Woohoo - Inspiration has hit - Chapter 1 of Martha Street Market - book 5 of the Saginaw Series

I am so happy to announce there will be a fifth book to the Saginaw Series.

SPOILER ALERT - the following first chapter explains which band won the Michigan Talent contest from the last book, Daniel's Den.

Over Thanksgiving my husband's brother agreed to work on the cover of the fifth book, Martha Street Market.  D.A. Clifford is the artist for the covers of the Saginaw Series Books and I wasn't sure he would want to do another one.  But as soon as he said yes, ideas started forming.  This morning I began to write.

Chapter One - ROUGH DRAFT - Martha Street Market

Jen and Colleen walked to the Hoyt Library after school. They had a term paper due in a week and they wanted to get it done before the weekend.  They both knew their parents would never let them do anything over the weekend if the term papers weren’t finished.

Jen asked her friend, “Have you talked to Katy?”

Colleen grunted.

Jen knew what that meant, “I guess that means you didn’t.”

Colleen looked like she was going to cry.  She turned to Jen to complain, “You know she isn’t talking to either of us.  She is very angry that we argued with her last week.”

Jen nodded her head as she replied, “I know, but this has gone on long enough.  She stayed at home in her room all summer long.  She quit being a lifeguard at the pool.  She wouldn’t do anything with us and now that school has started you would think she would at least have lunch with us.  No… not the long suffering, the world is all about me, Katy.”

Colleen agreed, but she knew that Katy still felt so bad about letting everyone down when the band came in second in the Talent Michigan band competition.

It had been a long summer after that ill-fated concert in Detroit, Michigan.  They all had been at the concert.  Katy’s band, the Lifeguards, performed like pros.  They were so good, but the Wildcats were better.  No getting around it, the band that should have won, did.  After losing, the band broke up and then Katy began her summer of wallowing in self pity.  Jen and Colleen did all they could to get her out of the funk she was in, but nothing worked.

Finally they gave up and quit calling Katy.  After a few weeks Jen tried again, but Katy wouldn’t leave her house.

Colleen and Jen walked up the steps to the library entrance.  After taking the elevator to the second floor they entered the genealogy and Saginaw Historical room.  They went their separate ways to gather books for their research for the term papers. 

Jen was not happy having to go to the library.  She complained to her teacher, Sister Carmelita, that the topics to choose from were so specific that they couldn’t use the Internet to get enough sources to quote for the term paper.  Sr. Carmelita smiled as she explained that was exactly why the topics were local Saginaw topics.  She told the students that not every single thing in life was on the Internet.  While they could use the Internet as one way to find sources for their term papers they also needed to learn how to research at a real library, with real books. 

Jen chose the Webber House as her topic; it was a building close to her heart.  The summer before starting high school she had fallen down the cellar stairs of the old mansion and had to be rescued! The officer looking for her and the current owner of the Webber House eventually fell in love and planned on getting married this year; Jen took credit for getting them together.

Colleen was very happy to be in the historical section of the library.  Her topic was to report on the Hoyt Library.  She pulled out the books she needed and took them to one of the large oak tables.  The librarian had warned her some of the books were very old and needed to be handled with great care.  After looking in the index Colleen carefully turned to the pages listed and began to read.  Almost immediately she became absorbed with the story.  After reading a few pages she motioned to Jen to come to the table. 

With great excitement she whispered, “Oh Jen, our term papers are going to be connected.  Mr. Webber was Mr. Hoyt’s lawyer and good friend.  Mr. Webber actually wrote Mr. Hoyt’s will which set up a fund to build the library.

Jen became interested and read over Colleen’s shoulder.  Neither of them noticed Katy watching them from behind the bookshelves.  She felt left out and angry that they didn’t even see her.  She turned and left the room without saying a word to her former best friends.