An Agent's Inbox #3

Dear Secret Agent,

SWIMMING WITH TCHAIKOVSKY, complete at 65,000 words, is a young adult light fantasy, in the vein of Jennifer Donnelly’s REVOLUTION.

Fifteen-year-old Sally arrives in St. Petersburg, Russia focused only on her upcoming cello competition. But when her host father Misha is kidnapped in retaliation for his exposé about the corrupt local government, her music takes on new meaning,

With Misha’s grandmother’s scarf around her neck and her cello’s bow carving out the music of Russia’s past, Sally starts to see visions. Street children perform an impromptu opera about the tsar. A young woman, exhausted from factory work, dances with a seagull. When she sees a flock of birds whispering “Misha” with their wing beats, it becomes clear the visions are offering clues to help rescue him as they trace the lives of his grandmother and mother. His grandmother faced the tsar’s cannons to defend a crowd of protesters. His mother endured torture at the hands of Stalin’s regime rather than falsely accuse her first love. Not the sort of women who’d let hoodlums kidnap their Misha without a fight.

Drawing on the visions, Sally organizes a mass protest about the kidnapping even though it means risking arrest on foreign soil. Now on the run from government agents, Sally must decipher the rest of the clues before Misha becomes yet another voice permanently silenced by the government.

I majored in Russian at [redacted] and lived with a host family in St. Petersburg.  I’m also a member of SCBWI. The first 250 words are below.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Sincerely,
A.B.


SWIMMING WITH TCHAIKOVSKY

That chair shouldn’t be empty.

Sally kept her eyes on her bowl. He had to be coming back. It must be a mistake. Some sort of misunderstanding.

As Sally chased down the last bit of kashi, the scrape of her spoon against the bowl was deafening in the silent kitchen. Beside Sally, her host sister Irina had stopped eating breakfast long ago and now sat cross-legged in her chair, facing the window. Without a word, Sally’s host mother ladled yet another serving of kashi into Sally’s bowl.

“Thank you,” Sally murmured in Russian. She couldn’t bear to tell her she was too full. To do that she’d have to look up into those unblinking eyes.

Yesterday evening her host father, Mikhail Gregorovich, had been sitting in that chair, drinking tea. His mug was still on the table where he'd left it. He’d only gone out to walk the dog.

That frantic barking was still echoing in her head. It had been loud enough to send them tearing down the apartment stairwell--only to arrive too late.

But Sally had to stay focused. She’d been preparing for this competition her whole life. It was the only reason she was here, and her time slot was just a few hours away. Even if their explanation of what had happened was true, what could she do to help? Nothing.

Anyway, it couldn’t be true. What government was willing to kidnap an innocent man in broad daylight?

Sally stood up. “I should get going.”