Title: WE ARE OPPORTUNITY
Genre: YA Contemporary
Word count: 60,000
Query:
At 10:01 AM seventeen-year-old JROTC cadet
sergeant Claire is outside, training with her track team in the snow. Fellow
senior Tomás starts the day in detention after supergluing the drawers of his
teacher’s desk shut. His twin sister and her girlfriend are in the auditorium
along with the rest of Opportunity High to listen to the principal’s
start-of-term speech.
At 10:04 AM a former student locks the doors to
that same auditorium, pulls out a gun, and starts shooting.
At 10:07 AM the whole world stops and turns to
Opportunity High. As SWAT teams, terrified parents, and media swarm upon the
school, Claire struggles to remember her courage and make herself useful
registering survivors. Tomás frantically tries to pick the locks to the
auditorium to save his sister and all his friends.
Inside, however, the game of life and death has
just begun when it turns out the shooter is not shooting blindly; he has a
carefully structured plan to deal with anyone who ever got in his way—student
or teacher, family or foe. At gunpoint, secrets unravel and loyalties are
tested. Because it’s not just survival at stake, it’s hope and friendship and a
thousand tomorrows.
WE ARE OPPORTUNITY takes place over the course of
fifty-four minutes, following four alternating points of view.
First 250:
10.01 – 10.02 AM
The grassy fields around the track are sculpted
out of shards of ice. The starter gun shatters the silence, releasing the
runners from their blocks.
No one has told Coach Lindt about winter. With
our first meet coming up, he’s convinced the only way to get us in shape is to
practice, come rain or, as it happens, something that looks suspiciously like a
dusting of snow.
At least it beats sitting in the main hall for
yet another of Principal Trenton’s long and arduous speeches about virtue and
the proper behavior of young ladies and gentlemen. Gag.
Don’t get me wrong, I can think of certain people
who would do well to listen, but after three years at Opportunity, I can recite
those speeches from memory. Responsibility, opportunity (“no pun intended”),
and her favorite, our school motto: We Shape the Future. She’s the only
one who pretends there’s another purpose to high school than making the best of
it, then getting out. ASAP.
“Claire, attention.” Coach’s voice draws me back
to my side of the Tartan track, and I pick up the pace. “Your best isn’t good
enough.”
Footsteps and Chris’s laugh color the still
morning air. “Did you freeze up over winter break, sarge? A snail could catch
up with you floundering like that.”
He slows down a little, falls into step with me,
and it annoys me that I have to catch my breath before I answer him,
eloquently, “Oh shut up.”
