WHAT IS THE SCAVENGER HUNT?
Welcome to YA Scavenger Hunt! This bi-annual event was first organized by author Colleen Houck as a way to give readers a chance to gain access to exclusive bonus material from their favorite authors…and a chance to win some awesome prizes! At this hunt, you not only get access to exclusive content from each author, you also get a clue for the hunt. Add up the clues, and you can enter for our prize–one lucky winner will receive one book from each author on the hunt in my team! But play fast: this contest (and all the exclusive bonus material) will only be online for 72 hours!
Go to the YA Scavenger Hunt page to find out all about the hunt. There are EIGHT contests going on simultaneously, and you can enter one or all! I am a part of the GREEN TEAM–but there eight teams–RED, BLUE, GOLD, GREEN, ORANGE, TEAL, PURPLE, & PINK-each with 20 authors!
If you’d like to find out more about the hunt, see links to all the authors participating, and see the full list of prizes up for grabs, go to the YA Scavenger Hunt page.
HOW TO PARTICIPATE IN THE SCAVENGER HUNT!
Below, you’ll notice that I’ve listed my favorite number. Collect the favorite numbers of all the authors on the green team, and then add them up (don’t worry, you can use a calculator!).
Entry Form: Once you’ve added up all the numbers, make sure you fill out the form here to officially qualify for the grand prize. Only entries that have the correct number will qualify.
Rules: Open internationally, anyone below the age of 18 should have a parent or guardian’s permission to enter. To be eligible for the grand prize, you must submit the completed entry form by Sunday, April 5th at noon Pacific time. Entries sent without the correct number or without contact information will not be considered.
DELETED SCENE FROM PATTY BLOUT, author of SOME BOYS!
About Patty
Patty spends her days writing facts and her nights writing contemporary romantic fiction. A coworker once said if Patty were a super-villain, she’d be called The Quibbler. Her costume would be covered in exclamation points. Fueled by a serious chocolate obsession, a love of bad science-fiction movies, and a weird attraction to exclamation points, Patty looks for ways to mix business with pleasure, mining her day job for ideas to use in her fiction.
Find out more about Patty by checking out her website or picking up a copy of Some Boys!
Some Boys go too far. Some Boys don’t see you. Some Boys will break your heart. But One Boy can make you whole. When Grace meets Ian she’s afraid. Afraid he’ll reject her like the rest of the school, like her own family. Call her a slut and a liar. But…he doesn’t. He’s funny and kind with secrets of his own. But how do you trust the best friend of the boy who raped you? How do you believe in love?
READ PATTY’S DELETED SCENE FROM SOME BOYS:
“Give me the keys — now.”
With one of the trademark glares I’d started classifying when I was about six — this one is Stern Cold Steve Russell, a particular favorite — my dad holds out his hand and wiggles his fingers.
“Fine.” I dig the keys out of my pocket, toss them at him. It’s pointless to defend myself, pointless to say that I haven’t used his car for the past two days. My dad doesn’t do conversation. He sees everything I say as back talk, so I just don’t talk.
“Ian, I’ve had it with you.” He snatches the keys from the air. “I’m tired of your attitude and your lack of respect. Maybe a few days without a car will teach you that driving is a privilege, not a right. When I get into my car, I expect there to be exactly the same amount of gas still in it as I left it. I’m on call and if I get called in, I shouldn’t have to fill up my gas tank first.”
“Yes, Dad.” I say with my eyes down because inside, I’m thinking, fuck you and your empty gas tank. Why don’t you go interrogate Claudia or Val? They both used the car but they’re perfect and always innocent.
“Ian, I don’t like your tone.”
I rolled my eyes. “All I said was yes, dad.”
A flush of anger creeps up my dad’s face and up to his bald spot. “You think I don’t know you’re cursing me out inside that thick skull of yours? You think I’m some kind of moron?”
Yeah, actually, I do. “No, Dad.”
“And now, you’re lying.” He points toward the stairs. “Go to your room. You’re in for the night.”
And now he’s grounding me for what I’m thinking. “As you wish.” I say with a smile because I know it pisses him off and head up to my room. I’ll sneak out as soon as he heads to the hospital and turns into Dr. Steve Russell, Saver of Lives and Limbs Across Long Island!
“And don’t even think about sneaking out.” He shouts after me.
Yeah, too late.
Dad slams the front door on his way out to the car I haven’t driven for two days. I watch him from the window of my room and kick my closet door. I fling myself on the bed, muttering curses. The car had almost a full tank of gas in it when I left it at the curb the day before yesterday. I’m not staying in tonight just because Dad thinks I need to be taught another lesson. There’s a big party tonight. This afternoon, we played our last home game of the season and won. Tonight, beer. Girls. Music. Hanging out. No way in hell I’m missing that, especially for something I didn’t even do. I grab my cell, text Jeremy, tell him to swing by and pick me up.
