wade albert white

Title: Spooky Girl
Age Category: Middle Grade
Genre: Paranormal
Word Count: 56000

Pitch: Fourteen-year-old-Abbey is not a happy camper. Stranded at a camp for troubled teens—pushed beyond her limits—Abbey discovers she’s more capable than she thought. But the camp’s unruly ghosts will be her ultimate test.

First 250 Words of Manuscript:

I hate dead people.

Fear can’t stop me. Not this time. Shivering as the hairs stand on the back of my neck, I know what I need to do. The basement stairwell is pitch dark and of course nothing happens when I flip the light switch. Nothing in my life goes that easy. The house is silent except for the sound of my own breathing. Still, I am not alone.

Trying to be ninja, I slip carefully down the wooden stairs. The third step lets out a slow creak as I ease my full weight onto it. The fourth step doesn’t do me any favors either, not that it makes a difference. Someone—or something—is waiting for me.

A solitary figure stands at the base of the stairs. An old woman dressed in a flowing vintage gown beckons me to proceed. A gust of wind kicks up—kind of strange considering I’m inside a basement—and my hair swirls around my face. The woman stands in front of me, her skin the color of a pale brown paper bag with faint shades of olive green, any trace of pink long forgotten. Though her face is shrouded in shadows, I make out the outlines of the ancient furnace hulking behind the old woman. The transparency of her drab, colorless clothing makes it evident she’s only partially here in our world.

Yeah, I see dead people.