Query + 250 words for DEREK HYDE KNOWS SPOOKY WHEN HE SEES IT

Derek Hyde isn’t tingling with undiluted joy that the spookiest old mansion in town is about to become the Hyde Funeral Home & Used Coffin Outlet. Especially since he has to move in there with his adoptive mortician parents, Jack and Formalda.

Of course, being driven in the family hearse to his first day at middle school doesn’t exactly add whipped cream to his broccoli.

As if things couldn’t get more horrific, an evil classmate named Nussbaum attacks him in the cafeteria with a plate of beef stroganoff. Seems this kid loved living in the old mansion himself, but got yanked out after accidentally blowing up his own mom and dad. With his chemistry set. Now his dead parents are stuck as ghosts and Nussbaum is a foster kid stuck on revenge, vowing to get even with Derek’s family for taking over his haunted home.

If twelve-year-old Derek can’t live in a nice place (preferably without any blood-curdling apparitions that scare the pants off him and a classmate bent on ensuring he doesn’t make it to thirteen), he’ll have to run away. Far, far away.

DEREK HYDE KNOWS SPOOKY WHEN HE SEES IT is a 41,000-word MG ghost story with series potential.

Thanks for checking it out!

Michael Lunsford

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FIRST 250 WORDS:

There are far worse things in life than being raised in a funeral home. For example, you could… um…

Okay, here’s one. You could have your brains eaten alive and slurped down by cranky, overworked zombies who haven’t had their morning coffee.

Or how about this? You could be stuffed into a spin dryer at Leo’s Laundromat & Hideous Stain Removal Service and set to Extra Dry/Huge Load.

But Derek wasn’t eaten and he definitely wasn’t spin dried, either. Just driven to the narcoleptic town of Littleburp in the family car (actually, an old yellow school bus), and then to a really unfortunate and grossly undesirable address: 1313 Slimeytoes Lane.

As the bus splashed its way through a beautifully timed thunderstorm on the worst day of Derek’s life (so far), his mom and dad worked at keeping his spirits up by singing their favorite song: Poopy Head, Poopy Head, Don’t You Be a Poopy Head.

It didn’t help.

It was bad enough his adoptive parents had dragged Derek out of his seventh grade class and away from all his friends to limp across the country in a broken-down school bus on this Journey to Nowhere. Much worse was the notion that they were about to move him into a spooky old mansion they planned to convert into a funeral home.

You see, his parents were funeral directors. Morticians. Undertakers.

On this appropriately stormy autumn day, noisy brakes slowed them to a squealing stop in front of their new home.

Query:

Twelve-year-old Ledger is worried. If his tinkering dad doesn’t stop wasting money on eccentric brainstorms and flakey inventions, they could lose the family bookstore, their life savings and their house. To make matters worse, Dad’s workshop just exploded—and this was no accident. Somebody blew it up on purpose.

Granddad arrives to take Ledger and his kid sister, Savvy, to Camp Eureka—The Quintessential Inventor’s Camp for Nerdy kids—until Dad can figure out who dynamited his workshop. But on the way, Granddad goes missing and now Ledger and Savvy are on their own to reach Camp Eureka and figure out who’s messing with their family before they strike again.

When they arrive (dripping wet but alive), the perplexing camp director won’t let them join the search for Granddad—that is, unless they prove themselves by winning the camp’s Weird Wacky Water War and Pretty Nerdy Baby Buggy Derby. Ledger can’t understand what’s up with the camp director, but one thing he knows for sure: An inventive mind could really come in handy right now.

LEDGER DEMAIN AND THE AWESOME UMBRELLA is a 57,000-word, upper MG adventure with Sci-Fi elements and series potential.

By the way, I know a little something about inventions, living and inventing in Silicon Valley with 27 patents to my name. I’m also a member of SCBWI and the South Bay Writers Club, graduate of U. of MD with a BA in English Lit and author of 14 tech books published by Bantam, Simon & Schuster and other top publishers.

I look forward to hearing your thoughts on this project.

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First 250 words:

Chapter 1 – The Umbrella Arrives

Ledger usually tried to change the subject whenever his clueless dad presented some new invention, but not today. Not after the huge explosion.

He lay stretched out on his bed with his head at the wrong end, his stocking feet on the pillow—the best way to hang out on a rainy Saturday morning. He flexed his toes, thinking about summer vacation and wondering if his kid sister had left any yogurt in the fridge, when—KA-BLOOEY!

It sounded like the world’s largest dump truck had slammed into the side of the house. It shook their home. It shook his bed.

It shook Ledger right onto the floor.

“What the—”

Savvy barged through the door. “Did you hear that?” she yelled, then stopped. “Ledger?”

He poked his head up from the other side of the bed, frowning. “Do I look deaf?”

“Come on!” Without waiting, she shot out of the room and down the stairs.

He caught up with her on the basement steps where she stood staring at the choking dust that poured out of their dad’s workshop. The blackened door at their feet had been blown right off its hinges. The door lifted, rotated and fell on its other side to reveal their dad, coughing and struggling to sit up.

“Dad,” Ledger shouted, “Can you hear me? Look at my hand, how many fingers?”

“Yes, I can hear you, please don’t yell. I see four fingers—no, wait.” He shook his head. “Two fingers and a thumb.”