A knock on my door makes me snarl. “What.”
The door opens and my sister pokes her head in. “What was the fight about this time?”
“Butt out, Val.” I say, but Val heard Come on in, make yourself comfortable. She bounces on my bed, sending my cell phone sailing into the air. I catch it before it crashes. “Go away.” I shove her — not hard. She gets even by pulling a tuft of my leg hair.
“Ow, shit! Val, will you just get out of here?” Val’s a college freshman and I swear, she spends more time home than at school just to torture me.
“Not until you tell me.” She twirls a lock of long brown hair and pops her gum. I try not to throw up. She knows I hate gum. The sight of chewed up rubber freaks me out.
With a loud sigh, I surrender. “He took the keys because he thinks I used all the gas.”
“Did you?”
I give her half a laugh. “Like that matters? He thinks I did, so therefore I must be guilty.”
“Seriously, did you forget to fill up?”
I toss hair out of my eyes and shake my head. “I put gas in the car Monday and haven’t used it since.”
“Ah. Monday. Um, yeah. This may be my fault. I used the car yesterday. Didn’t put gas in it.”
I slant my head and glare. “Thanks. Thanks a lot.”
“Why didn’t you tell him you haven’t used the car?”
I slant my head the other way. “Have you met Dad? You really think that would have helped?”
“Oh, come on. He’s not an asshole, Ian.”
“He is to me. I’m not one of his perfect daughters pulling straight A’s at a swanky school on a scholarship or working at his hospital in his field.”
“Claudia’s a nurse, he’s a doctor.”
Yet another glare. “Still medicine.”
She blows a tiny gum bubble and I gag. “Jesus, Val!” I shove off my bed and start pawing through the clothes on the floor, looking for something that doesn’t smell too bad.
“Oh my God, will you get over yourself? It’s just gum not a rattle snake.”
I’d rather face the snake. I glance at my phone and wonder why the hell Jeremy hasn’t texted back. I try Zac next and strip off my shirt. “I’m taking a shower. Don’t let the door hit you,” I grab clean-ish clothes and wave at her over my shoulder.
“Wait.”
I curse and turn around. Val’s got my phone pressed to her face. “No, it’s me, Daddy. I heard you and Ian fighting and figured I should tell you I was the one who used your car without refilling it…No, I’m not lying for him… Yes, I really used the car. Okay. Sure. Bye.”
Val tosses my phone back to my bed. “All fixed. You’re ungrounded.”
“Just like that.”
She grins around another bubble. “Just like that.”
I slap a hand to my mouth. “That is so freakin’ gross.”
Val shrugs. “You know, a thank you would be entirely appropriate right now.”
I toss a towel over my shoulder and shake my head. “Let me get this straight. I’m supposed to thank you for getting me ungrounded after you got me grounded in the first place?”
She rocks her head and grins. “Um, yeah.”
I take the towel, spin it until it’s tight and snap her bare leg with it.
“Ow, Jesus God in Heaven, that hurt, Ian.” She rubs her thigh, a tiny wrinkle forming on her forehead.
“Careful. Your face could freeze like that.” I grin and then laugh when Val immediately un-frowns.
Girls are so easy to mess with.
“Okay, look,” she shifts on my bed, all serious. “You and Dad need to stop all this chest-pounding and figure out how to get along… for Mom.”
Looks like I’m never getting into the shower today. I sit beside her and sigh. “It’s not chest-pounding and it’s not a pissing contest or any of the other dozen alpha male sayings you’re saving up. It’s not even a contest at all — he’s already picked the winner.”
Val presses her lips together. “You mean me.”
“And Claudia, yeah. It’s obvious Dad likes you guys more than me.”
“Oh, come off it, Ian!” She waves a hand at me in disgust. “You’re piling it on a bit thick.”
“Am I? Let’s go to the instant replay, shall we? Claudia played field hockey and you played basketball — both sports he played. He went to those games. I play Lacrosse. Has he seen me play? Not since I was in middle school. Why? Because it’s a sport he has no interest in.”
Val stubbornly shakes her head. “Not his fault. That’s the new job.”
Dad’s the head of orthopedic surgery at Laurel Brook Hospital, a job he landed when I was a sophomore. “Okay, fine. Let’s talk about grades. Remember when you got that 64 on a math test? What happened to you?”
My sister sucks in her cheek and refuses to answer. So I remind her. “I’ll tell you what happened. Nothing. But when I failed a test, I’m grounded and forced to register for tutoring.”
