Hi! I’m Jen, I write queer books. Stacks & Spoons is where I talk about books, sapphic culture, disability, and more. Subscribe for free here.
My debut middle grade book comes out on Tuesday. I’m so excited for Paige’s story to be in the hands of readers all over the country. So excited that I couldn’t wait any longer for you to start reading! Please enjoy this snippet of the first chapter of PAIGE NOT FOUND…
CHAPTER ONE
Paige watches the timer on the microwave, its golden glow the only thing illuminating the tiny kitchen. Her nightly hot chocolate rotates painfully slow in her mom’s Bob’s Burgers mug. With two seconds to spare, Paige hits the button to open the door. She hates the squawking beeping sound it makes when it’s done, but more than that, she doesn’t want her dad to know she’s still awake. It is a school night, after all, and he’s in the living room working on his laptop.
Sneaking into the kitchen to get her pre-bedtime chocolate fix was risky, sure, but she won’t be able to sleep without it. First, she has at least two more hours of gaming to do.
Walking on her tiptoes, Paige hurries back to her bedroom with her mug, closes the door gently behind her, and begins the process of getting cozy. She places her hot chocolate on her bedside table, just under her lamp that’s on the lowest dimmer setting, then crawls into bed under two weighted blankets, propping herself up against pillows. Then she slips on her noise-canceling headphones, pulls her laptop onto her lap, and dives back into Realm of Wonders to the sound of Mara in her ears.
“KingPaige’s back! We ready?”
And with that, Paige disappears into the game, leaving the real world behind.
In the moonlit woods, a coven forms a line at the gates of a towering stone castle. Paige (KingPaige) has been working all night for this moment. It’s a miracle she and Mara (MarLord) even found other players willing to join them on this level at such late notice, but now they have the clues, the spell ingredients, everything they need to take down the Serpent.
Or almost everything.
“Where’s your wand?” KingPaige asks the warlock to her left.
“Oh, sorry,” the warlock says. He pulls out his wand. “Got it!”
The delay costs them. MarLord gets swept up by a swamp monster, its green tentacles squeezing her so hard her witch’s hat falls to the ground.
Paige presses a few buttons on her laptop frantically, trying to save her. Other members of the coven yell at her to stop, to leave her behind. But Mara is her best friend—IRL, not just in the game. They never leave each other behind. They don’t betray each other like that.
Purple smoke rises all around KingPaige, blocking her sight. She pulls a Starlight Orb out of her satchel and throws it into the air, pointing her wand at it. Everything goes white.
“Paige!” Mara’s voice yells in her ear. She flinches. “That was too much! Now none of us can see!”
All around KingPaige, havoc breaks loose. The elves and warlocks in the coven are killed off one by one. KingPaige is the last to fall, but she hardly notices. She’s too busy cringing as the other players yell at her for ruining the game.
Game over.
Mara sighs. “Paige, you always do this. We’ll never find a permanent coven to join if you keep going off on your own.”
Paige starts to defend herself, but there’s a knock at the door on Mara’s end. “What are you still doing up?” She hears Mara’s mom yell through her headphones. “It’s almost midnight!”
“Sorry, Paige,” Mara says. “Gotta go. Next time, remember—Teamwork makes the dream work!”
An alert pops up on Paige’s screen. MarLord has exited the Realm. Paige does the same before the rest of the squad can yell at her some more for getting them all disintegrated.
Rats. They were *this close* to taking down the Serpent. But then again, they are always this close, and then it goes wrong. Mara would say it’s usually because of something Paige did. But it’s not Paige’s fault she gets good ideas, or that she’s quick to act in a crisis. It’s called leadership, thank you very much.
A yawn escapes her. She should probably go to bed. It’s a school night and her mom will be home from her shift at the hospital any minute. If she sees Paige still up, she’ll get yelled at like Mara did.
Paige closes her laptop and heads for the bathroom. When she emerges, bladder empty and eyes tired, she hears her dad’s snores coming from the living room. Clawdia, her fiery orange cat, is probably in there with him. Paige never goes to bed without Clawdia by her side. She tiptoes in, and yep, there’s Clawdia, a ball of tangerine fur curled at her dad’s feet.
“Pss! Clawdia!” Paige whispers, but she doesn’t move. She’s about to bend down to pick her up when something pings so loud it makes Paige jump.
Her dad’s laptop screen lights up with an email notification. She catches a glimpse of the subject line.
Paige Wells Daily Report.
Huh? What is a daily report, and why is Paige’s dad getting one about her?
Her dad is fast asleep. She can take a quick look. Paige clicks on the email and it opens up pages of colorful charts, numbers, and what looks like a scan of her brain. She keeps looking through and finds a map of her neighborhood in Queens. It’s dotted with little red pins— school, the library, the bodega down the block. Paige frowns. Those are all places she went today.
Is her dad tracking her? Why would he do that? Paige knows they don’t talk much, but she thought he trusted her.
Could this be some kind of joke? She knows people like to do pranks on April Fool’s Day—a day that seems mean and confusing to her—but it’s September. Besides, she doesn’t understand what could be funny about any of this. Though sometimes she takes longer to understand jokes than other people. But no, this can’t be a joke. Her dad doesn’t even know she’s seeing it.
She flicks her wrists and then scrolls down some more, finding a list titled Paige Wells Vitals. It shows her heart rate throughout the day, blood sugar levels—which spiked around the time she drank that bodega soda—and how many steps she took. There are some words she’s heard of but doesn’t fully understand. Cortisol. Dopamine. Serotonin. And one she is very familiar with: anxiety. She knows that word because a doctor diagnosed her with it almost two years ago, just after her tenth birthday.
The chart on the screen says her anxiety levels rose five times today. Paige looks at the times, and they all happened while she was at school. No surprise there. She looks more closely at the five spikes in anxiety and notices a little green arrow next to each one. She clicks one arrow, and text appears. Serotonin Boost Initiated. What does that mean?
There’s no time to find out, because the gate to their brownstone squeaks outside. Her mom is home.