- Random House Kids

Transcription

- Random House Kids

The
brother’s
best friend.
A real-life
Prince
Charming.
The secret
admirer.
FALL IN LOVE WITH
WHAT TYPE OF
#BOOKBOYFRIEND
The boy your
parents
don’t like.
ARE YOU
SEARCHING FOR?
The rebel with
a cause.
The boy
next door.
CD_BoysOfSummer_ChapSamp_WEB.indd 1
5/17/16 12:28 PM
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Presented by Random House
5/17/16 12:28 PM
FALL IN LOVE with
THE BOYS OF SUMMER:
Linus is the brother’s best friend
in Finding Audrey.
FINDING
AUDREY
SOPHIE
KINSELLA
D E L ACO RT E P R E S S
#FindingAudrey SophieKinsella.com
@SophieKinsellaWriter
@KinsellaSophie
@SophieKinsellaOfficial
KEEP READING FOR A SNEAK PEEK. . . .
5/17/16 12:28 PM
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are
the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance
to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Text copyright © 2015 by Sophie Kinsella
Jacket art copyright © 2015 by artist
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by
Delacorte Press, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of
Random House LLC, a Penguin Random House Company, New York.
Delacorte Press is a registered trademark and the colophon
is a trademark of Random House LLC.
Visit us on the Web! randomhouseteens.com
Educators and librarians, for a variety of teaching tools,
visit us at RHTeachersLibrarians.com
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Datadatadata
The text of this book is set in 12.6-point Walbaum.
Jacket design by Alison Impey
Interior design by Heather Kelly
Printed in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
First Edition
Random House Children’s Books supports the
First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.
FREE SAMPLE COPY—NOT FOR SALE
ATTENTION READER:
THIS IS AN UNCORRECTED ADVANCE EXCERPT
5/17/16 12:28 PM
So now Mum knows what LOC is. And knowledge is power,
according to Kofi Annan. Although, as Leonardo da Vinci
said: “Where there is shouting, there is no true knowledge,”
which might apply better to our family. (Please don’t think
I’m super-well-read or anything. Mum bought me a book
of quotations last month and I flick through it when I’m
watching telly.)
Anyway, “knowledge is power” isn’t really happening
here, because Mum has no power over Frank at all. It’s
Saturday evening, and he’s been playing LOC ever since
lunchtime. He disappeared into the playroom straight after
pudding. Then there was a ring at the doorbell and I scuttled
out of the way into the den, which is my own private place.
Now it’s nearly six and I’ve crept into the kitchen for
some Oreos, to find Mum striding around, all twitchy. She’s
exhaling and looking at the clock and exhaling again.
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“They’re all computer addicts!” she says in a sudden
burst. “I’ve asked them to turn off about twenty-five times!
Why can’t they do it? It’s a simple switch! On, off.”
“Maybe they’re on a level—” I begin.
“Levels!” Mum cuts me off savagely. “I’m tired of
hearing about levels! I’m giving them one more minute.
That’s it.”
I take out an Oreo and prise it open. “So, who’s with
Frank?”
“A friend from school. I haven’t met him before. Linus, I
think he’s called . . .”
Linus. I remember Linus. He was in that school play, To
Kill a Mockingbird, and he played Atticus Finch. Frank was
Crowd.
Frank goes to Cardinal Nicholls School, which is just
up the road from my school, Stokeland Girls’ School, and
sometimes the two schools join together for plays and concerts and stuff. Although to be truthful, Stokeland isn’t “my
school” anymore. I haven’t been to school since February,
because some stuff happened there. Not great stuff.
Whatever.
Anyway. Moving on. After that, I got ill. Now I’m going
to change schools and go down a year so I won’t fall behind.
The new school is called the Heath Academy and they said
it would be sensible to start in September, rather than the
summer term when it’s mainly exams. So, till then, I’m at
home.
I mean, I don’t do nothing. They’ve sent me lots of reading suggestions and maths books and French vocab lists.
Everyone’s agreed it’s vital I keep up with my schoolwork
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and “It will make you feel so much better, Audrey!” (It so
doesn’t.) So sometimes I send in a history essay or something and they send it back with some red comments. It’s
all a bit random.
Anyway. The point is, Linus was in the play and he was
a really good Atticus Finch. He was noble and heroic and
everyone believed him. Like, he has to shoot a rabid dog in
one scene and the prop gun didn’t work on our night, but
no-one in the audience laughed or even murmured. That’s
how good he was.
He came round to our house once, before a rehearsal.
Just for about five minutes, but I still remember it.
Actually, that’s kind of irrelevant.
I’m about to remind Mum that Linus played Atticus
Finch, when I realize she’s left the kitchen. A moment later
I hear her voice:
“You’ve played enough, young man!”
Young man.
I dart over to the door and look through the crack. As
Frank strides into the hall after Mum, his face is quivering
with fury.