“Ian, the difference is I care about my grades and my GPA. You don’t. You fail tests all the time.”
I suck in a sharp breath. I do not fail tests all the time. I struggle with math along with every other kid my age who’s not a nerd. “I care. Just not that much.”
“There you go. Maybe if you cared more, he wouldn’t come down so hard on you.” Val grabs my phone, checks the time. “Look. Even though you’re ungrounded, you don’t have car keys and this was sort of my fault and all.”
I snort but Val barrels right over it.
“Andrea’s coming to pick me up in about twenty minutes. We can drop you where you were supposed to be.”
I leap up. “Really? Cool. Have to shower, change. Don’t leave without me!” I shout over my shoulder as I jog to the bathroom.
Fifteen minutes later, I smell halfway decent and head downstairs. Mom is on the sofa, channel surfing. “Hey, Mom. Where’s Val?”
“Oh, she just left with her friend, Andrea.” My mom shifts brown eyes from the TV to me. “Are you and your sister hanging out together?”
I didn’t hear anything after ‘she just left.’ I will kill her! I will piss on every stick of gum in her stash! I turn on my heel, hurl the front door open, still brainstorming revenge.
“Hey, high school boy.”
I skid to a stop. Andrea is tall, blonde, stacked, and stars in pretty much all of my fantasies. “Hey, college girl.” I jerk my chin at her. She’s leaning against her car, a blue Toyota I hear her parents bought her when she graduated high school. She’s wearing jeans with high heels, always a killer combination.
“Val tells me we’re dropping you someplace?”
I jog down the three steps that lead from our front door to the walkway, join her at the side of the car. “Yeah. Late for a party.”
“Party, huh? Where at?”
“In the woods, over by the train station.”
“Right, the woods. Good times.” She smiles and tosses her hair over her shoulder and I swear, my knees buckled. She smells like rain. Shit, I sound like a chick flick, but it’s true. She smells like rain.
“Hey, moron, stop staring at Andrea’s boobs and let Hershey back in.”
I snap around, find Val in the street. I snatch the dog’s leash from her hand and jog back up the walk before Andrea can tell that’s exactly where I was looking.
“Mom!” I call. Hershey’s coming back in!” I unfasten the leash from the dog’s collar, give her a little scratch between her ears, and close the door. She gives one deep Woof! In thanks.
“You guys are so original, naming a brown dog Hershey.” Andrea slides behind the wheel. I head back down the steps and climb in her backseat.
“What? She’s a chocolate lab. It’s the perfect name for her.”
Andrea gives me an amused look from the rearview while Val wrestles with her seatbelt. “It’s a pun. You used a pun to name your dog.”
I didn’t give her the damn name, my mother did. I shrug and check my phone. There are now three texts — all from Jeremy. The first one is a photo message.
Look who’s here!
The picture attached shows Grace Collier, the hottest girl in my school, with her lips wrapped around a bottle.
Damn, those lips. My pulse races. I can’t wait to get there. Rumor has it that Grace has a little thing for me and I plan to confirm it. The next message is straight to the point.
Bro, WTF? You were supposed to be here at 6! Bring more beer.
Yeah, that’s not happening.
The last message is also a picture text.
Grace is getting lonely. Don’t worry. I’m keeping her company.
In this shot, Grace is dancing with Zac. She’s got her arms around his neck and her mouth is split wide open in what looks like a really loud laugh. I narrow my eyes. She’s wearing a short skirt with black leather boots that go all the way to her thighs. Her long dark hair tumbles in a wild mess down to her waist. Her eyes are closed in this picture. That’s okay. I know what they look like. They’re a silvery blue color. Big deal. It’s not the color; it’s the expression. Grace looks at you and you see one of two things, depending on how she feels about you. If she’s interested in whatever it is you got, her eyes light up — like moon beams or something.
God, again with the chick flick stuff? I really need a beer.
If she’s not interested in you, her eyes are flat. Dead. It’s like somebody unplugged her.
Flat eyes or not, there’s no denying it. Grace Collier is fucking hot.
I tap my fingers on my thigh, wishing Andrea knew how to actually reach the speed limit. She turns north instead of south and I can’t take it anymore. “Hey, you’re going the wrong way.”
“Relax, high school boy. We just need to make a quick stop first.”
I swallow down a few curses. It’s not like I have a choice, right? But when Andrea turns into the parking lot of a CVS/Pharmacy, I groan out loud. I have two sisters. When girls go to CVS, it’s either for feminine hygiene products or worse, cosmetics. I’ve seen my mother and sisters waste an hour arguing — actually arguing — over the differences between Candy Apple Red and Strawberry Crush, like officials trying to decide the outcome of a close game. This is going to be anything but quick.
