CAGI Finalist #39

Title: WEAVING A NET IS BETTER THAN PRAYING FOR FISH AT THE EDGE OF THE WATER

Genre: Multicultural Middle Grade Mystery

Word Count: 32,000

Query:

Twelve-year-old Allen Mak is used to hiding. At home, she hides behind

her broken Chinese to avoid her grandmother’s questions. Outside home,

she hides behind a fake address to attend a better school. And when

she runs into a thief outside her uncle’s store, she hides behind a

dumpster.

But Allen is enrolled at school legally this year. So even though

she’s on probation for standing up to a school bully and even though

her first crush lands on the school’s dweebiest teacher, Allen’s

determined to quit hiding. And if she can find the thief, expose the

bully, get over her crush, and learn some Chinese, she might even be

able to quit for good.

First, she’ll have to figure out who else is hiding.

WEAVING A NET IS BETTER THAN PRAYING FOR FISH AT THE EDGE OF THE WATER is a multicultural middle grade mystery that will appeal to fans of Wendelin Van Draanen’s SAMMY KEYES series and Lisa Yee’s MILLICENT MIN, GIRL GENIUS.

First 250:

Reena likes Tony Arias, so I’m keeping an eye on him.

“Sure, I can tail him!” I said when she asked me after school. Then I

jumped up, zipped my jacket and flipped its hood over my head.

“Ninja-style!” I shouted. Behind us, the metal double doors of our

school banged open and another wave of kids poured into the yard.

Crouching low on one leg and splaying the other, I grinned at Reena

and raised a finger to my lips.

But she shrieked, “No!” and waved her hands in front of her face. “Get

up,” she whispered urgently. “Come on, Allie. You know that’s not what

I mean.”

“Allen,” I corrected and stood slowly. I was about to fall anyway.

She rolled her eyes. “We’re too old to be acting like tomboys.” That

was generous of her actually. Reena doesn’t usually count herself with

me as a tomboy.

“It’s my name,” I said, but I smiled. I sat down on the brick wall

beside her. Surrounded by the after school bustle and soothed by the

September breeze, we leaned into each other, a kind of sideways hug.

This was going to be the best year. I was in a new school finally, and

my best friend was here with me.

“Anyway, just watch Tony, okay?” she said. “I heard he takes the 17

bus. That’s your bus, right? Be sub- I mean, act normal.”