“We hadn’t reached the end of the level! You can’t just
switch off the game! Do you understand what you did, just
then, Mum? Do you even know how Land of Conquerors
works?”
He sounds properly irate. He’s stopped right underneath
where I am, his black hair falling over his pale forehead, his
skinny arms flailing, and his big, bony hands gesticulating
furiously. I hope Frank grows into his hands and feet one
day. They can’t stay so comically huge, can they? The rest
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of him has to catch up, surely? He’s fifteen, so he could still
grow a foot. Dad’s six foot, but he always says Frank will
end up taller than him.
“It’s fine,” says a voice I recognize. It’s Linus, but I can’t
see him through the crack. “I’ll go home. Thanks for having me.”
“Don’t go home!” exclaims Mum, in her best charmingto-visitors voice. “Please don’t go home, Linus. That’s not
what I meant at all.”
“But if we can’t play games . . .” Linus sounds flummoxed.
“Are you saying the only form of socialising you boys
understand is playing computer games? Do you know how
sad that is?”
“Well, what do you suggest we do?” says Frank sulkily.
“I think you should play badminton. It’s a nice summer’s
evening, the garden’s beautiful, and look what I found!” She
holds out the ropy old badminton set to Frank. The net is all
twisted and I can see that some animal has nibbled at one
of the shuttlecocks.
I want to laugh at Frank’s expression.
“Mum . . .” He appears almost speechless with horror.
“Where did you even find that?”
“Or croquet!” adds Mum brightly. “That’s a fun game.”
Frank doesn’t even answer. He looks so stricken by the
idea of croquet, I actually feel quite sorry for him.
“Or hide-and-seek?”
I give a snort of laughter and clap my hand over my
mouth. I can’t help it. Hide-and-seek.
“Or Rummikub!” says Mum, sounding desperate. “You
always used to love Rummikub.”
8
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“I like Rummikub,” volunteers Linus, and I feel a tweak
of approval. He could have legitimately laid into Frank at
this point; walked straight out of the house and put on Facebook that Frank’s house sucks. But he sounds like he wants
to please Mum. He sounds like one of those people who look
around and think, well, why not make life easier for everyone? (I’m getting this from three words, you understand.)
“You want to play Rummikub?” Frank sounds incredulous.
“Why not?” says Linus easily, and a moment later the
two of them head off towards the playroom. (Mum and Dad
repainted it and called it the Teenage Study when I turned
thirteen, but it’s still the playroom.)
Next moment, Mum is back in the kitchen, pouring herself a glass of wine.
“There!” she says. “They just need a little guidance. A
little parental control. I simply opened their minds. They’re
not addicted to computers. They just need to be reminded
what else is out there.”
She’s not talking to me. She’s talking to the Imaginary
Daily Mail Judge, who constantly watches her life and gives
it marks out of ten.
“I don’t think Rummikub is a very good game for two,”
I say. “I mean, it would take ages to get rid of all your tiles.”
I can see Mum’s thoughts snagging on this. I’m sure she
has the same image I do: Frank and Linus sitting grimly
across from each other at the Rummikub table, hating it
and deciding that all board games are rubbish and total
pants.
“You’re right,” she says at last. “Maybe I’ll go and play
with them. Make it more fun.”
9
5/17/16 12:28 PM
She doesn’t ask me if I want to play too, for which I’m
grateful.
“Well, have a good time,” I say, and take out the Oreo
packet. I scoot through the kitchen into the den, and it’s
only as I’m zapping on the telly that I hear Mum’s voice
resounding through the house from the playroom.
“I DIDN’T MEAN ONLINE RUMMIKUB!”
Our house is like a weather system. It ebbs and flows,
flares up and subsides. It has times of radiant blue bliss, days
of grey dismalness and thunderstorms that flare up out of
nowhere. Right now the storm’s coming my way. Thunderlightning-thunder-lightning, Frank-Mum-Frank-Mum.
“What difference does it make?”
“It makes every difference! I told you not to go on those
computers anymore!”
“Mum, it’s the same bloody game!”
“It’s not! I want you off that screen! I want you playing a
game with your friend! IN REAL LIFE!”
“It’s no fun with two players. We might as well play, I
don’t know, bloody Snap.”
“I know!” Mum is almost shrieking. “That’s why I was
coming to play with you!”
“Well, I didn’t bloody KNOW THAT, DID I?”
“Stop swearing! If you swear at me, young man . . .”
Young man.
I hear Frank make his Angry Frank noise. It’s a kind of
rhinoceros bellow slash scream of frustration.
“Bloody is not swearing,” he says, breathing hard, as
though to rein in his impatience.
“It is!”
10
5/17/16 12:28 PM
“It’s in the Harry Potter films, OK? Harry Potter. How
can it be swearing?”
“What?” Mum sounds wrong-footed.
“Harry Potter. I rest my case.”
“Don’t you walk away from me, young man!”
