Lostine

I was reluctant at first. But I wanted to write a story that hit hard as Stevenson’s Treasure Island. And I wanted a heroine that was a girl – a girl! mind you. I wanted a story, too, that would tear along. I needed a story that I’d want to read again and again. Lostine is what happened to me.

In his own voice, Lostine’s narrator tells

“This is the short version of my true confession of what happened in Coffin Marsh in the Spring of 1969. Both the Meatballs got killed – spooked – in there. The knives and guns and bodies prove it. Most of it, I did. Had to.

“The Canadian kids say my dad’s dead. Their dad says Charlie killed mine a long time ago. But Mr. Bricker told me he was in the jet with my dad - back when they got shot down over there. Mr. Bricker told me, ‘I saw your dad alive!’

“Over a year after he told me that, though – I mean, his lie hit my chest like a cannon ball! - I spotted Mr. Bricker again one night. I saw him wade out of Coffin Marsh. I saw him watch our school dance.  So I swam after him, back into the swamp – same swamp Dead Kid Theo disappeared into – where Koz and I found a kid’s finger on a bucket – same swamp another man came from and grabbed a first-grader – the man I stopped - dead - with one rock throw.

And you laugh a sixth-grader like me can’t know enough about love to say I’ll never get Lostine out of my heart – ever - even though when Koz and I re-conned into the swamp that last time, Lostine yanked my heart right out of my chest and flung it away into the tree tops.”

LOSTINE is a 53,000 word novel – possibly middle-grade.

Thank you for your time, consideration and this opportunity.