I stay in the car, watch them laugh and toss their hair as they stride across the lot and into the store, pretending not to notice the guy in the Mustang waiting to back out of his spot. Five minutes go by, then ten. I can’t take it anymore. I’m probably two or three miles from the woods where we party. I can run that distance in about twenty minutes. Of course, I’ll need another fucking shower after I do, which essentially will kill any shot I may have with Grace Collier. I glance back at the store. I could buy a can of deodorant, run there, spray myself. Ditch the can, hang out for about ten minutes while the gas cloud dissipates. I curse and punch Andrea’s door. I have no hope of getting laid tonight.
Zero.
I shove out of the car and start jogging. I’ll run most of the way and slow to a walk. Hopefully, that will be enough to cool down and I won’t smell like the inside of my equipment bag.
Fifteen minutes later, I’m walking down the road, trying to get my breathing back under control. The weather’s still cool for spring, but at least it’s dry and I’m not a sticky, sweaty mess. When that blue Toyota passes me by, horn honking, I raise a finger. As soon as Val shows everybody her new lipstick or nail polish or whatever the hell it took her thirty minutes to pick out, I’ll squint and study her appearance and tell her it looks green.
Works every time. Like I said — girls are so easy to mess with.
I turn off the road onto the path that parallels the railroad tracks. The station is still another mile down the road. The woods are just undeveloped buffer property to help control sound, but it doesn’t work. I take out the flashlight I took from my room, click it on and walk deeper into the dark. Why don’t I hear any tunes or laughter? Did they decide to stay in the parking lot? I dig for my phone and call Jeremy.
“Bro, where the hell you at?” He says instead of hello.
“I’m in the woods, where are you?”
“Uh, yeah, the party broke up early. Cops.”
“Jesus, no shit?” Good thing I missed it. My dad would have killed me if I added an arrest to my many sins.
“Everybody booked, man. So where the hell were you?”
“My old man grounded me again. I couldn’t sneak out until now.”
“Damn, that sucks.”
I snort out half a laugh. “You have no idea. So, where are you now? Can you get me? I don’t have a car and I’m in the woods.”
“Uh, sorry, bro. I’m about to jump in the shower. Things got pretty wild,” Jeremy says with a leer I can hear through the phone and I don’t need the details.
“No problem. Later.” I end the call before he can brag.
Jeremy Lynch plays defense on my Lacrosse team. He’s a natural. Whole team respects him. Off the field’s a different story. He’s more Zac’s friend than mine, so when he offered me a ride the last two days, I was kind of surprised. He’s okay, I guess, but his stupid jokes get old fast. I keep walking, figure I can hop the tracks and shave half a mile off my hike home. The beam from my flashlight glints off a pile of bottles, a scrap of pink lace that a closer look tells me are panties. Holy hell, looks like I missed a great party.
I swing the flashlight in an arc around the clearing where an old railroad tie marks party central. The place is wrecked. Empty bottles, cigarette butts, cardboard six-pack carriers… and a, well — hey now — a bra. Yeah, I missed a really great party. I sink down to the railroad tie and stretch out my tired legs, hoping there’s a beer or two my friends missed in all this mess. I paw through the bottles and cartons and find a high heel shoe. I run the beam from the sole up and discover it’s a boot, actually.
With a leg still inside it.
Jesus! Oh, my God! I slide off the railroad tie, scramble away, can’t move far enough — can’t move fast enough. Jesus Christ. It’s a body. A girl. Oh, no. No, no, no, no. It’s Grace Collier.
My hands shake and I pray over and over. Please don’t be dead. Please don’t be dead. I touch her shoulder, give her a little shake. Her eyes fly open, wide and afraid, and she curls into a ball, skirt riding high on her thighs.
In the beam of my light, I can see the blood.
~ ~ ~
Crazy, right? Thanks to Patty for sharing!
Don’t forget to enter the contest for a chance to win a ton of signed books by me, hosted author’s name, and more! To enter, you need to know that my favorite number is 8. Add up all the favorite numbers of the authors on the green team and you’ll have all the secret code to enter for the grand prize!
But before you go, enter this EXCLUSIVE GIVEAWAY for 3 made-to-order haiku!
Yes, you heard right! I will write 3 made-to-order haiku for the winner of the contest. You tell me the occasion or some subject for your haiku and I’ll send you 3 little poems!
Why? Because it’s fun!
And now…
CONTINUE THE HUNT!
To keep going on your quest for the hunt, you need to check out the next author — Stacy Stokes!