Young man. That makes three. Poor Dad. He will so get
an earful when he arrives home—
“Hi.” Linus’s voice takes me by surprise, and I jump
round in shock. Like, I literally jump. I have pretty sharpened reflexes. Oversensitive. Like the rest of me.
He’s at the doorway. Atticus Finch shoots through my
brain. A lanky, brown-haired teenager with wide cheekbones and floppy hair and one of those smiles like an orange segment. Not that his teeth are orange. But his mouth
makes that segment shape when he smiles. Which he’s
doing now. None of Frank’s other friends ever smile.
He comes into the den and instinctively my fists clench
in fear. He must have wandered off while Mum and Frank
were fighting. But no-one comes in this room. This is my
space. Didn’t Frank tell him?
Didn’t Frank say?
My chest is starting to rise in panic. Tears have already
started to my eyes. My throat feels frozen. I need to escape.
I need— I can’t—
No-one comes in here. No-one is allowed to come in here.
I can hear Dr. Sarah’s voice in my head. Random snippets from our sessions.
Breathe in for four counts, out for seven.
Your body believes the threat is real, Audrey. But the threat
isn’t real.
11
5/17/16 12:28 PM
“Hi,” he tries again. “I’m Linus. You’re Audrey, right?”
The threat isn’t real. I try to press the words into my
mind, but they’re drowned out by the panic. It’s engulfing.
It’s like a nuclear cloud.
“Do you always wear those?” He nods at my dark glasses.
My chest is pumping with terror. Somehow I manage to
edge past him.
“Sorry,” I gasp, and tear through the kitchen like a
hunted fox. Up the stairs. Into my bedroom. Into the furthest corner. Crouched down behind the curtain. My breath
is coming like a piston engine and tears are coursing down
my face. I need a Clonazepam, but right now I can’t even
leave the curtain to get it. I’m clinging to the fabric like it’s
the only thing that will save me.
“Audrey?” Mum’s at the bedroom door, her voice high
with alarm. “Sweetheart? What happened?”
“It’s just . . . you know.” I swallow. “That boy came in
and I wasn’t expecting it . . .”
“It’s fine,” soothes Mum, coming over and stroking my
head. “It’s OK. It’s totally understandable. Do you want to
take a . . .”
Mum never says the words of medication out loud.
“Yes.”
“I’ll get it.”
She heads out to the bathroom and I hear the sound of
water running. And all I feel is stupid. Stupid.
◆ ◆ ◆
So now you know.
Well, I suppose you don’t know—you’re guessing. To
put you out of your misery, here’s the full diagnosis: Social
12
5/17/16 12:28 PM
Anxiety Disorder, General Anxiety Disorder, and Depressive Episodes.
Episodes. Like depression is a sitcom with a fun punch
line each time. Or a TV box set loaded with cliffhangers.
The only cliffhanger in my life is “Will I ever get rid of this
shit?” and believe me, it gets pretty monotonous.
13
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FALL IN LOVE with
THE BOYS OF SUMMER:
Olly is the boy next door
in Everything, Everything.
nicola yoon
ILLUS TR ATIONS BY DAV ID YO ON
DEL ACORTE PRESS
Share Your Everything, Everything
EverythingEverythingBook
#EverythingEverythingBook
#MyEverythingEverything
FirstInLineReaders #FirstInLine
K!PR#DING FOR A S$AK P!K. . . .
5/17/16 12:28 PM
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of
the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or
dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2015 by Alloy Entertainment and Nicola Yoon
Jacket art by Good Wives and Warriors
Interior illustrations by David Yoon
Childhood diary entry hand-lettered by Mayrav Estrin
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Delacorte Press, an imprint of Random
House Children’s Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.
Delacorte Press is a registered trademark and the colophon is a trademark of Penguin
Random House LLC.
Excerpt from The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, translated by Richard Howard.
Copyright © 1943 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Copyright ©
renewed 1971 by Consuelo de Saint-Exupéry, English translation copyright © 2000 by
Richard Howard. Reprinted by permission of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing
Company. All rights reserved.
Picture from The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, translated by Richard Howard.
Copyright © 1971 by Consuelo de Saint-Exupéry. English translation copyright © 2000
by Richard Howard. Reprinted by permission of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing
Company. All rights reserved.
randomhouseteens.com
Educators and librarians, for a variety of teaching tools, visit us at RHTeachersLibrarians.com
Yoon, Nicola.
Everything, everything / Nicola Yoon. — First edition.
pages cm
Summary: “The story of a teenage girl who’s literally allergic to the outside world. When a
new family moves in next door, she begins a complicated romance that challenges everything
she’s ever known. The narrative unfolds via vignettes, diary entries, texts, charts, lists, illustrations, and more”— Provided by publisher.
ISBN 978-0-553-49664-2 (hardback) — ISBN 978-0-553-49665-9 (glb) — ISBN 978-0553-49666-6 (ebook)
[1. Friendship—Fiction. 2. Love—Fiction. 3. Allergy—Fiction. 4. Racially mixed people—
Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.1.Y66Ev 2015
[Fic]—dc23
2015002950
The text of this book is set in 12-point Garamond.
