PitchSlam #12: Mama's Girl, MG Cont LGBT

Genre: Middle Grade Contemporary LGBT
Title: Mama's Girl

Word Count: 39,000

Song: A Place in This World - Taylor Swift

35 word Pitch: Scarlett's thirteenth birthday wish - meet her dad. Wish granted, only he's not what she's expecting. High heels, painted nails, and - OMG - boobs. Scarlett battles ignorance and bigoted swamp-turds to prove being transgender isn't contagious. 

First 250: I stood by the fence, wishing I had x-ray vision to see through the door looming innocently at the end of the concrete walkway. On my right shoulder my good angel kept telling me to get back in Granny's Lincoln and head home to Alabama. On my left shoulder, my bad angel was doing a freedom dance from my big toe to my shoulder bone.

Running a clammy hand down my face I mentally flicked my good angel into the bushes by the gate. As my chest heaved beneath my green hoodie I could've kicked myself for not bringing a paper bag to hyperventilate into. Big girl panties, Scarlett. Red hair - don't care, remember? I said to myself. 

I flipped my long tresses over my shoulders and shook my hands out at my sides. Glancing up at the sky above San Francisco, I prayed to Jesus for the hundredth time that Mark Rivers, otherwise known as 'child support paycheck', was home. I pushed the gate open as the last of the sun slipped over the rim of the Pacific Ocean in the distance behind me. 

I crept softly on the walkway to the front door, looking left and right, expecting someone to jump out and yell at me. My head swam a little on step four, and a word my mama would've popped my mouth for tumbled out like granddaddy's beer cans from under his Ford bench seat. As my stomach performed a mean back hand-spring, I knocked on the door.