn’t know it yet.
Today, Flip’s problems went way beyond the regular world. He had no idea, but deep inside of him, a secret plan to destroy his entire immune system was already unfolding. To survive, he would need the help of Theo, a young immune cell who lived in the huge inner world that was Flip’s body.
Unfortunately, for a million reasons (or at least three), Theo wasn’t ready to help, not even close.
~
Theo lived in Flip’s Thymus, an organ about the size and shape of two baby carrots jammed together in the middle of the chest. Flip didn’t know he had a thymus; most people don’t. It’s the kind of organ you don’t notice you’re using, kind of like your pancreas or some people’s brains. But it was there, in the same place as everyone else’s, just above and behind the spot where Flip’s ribs met.
From Theo’s, the Thymus was a military base where the most elite soldiers, T-cells, were trained. In recent years, the base had grown into a full-blown city to support the community that surrounded T-cell training. Flip would have been surprised to know that nestled between his eleven-year-old lungs were immune system versions of trees, bricks, and buildings. He’d have been shocked that his insides bustled with cells rushing to work, buying papers from newsstands, meeting friends in cafés, and heading to school.
School, it turns out, is everywhere. And Theo was happy to be avoiding it.
He was standing on the paved steps of the Hall of Heroes instead of sitting inside the Macrophage Military Academy for Young Officers. He was excited and overwhelmed. Impossibly, he had won this year’s writing contest, the contest, and now he was about to accept his reward.
“Nervous?” His best friend Lily asked. With her helmet off, her rainbow coloured T-cell spikes bounced free.
Theo gulped and didn’t answer. His anxious claws picked at his grey-black plaid sweatpants. Of course, he was nervous. He got nervous going to school. He got nervous standing in front of his class. He got nervous, well, generally, he got nervous.
Lily smiled her always supportive, confident smile at him. She looked great in her new brilliant white T-cell armour, polished and professional. Unlike his spiky, best friend, Theo was not a T-cell. He was a macrophage cadet in grade six. Macrophage means “big-eater”, and unlike every other big-eater in history – and every other cadet in his school- Theo was small. So tiny that instead of being twice Lily’s size, like he was supposed to be, they were the same height, and his classmates at the Macrophage Military Academy for Young Officers loved to remind him about it.
His round, neckless head poked out from his humongous grey hoodie like he was trying to hide inside of it. Normally, this combined perfectly with his sweatpants to cover up his small, oval frame and timid personality, but today he felt underdressed. Unfortunately, since, like all immune cells, his clothes were an extension of his cell wall, he was stuck wearing himself. If he were actually passing morphing class, he’d have changed into a crisp cadet uniform, but he wasn’t. Just yesterday, he’d failed Captain Flag’s quiz -in front of the entire class- by not being able to transform out of his checkerboard skater shoes.
But none of that mattered right now, or at least it mattered less, because Theo was about to step through the enormous doors of the old brick building to win the biggest prize in the entire Thymus: a tour of the Nasal Cavity with the hero of the immune system, General Mac.
“Have you messaged your mom yet?” Lily asked.
“No, I,” Theo sighed. “She’s going to be so mad about what I wrote in the article.”
“She’s a reporter. You won a writing contest. She’ll be proud.” Lily loved Theo’s mom.
“Uh,” Theo struggled with what to say to his best friend. She was right; his mom would be so excited and proud that he won the writing contest -until she read what he’d actually written. Then she would be incredibly upset and disappointed, but he told himself it was worth it. He was going to meet General Mac.
“I’ll tell her later,” he said. “She had a whole rant at breakfast about the fungus in the pinkie toe stuff, and how fake news is threatening the entire body. She went off about how we should be focused on cold season, not rumours.”
“I bet. That fungus stuff is a wild pack of lies.”
“It is, but… that’s not what my article says.”
Theo had never expected to win. He had been out of ideas. The prize this year was amazing, so he had taken a shortcut and some artistic license. A paragraph from his winning article raced through his mind.
[CONTEST ENTRY #675] – Theo Jackson (excerpt)
At a recent rally, local Thymus cells chanted, “Hey, Ho! Protect the toe!” echoing the growing desire for the T-cell army to be sent south to protect the citizens of the pinkie toe from a possible fungus attack. Will these southern cells be heard by the Generals in the Hall of Heroes? Will the army finally be sent?
“So, I might as well go on the tour and tell her about it when I get home tonight. She can kill me then, at least that way I get to meet General Mac and live for a few more beats.”
“I can’t believe you fed into those lies.” Lily caught herself. “But also don’t be so dramatic, your mom is your biggest fan, no matter what. It’s just a school article. She’ll be happy for you.”
Lily had always been brave, fun and to the point, even way back when she was a blobby thymocyte living with Theo while she waited for her turn in T-cell training. Self-pity was not a thing for her. Theo wished he had more of whatever made her that way, but he didn’t.
“I am not being dramatic,” Theo complained dramatically.
Lily’s spikes flared ever so, but she spun into a pirouette, her way of moving on.
“When are you going to report to full duty?” He asked her.
Theo’s question was meaner than he meant it to be. He was jealous of his friend’s confidence, worried about his mom’s anger, still annoyed that he’d failed his morphing quiz, and overwhelmed by what would happen when he stepped through the giant arched doors.
His Helper T-cell pal wasn’t afraid of anything. He just wanted to poke at her, to remind her what it felt like to be a little less confident since something was obviously keeping her from reporting in. She’d always wanted to be a Helper T. What had changed during training?
Lily dropped her helmet and stumbled out of her pirouette. She was back in her T-cell testing room. General Mac’s voice rang out, welcoming her, but the room was a trap. There was no entrance or exit; the walls were the same as the floor. The scream of a nearby trainee ripped out from behind the walls. Lily grabbed her head. This. Had. To. Stop.
Theo picked up his friend’s helmet and put a hand -carefully- on her spiked shoulder. Picking at her emotional scab made him feel better, for a beat, but he’d hurt her. “Sorry. That wasn’t fair.” The temporary victory wasn’t worth it.
~
Flip drifted out of his half-sleep. School would have started by now. It was so good not to be there. It wasn’t just the math test, which was actually a presentation, as if there was something useful in that, as if standing in front of everyone wasn’t the worst, as if math made sense. The real problem was that Ms.E couldn’t stand him. She didn’t like any of the boys, and she liked him the least. He couldn’t deal with that. Not today. Not when, after school, he was supposed to… Besides, she was meaner on Wednesdays, and there was no gym.
~