Alt M-1

NAME: Kati Bartkowski and Heidi Lang

MENTOR: Elizabeth Briggs and Elizabeth Prats

TITLE: Mystic Cooking

GENRE: YA fantasy

WORD COUNT: 90,000 words

PITCH: 16-year-old Lailu just wants to open a restaurant specializing

in cooking mystical beasts, but after reneging on a loan shark, she’ll

need her handsome rival’s help to escape the stew she’s in.

Lailu scowled at the row of onions pinned to her far wall, her

calloused fingers idly flipping a large chef's knife end over end

before she turned to look at her remaining batch of onions.  "Don't

worry," she told them quietly, "it will only hurt a second."  As she

selected a sweet yellow one, the bell above her front door chimed.

Lailu whipped around, the onion toppling to the floor in her haste.

“Welcome to Mystic Cooking,” she began eagerly, straightening her

fluffy white chef’s hat.  “Our special today is…” Her eyes flickered

to the man looming in her doorway.  "Oh." Lailu’s heart plummeted back

to her toes.  "It's you."

For all she was barely over five feet tall, Mr. Boss (call me

“Victor”) was not much taller, but his back was straight, and his cane

seemed more like a threatening prop than a tool.  He looked like he

might be in his sixties or seventies, his long gray hair streaked

through with white and oiled back into a ponytail at the nape of his

neck.  She'd heard the rumors, of course, that he was actually two

hundred and six, and that he bathed in the blood of young dragons

every month to slow his aging.  Lailu wasn’t sure she bought that; she

knew how hard it was to kill a dragon.

Mr. Boss glanced at the line of onions pinned to the wall, then

turned, taking in the spotless and very empty dining room.  “Busy, I

see.”