CAGI Finalist #22

Title: OPERATION BREAKUP

Genre: Contemporary YA

Word Count: 78,000

Query:

Sixteen-year-old artist, Abby Wheeler, has blended herself into the background so well that she’s practically invisible. Even her dream guy, Cooper Deal, barely knows she exists. He’s the soccer team captain with the popularity status to match. Art freaks need not apply. Besides, Cooper’s girlfriend, Miss Teenage Dream herself, has already dug her claws in him and no amount of brute force will tear that she-monster away.

When Abby accidentally slips about her secret infatuation in front of master manipulator Ian Koch, she’s sure her future involves being Ian’s blackmailed slave. Craptastic. But he makes an enticing proposal instead: he’ll keep his trap shut about Abby’s crush if she joins forces with him to end Cooper’s relationship. Operation Breakup: Abby loves Cooper, Ian loves Cooper’s girlfriend, throw a wedge between the supercouple, and voilà! The perfect opportunity for Abby to change the course of her life.

But making a deal with the devil comes with a price. As Ian’s demands grow increasingly risky, Abby’s enemy list piles high and Cooper’s girlfriend is at the top. Soon, Abby is knee-deep in blackmail, bribes and threats of exposure. The only thing keeping her grounded is the growing spark between her and Cooper Deal—a spark she hopes is real. But at the rate she’s going, Cooper may not know the real Abby when Operation Breakup’s mission is complete. She’s not even sure she’ll know herself.

First 250 words:

Ian Koch had no business telling me where to sit.

He lifted one hand, looking like it pained him to wave me over.

Great. Front row. As if Global History wasn’t excruciatingly bad enough. I dragged my ass to the chair next to him, then slammed down so hard I almost paralyzed myself.

No less than five minutes into Global Studies and the first stab of a migraine had already pierced my left eyeball. It started at the exact moment I’d shoved my hand into a paper bag and pulled out a slip of paper with Ian Koch’s name scrawled on it.

“First partnership: Ian Koch and Abby Wheeler!” Mr. Rausch had said with a flourish and handed the paper bag of names to his next victim.

You could hear a pin drop. The entire class looked up at Mr. Rausch like he’d said, “Ian Koch and Osama bin Laden!” They stared at Ian with these big, concerned eyes, like he was going to the gallows or something.

Really? Was I that bad of a partner? I might not have been valedictorian material, but I wasn’t exactly warming the bench in the principal’s office, either.

“Should we sit in Mr. Rausch’s chair instead?” I tapped my pen on the side of the teacher’s desk. “Do the lesson for him, too, while we’re at it? Just saying.”

I loathed sitting up front. Aside from looking like a bonafide dork, Mr. Rausch had this charming habit of spitting when he became passionate about war (which, in Global History, was just about every day).