Last month, we challenged writers to revise and submit a 400-word excerpt from their NaNoWriMo novel. From over 650 stupendous entries, we chose two Grand Prize Winners and three Honorable Mentions. We hope you enjoy reading them as much as we did! (For more stories, check out this forum thread.)

She stared at the cat, and the cat stared right back at her. The cat had never seen a human either, and it was just as confused with this large two-legged creature as Katherine was with it. It slowly took a step in the direction of a scraggly patch of trees. The cat hesitantly turned her back on her and lowered her body to a crouch, her attention now of an invisible object.

As Katherine’s muscles slowly unfroze, she watched the cat, who was still focused on the unknown object. Suddenly, a quick as a flash, the cat sprung up and pounced on something in the bushes. When that cat reemerged, it had the lifeless body of a mouse in its jaws. Katherine gasped in horror, the cat laid down calmly and began to tear apart the mouse with its teeth. It carefully picked the meat out from the bones and ate it all. It licked its lips with pleasure and finished the rest of the scraps. Then it slowly got up, stretched, and trotted away, apparently satisfied with its meal. Katherine stood there for a moment, then eyed the bush suspiciously. How was it that this measly bush provided a full meal to a living creature such as this strange small deformed human? And maybe if it had worked for it, it would work for her.

She cautiously got on her stomach and crouched next to the bush, waiting. She waited like this for many minutes. She didn't know if it had been, hours, days, but whatever had fed the cat clearly wasn't coming back. Just as she began to get up, a flash of brown darted across her line of vision. Her reflexes kicked in and she reached out and grabbed the mouse. As she held the squirming creature in her hand, she suddenly realized she had no idea how to make it go lifeless, as the cat had. The cat had bitten its neck, maybe that was its weakness. She hesitantly bent down and placed her teeth on the mouse's neck and bit down, big mistake. The mouse squealed in terror and bit her nose, hard. Katherine yelled something unintelligible and flung the mouse down to the ground. As she cradled her nose to stop the bleeding, she looked down and realized that the mouse was lying lifeless on the ground by her foot.

Lia is an ambitious reader who can often be found curled up with a good book. she loves spending her spare time either on the soccer field or annoying her friends. She is a 6th grader and enjoys all kinds of books, from The Fault in Our Stars To The Hobbit. Her passion for writing is a strong as it is for reading, so writing a novel was a welcome challenge!