Jacket and interior design by Natalie C. Sousa
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
First Edition
5/17/16 12:28 PM
T H E W ELCO M E CO M M I T T EE
“CARL A ,” I SAY, “it won’t be like last time.” I’m not eight years
old anymore.
“I want you to promise—” she begins, but I’m already at the
window, sweeping the curtains aside.
I am not prepared for the bright California sun. I’m not prepared for the sight of it, high and blazing hot and white against
the washed-out white sky. I am blind. But then the white haze
over my vision begins to clear. Everything is haloed.
I see the truck and the silhouette of an older woman
twirling—the mother. I see an older man at the back of the
truck—the father. I see a girl maybe a little younger than
me—the daughter.
Then I see him. He’s tall, lean, and wearing all black: black
T-shirt, black jeans, black sneakers, and a black knit cap that
covers his hair completely. He’s white with a pale honey tan
and his face is starkly angular. He jumps down from his perch
at the back of the truck and glides across the driveway, moving
as if gravity affects him differently than it does the rest of us.
He stops, cocks his head to one side, and stares up at his new
house as if it were a puzzle.
After a few seconds he begins bouncing lightly on the balls
of his feet. Suddenly he takes off at a sprint and runs literally six
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5/17/16 12:28 PM
feet up the front wall. He grabs a windowsill and dangles from
it for a second or two and then drops back down into a crouch.
“Nice, Olly,” says his mother.
“Didn’t I tell you to quit doing that stuff?” his father growls.
He ignores them both and remains in his crouch.
I press my open palm against the glass, breathless as if I’d
done that crazy stunt myself. I look from him to the wall to the
windowsill and back to him again. He’s no longer crouched.
He’s staring up at me. Our eyes meet. Vaguely I wonder what
he sees in my window—strange girl in white with wide staring
eyes. He grins at me and his face is no longer stark, no longer
severe. I try to smile back, but I’m so flustered that I frown at
him instead.
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5/17/16 12:28 PM
MY W H I T E B A L LO O N
dream that the house breathes with me. I exhale and the walls contract like a pinpricked balloon, crushing
me as it deflates. I inhale and the walls expand. A single breath
more and my life will finally, finally explode.
THAT NIGHT, I
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5/17/16 12:28 PM
N EI G H B O R H O O D WATC H
HIS MOM’S SCHEDULE
6:35 AM - Arrives on porch with a steaming cup of
something hot. Coffee?
6:36 AM - Stares off into empty lot across the way
while sipping her drink. Tea?
7:00 AM - Reenters the house.
7:15 AM - Back on porch. Kisses husband good-bye.
Watches as his car drives away.
9:30 AM - Gardens. Looks for, finds, and discards
cigarette butts.
1:00 PM - Leaves house in car. Errands?
5:00 PM - Pleads with Kara and Olly to begin chores
“before your father gets home.”
KARA’S (SISTER) SCHEDULE
10:00 AM - Stomps outside wearing black boots and a
fuzzy brown bathrobe.
10:01 AM - Checks cell phone messages. She gets a lot of
messages.
10:06 AM - Smokes three cigarettes in the garden between
our two houses.
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5/17/16 12:28 PM
10:20 AM - Digs a hole with the toe of her boots and
buries cigarette carcasses.
10:25 AM–5:00 PM - Texts or talks on the phone.
5:25 PM - Chores.
HIS DAD’S SCHEDULE
7:15 AM - Leaves for work.
6:00 PM - Arrives home from work.
6:20 PM - Sits on porch with drink #1.
6:30 PM - Reenters the house for dinner.
7:00 PM - Back on porch with drink #2.
7:25 PM - Drink #3.
7:45 PM - Yelling at family begins.
10:35 PM - Yelling at family subsides.
OLLY’S SCHEDULE
Unpredictable.
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I SPY
HIS FAMILY CALLS him Olly. Well, his sister and his mom call
him Olly. His dad calls him Oliver. He’s the one I watch the
most. His bedroom is on the second floor and almost directly
across from mine and his blinds are almost always open.
Some mornings he sleeps in until noon. Others, he’s gone
from his room before I wake to begin my surveillance. Most
mornings, though, he wakes at 9 A.M., climbs out of his bedroom, and makes his way, Spider-Man-style, to the roof using
the siding. He stays up there for about an hour before swinging, legs first, back into his room. No matter how much I try, I
haven’t been able to see what he does when he’s up there.
His room is empty but for a bed and a chest of drawers. A
few boxes from the move remain unpacked and stacked by the
doorway. There are no decorations except for a single poster for a
movie called Jump London. I looked it up and it’s about parkour,
which is a kind of street gymnastics, which explains how he’s able
to do all the crazy stuff that he does. The more I watch, the more
I want to know.
21
5/17/16 12:28 PM
M EN T EU S E
down at the dining table for dinner. My mom
places a cloth napkin in my lap and fills my water glass and
then Carla’s. Friday night dinners are special in my house. Carla
even stays late to eat with us instead of with her own family.
Everything at Friday Night Dinner is French. The napkins
are white cloth embroidered with fleur-de-lis at the edges. The
cutlery is antique French and ornate. We even have miniature
silver la tour Eiffel salt and pepper shakers. Of course, we have
to be careful with the menu because of my allergies, but my
mom always makes her version of a cassoulet—a French stew
with chicken, sausage, duck, and white beans. It was my dad’s
favorite dish before he died. The version that my mom cooks
for me contains only white beans cooked in chicken broth.
“Madeline,” my mom says, “Mr. Waterman tells me that
you’re late on your architecture assignment. Is everything all
right, baby girl?”
I’m surprised by her question. I know I’m late, but since
I’ve never been late before I guess I didn’t realize that she was
keeping track.
“Is the assignment too hard?” She frowns as she ladles cassoulet into my bowl. “Do you want me to find you a new tutor?”
I’VE JUST SAT
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“Oui, non, et non,” I say in response to each question.
“Everything’s fine. I’ll turn it in tomorrow, I promise. I just
lost track of time.”
She nods and begins slicing and buttering pieces of crusty
French bread for me. I know she wants to ask something else. I
even know what she wants to ask, but she’s afraid of the answer.
“Is it the new neighbors?”
Carla gives me a sharp look. I’ve never lied to my mom. I’ve
never had a reason and I don’t think I know how to. But something tells me what I need to do.
“I’ve just been reading too much. You know how I get with
a good book.” I make my voice as reassuring as possible. I don’t
want her to worry. She has enough to worry about with me as
it is.
How do you say “liar” in French?
“Not hungry?” my mom asks a few minutes later. She presses
the back of her hand against my forehead.
“You don’t have a fever.” She lets her hand linger a moment
longer.
I’m about to reassure her when the doorbell rings. This happens so infrequently that I don’t know what to make of it.
The bell rings again.
My mom half rises from her chair.
Carla stands all the way up.
The bell sounds for a third time. I smile for no reason.
“Want me to get it, ma’am?” Carla asks.
My mom waves her off. “Stay here,” she says to me.
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Carla moves to stand behind me, her hands pressing down
lightly on my shoulder. I know I should stay here. I know I’m
expected to. Certainly I expect me to, but somehow, today, I
just can’t. I need to know who it is, even if it’s just a wayward
traveler.
Carla touches my upper arm. “Your mother said to stay
here.”
“But why? She’s just being extra cautious. Besides, she won’t
let anyone past the air lock.”
She relents, and I’m off down the hallway with her right
behind me.
The air lock is a small sealed room surrounding the front
door. It’s airtight so that no potential hazards can leak into the
main house when the front door is open. I press my ear against
it. At first I can’t hear anything over the air filters, but then I
hear a voice.
“My mom sent a Bundt.” The voice is deep and smooth and
definitely amused. My brain is processing the word Bundt, trying to get an image of what it looks like before it dawns on me
just who is at the door. Olly.
“The thing about my mom’s Bundts is that they are not very
good. Terrible. Actually inedible, very nearly indestructible.
Between you and me.”
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A new voice now. A girl’s. His sister? “Every time we move
she makes us bring one to the neighbor.”
“Oh. Well. This is a surprise, isn’t it? That’s very nice. Please
tell her thank you very much for me.”
There’s no chance that this Bundt cake has passed the proper
inspections, and I can feel my mom trying to figure out how
to tell them she can’t take the cake without revealing the truth
about me.
“I’m sorry, but I can’t accept this.”
There’s a moment of shocked silence.
“So you want us to take it back?” Olly asks disbelievingly.
“Well, that’s rude,” Kara says. She sounds angry and resigned, as though she’d expected disappointment.
“I’m so sorry,” my mom says again. “It’s complicated. I’m
really very sorry because this is so sweet of you and your mom.
Please thank her for me.”
“Is your daughter home?” Olly asks quite loudly, before she
can close the door. “We’re hoping she could show us around.”
My heart speeds up and I can feel the pulse of it against my
ribs. Did he just ask about me? No stranger has just dropped by
to visit me before. Aside from my mom, Carla, and my tutors,
the world barely knows I exist. I mean, I exist online. I have
online friends and my Tumblr book reviews, but that’s not the
same as being a real person who can be visited by strange boys
bearing Bundt cakes.
“I’m so sorry, but she can’t. Welcome to the neighborhood,
and thank you again.”
The front door closes and I step back to wait for my mom.
She has to remain in the air lock until the filters have a chance
25
5/17/16 12:28 PM
to purify the foreign air. A minute later she steps back into
the house. She doesn’t notice me right away. Instead she stands
still, eyes closed with her head slightly bowed.
“I’m sorry,” she says, without looking up.
“I’m OK, Mom. Don’t worry.”
For the thousandth time I realize anew how hard my disease
is on her. It’s the only world I’ve known, but before me she
had my brother and my dad. She traveled and played soccer.
She had a normal life that did not include being cloistered in a
bubble for fourteen hours a day with her sick teenage daughter.
I hold her and let her hold me for a few more minutes. She’s
taking this disappointment much harder than I am.
“I’ll make it up to you,” she says.
“There’s nothing to make up for.”
“I love you, sweetie.”
We drift back into the dining room and finish dinner quickly
and, for the most part, silently. Carla leaves and my mom asks
if I want to beat her at a game of Honor Pictionary, but I ask
for a rain check. I’m not really in the mood.
Instead, I head upstairs imagining what a Bundt cake tastes
like.
26
5/17/16 12:28 PM
Maddy & Olly’s story is
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5/17/16 12:28 PM
THE S U N S HINE S O N
Sonya Sones
NOVEMBE R 1, 2016
Be the first to read the
dazzling new novel from
#1 New York Times
bestselling author
Nicola Yoon.
5/17/16 12:28 PM
FALL IN LOVE with
THE BOYS OF SUMMER:
“Somebody Nobody” is the
secret admirer in
Tell Me Three Things.
TELL ME
THREE THINGS
Juli e B uxb au m
DELACORTE PRESS
#TellMeThreeThings
5/17/16 12:29 PM
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product
of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons,
living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Text copyright © 2016 by Julie R. Buxbaum, Inc.
Jacket art copyright © 2016 by Getty Images
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Delacorte Press, an imprint of
Random House Children’s Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.
Delacorte Press is a registered trademark and the colophon is a trademark of
Penguin Random House LLC.
Buxbaum, Julie.
Tell me three things / by Julie Buxbaum.
pages cm
ISBN 978-0-553-53564-8 (trade hc) — ISBN 978-0-553-53565-5 (library binding) —
ISBN 978-0-553-53566-2 (ebook) — ISBN 978-0-399-55293-9 (intl. tr. pbk.)
[1. High schools—Fiction. 2. Schools—Fiction. 3. Moving, Household—Fiction.
4. Stepfamilies—Fiction. 5. Grief—Fiction. 6. Los Angeles (Calif.)—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.1.B897Tel 2016
[Fic]—dc23
2015000836
The text of this book is set in 11.5-point Dante.
Jacket design by Ray Shappell
Interior design by Trish Parcell
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
First Edition
Random House Children’s Books
supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.
5/17/16 12:29 PM
CHAPTER 1
Seven hundred and thirty-three days after my mom died,
forty-five days after my dad eloped with a stranger he met
on the Internet, thirty days after we then up and moved to
California, and only seven days after starting as a junior at
a brand-new school where I know approximately no one, an
email arrives. Which would be weird, an anonymous letter
just popping up like that in my in-box, signed with the bizarre
alias Somebody Nobody, no less, except my life has become so
unrecognizable lately that nothing feels shocking anymore. It
took until now—seven hundred and thirty-three whole days
in which I’ve felt the opposite of normal—for me to discover
this one important life lesson: turns out you can grow immune to weird.
31
5/17/16 12:29 PM
To: Jessie A. Holmes (jesster567@gmail.com)
From: Somebody Nobody (somebodynobo@gmail.com)
Subject: your Wood Valley H.S. spirit guide
hey there, Ms. Holmes. we haven’t met irl, and I’m not
sure we ever will. I mean, we probably will at some point—
maybe I’ll ask you the time or something equally mundane
and beneath both of us— but we’ll never actually get to
know each other, at least not in any sort of real way that
matters . . . which is why I figured I’d email you under the
cloak of anonymity.
and yes, I realize I’m a sixteen-year- old guy who just
used the words “cloak of anonymity.” and so there it is
already: reason #1 why you’ll never get to know my real
name. I could never live the shame of that pretentiousness down.
“cloak of anonymity”? seriously?
and yes, I also realize that most people would have just
texted, but couldn’t figure out how to do that without telling you who I am.
I have been watching you at school. not in a creepy
way. though I wonder if even using the word “creepy”
by definition makes me creepy? anyhow, it’s just . . .
you intrigue me. you must have noticed already that
our school is a wasteland of mostly blond, vacant- eyed
Barbies and Kens, and something about you— not just
your newness, because sure, the rest of us have all been
32
5/17/16 12:29 PM
going to school together since the age of five— but
something about the way you move and talk and actually
don’t talk but watch all of us like we are part of some bizarre National Geographic documentary makes me think
that you might be different from all the other idiots at
school.
you make me want to know what goes on in that head
of yours. I’ll be honest: I’m not usually interested in the
contents of other people’s heads. my own is work enough.
the whole point of this email is to offer my expertise. sorry
to be the bearer of bad news: navigating the wilds of
Wood Valley High School ain’t easy. this place may look all
warm and welcoming, with our yoga and meditation and
reading corners and coffee cart (excuse me: Koffee Kart),
but like every other high school in America (or maybe
even worse), this place is a freaking war zone.
and so I hereby offer up myself as your virtual spirit
guide. feel free to ask any question (except of course
my identity), and I’ll do my best to answer: who to befriend (short list), who to stay away from (longer list),
why you shouldn’t eat the veggie burgers from the cafeteria (long story that you don’t want to know involving jock jizz), how to get an A in Mrs. Stewart’s class,
and why you should never sit near Ken Abernathy (flatulence issue). Oh, and be careful in gym. Mr. Shackleman
makes all the pretty girls run extra laps so he can look at
their asses.
33
5/17/16 12:29 PM
that feels like enough information for now.
and fwiw, welcome to the jungle.
yours truly, Somebody Nobody
To: Somebody Nobody (somebodynobo@gmail.com)
From: Jessie A. Holmes (jesster567@gmail.com)
Subject: Elaborate hoax?
SN: Is this for real? Or is this some sort of initiation prank, à la
a dumb rom-com? You’re going to coax me into sharing my
deepest, darkest thoughts/fears, and then, BAM, when I least
expect it, you’ll post them on Tumblr and I’ll be the laughingstock of WVHS? If so, you’re messing with the wrong girl. I
have a black belt in karate. I can take care of myself.
If not a joke, thanks for your offer, but no thanks. I want
to be an embedded journalist one day. Might as well get
used to war zones now. And anyhow, I’m from Chicago. I
think I can handle the Valley.
Subject: not a hoax, elaborate or otherwise
promise this isn’t a prank. and I don’t think I’ve ever even
seen a rom-com. shocking, I know. hope this doesn’t reveal some great deficiency in my character.
you do know journalism is a dying field, right? maybe you
should aspire to be a war blogger.
34
5/17/16 12:29 PM
Subject: Specifically targeted spam?
Very funny. Wait, is there really sperm in the veggie burgers?
Subject: you, Jessie Holmes, have won $100,000,000 from a Nigerian prince.
not just sperm but sweaty lacrosse sperm.
I’d avoid the meat loaf too, just to be on the safe side. in
fact, stay out of the cafeteria altogether. that shit will give
you salmonella.
Subject: Will send my bank account details ASAP.
who are you?
Subject: and copy of birth certificate & driver’s license, please.
nope. not going to happen.
Subject: And, of course, you need my social security number too, right?
Fine. But tell me this at least: what’s up with the lack of
capital letters? Your shift key broken?
35
5/17/16 12:29 PM
Subject: and height and weight, please
terminally lazy.
Subject: NOW you’re getting personal.
Lazy and verbose. Interesting combo. And yet you do take
the time to capitalize proper nouns?
Subject: and mother’s maiden name
I’m not a complete philistine.
Subject: Lazy, verbose, AND nosy
“Philistine” is a big word for a teenage guy.
Subject: lazy, verbose, nosy, and . . . handsome
that’s not the only thing that’s . . . whew. caught myself
from making the obvious joke just in time. you totally set
me up, and I almost blew it.
36
5/17/16 12:29 PM
Subject: Lazy, verbose, nosy, handsome, and . . . modest
That’s what she said.
See, that’s the thing with email. I’d never say something like
that in person. Crude. Suggestive. Like I am the kind of girl who
could pull off that kind of joke. Who, face to face with an actual
member of the male species, would know how to flirt, and flip
my hair, and, if it came to it, know how to do much more than
kiss. (For the record, I do know how to kiss. I’m not saying I’d
ace an AP exam on the subject or, you know, win Olympic gold,
but I’m pretty sure I’m not awful. I know this purely by way of
comparison. Adam Kravitz. Ninth grade. Him: all slobber and
angry, rhythmic tongue, like a zombie trying to eat my head.
Me: all-too-willing participant, with three days of face chafing.)
Email is much like an ADD diagnosis. Guaranteed extra
time on the test. In real life, I constantly rework conversations
after the fact in my head, edit them until I’ve perfected my
witty, lighthearted, effortless banter—all the stuff that seems
to come naturally to other girls. A waste of time, of course, because by then I’m way too late. In the Venn diagram of my life,
my imagined personality and my real personality have never
converged. Over email and text, though, I am given those few
additional beats I need to be the better, edited version of myself. To be that girl in the glorious intersection.
I should be more careful. I realize that now. That’s what
she said. Really? Can’t decide if I sound like a frat boy or a slut;
either way, I don’t sound like me. More importantly, I have
no idea who I am writing to. Unlikely that SN truly is some
37
5/17/16 12:29 PM
do-gooder who feels sorry for the new girl. Or better yet, a secret admirer. Because of course that’s straight where my brain
went, the result of a lifetime of devouring too many romantic
comedies and reading too many improbable books. Why do
you think I kissed Adam Kravitz? He was my neighbor back in
Chicago. What better story is there than the girl who discovers
that true love has been waiting right next door all along? Of
course, my neighbor turned out to be a zombie with carbonated saliva, but no matter. Live and learn.
Surely SN is a cruel joke. He’s probably not even a he. Just
a mean girl preying on the weak. Because let’s face it: I am
weak. Possibly even pathetic. I lied. I don’t have a black belt
in karate. I am not tough. Until last month, I thought I was.
I really did. Life threw its punches, I got shat on, but I took it
in the mouth, to mix my metaphors. Or not. Sometimes it felt
just like getting shat on in the mouth. My only point of pride:
no one saw me cry. And then I became the new girl at WVHS,
in this weird area called the Valley, which is in Los Angeles but
not in Los Angeles or something like that, and I ended up here
because my dad married this rich lady who smells like fancy
almonds, and juice costs twelve dollars here, and I don’t know.
I don’t know anything anymore.
I am as lost and confused and alone as I have ever been.
No, high school will never be a time I look back on fondly. My
mom once told me that the world is divided into two kinds
of people: the ones who love their high school years and the
ones who spend the next decade recovering from them. What
doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, she said.
But something did kill her, and I’m not stronger. So go figure; maybe there’s a third kind of person: the ones who never
recover from high school at all.
38
5/17/16 12:29 PM
FALL IN LOVE with
THE BOYS OF SUMMER:
Gat is the boy your
parents don’t like in
We Were Liars.
e. lockhart
DELACORTE PRESS
PLEASE LIE:
WeWereLiars.com
#WeWereLiars
@elockhart
5/17/16 12:29 PM
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places,
and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination
or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living
or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Text copyright © 2014 by E. Lockhart
Jacket photograph © 2014 Getty Images/kang-gg
Map and family tree art copyright © 2014 by Abigail Daker
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by
Delacorte Press, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books,
a division of Random House LLC, a Penguin Random House Company, New York.
Delacorte Press is a registered trademark and
the colophon is a trademark of Random House LLC.
Visit us on the Web! randomhouse.com/teens
We were liars / E. Lockhart. — First edition.
pages cm
Summary: Spending the summers on her family’s private island off the coast of
Massachusetts with her cousins and a special boy named Gat, teenaged Cadence
struggles to remember what happened during her fifteenth summer.
ISBN 978-0-385-74126-2 (hardback) — ISBN 978-0-375-98994-0 (library binding) —
[1. Friendship—Fiction. 2. Love—Fiction. 3. Families—Fiction. 4. Amnesia—Fiction.
5. Wealth—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.L79757We 2014
[Fic]—dc23
201342127
The text of this book is set in 12-point Joanna MT.
Book design by Heather Kelly
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
First Edition
Lock_9780385741262_5p_all_r4.indd vi
6/18/14 12:31 PM
5/17/16 12:29 PM
4
ME, JOHNNY, MIRREN,
and Gat. Gat, Mirren, Johnny, and
me.
The family calls us four the Liars, and probably we deserve
it. We are all nearly the same age, and we all have birthdays in
the fall. Most years on the island, we’ve been trouble.
Gat started coming to Beechwood the year we were eight.
Summer eight, we called it.
Before that, Mirren, Johnny, and I weren’t Liars. We were
41
5/17/16 12:29 PM
nothing but cousins, and Johnny was a pain because he didn’t
like playing with girls.
Johnny, he is bounce, effort, and snark. Back then he would
hang our Barbies by the necks or shoot us with guns made of
Lego.
Mirren, she is sugar, curiosity, and rain. Back then she spent
long afternoons with Taft and the twins, splashing at the big
beach, while I drew pictures on graph paper and read in the
hammock on the Clairmont house porch.
Then Gat came to spend the summers with us.
Aunt Carrie’s husband left her when she was pregnant with
Johnny’s brother, Will. I don’t know what happened. The family never speaks of it. By summer eight, Will was a baby and
Carrie had taken up with Ed already.
This Ed, he was an art dealer and he adored the kids. That
was all we’d heard about him when Carrie announced she was
bringing him to Beechwood, along with Johnny and the baby.
They were the last to arrive that summer, and most of us
were on the dock waiting for the boat to pull in. Granddad
lifted me up so I could wave at Johnny, who was wearing an
orange life vest and shouting over the prow.
Granny Tipper stood next to us. She turned away from the
boat for a moment, reached in her pocket, and brought out a
white peppermint. Unwrapped it and tucked it into my mouth.
As she looked back at the boat, Gran’s face changed. I
squinted to see what she saw.
Carrie stepped off with Will on her hip. He was in a baby’s yellow life vest, and was really no more than a shock of white-blond
hair sticking up over it. A cheer went up at the sight of him. That
vest, which we had all worn as babies. The hair. How wonderful
that this little boy we didn’t know yet was so obviously a Sinclair.
42
5/17/16 12:29 PM
Johnny leapt off the boat and threw his own vest on the
dock. First thing, he ran up to Mirren and kicked her. Then he
kicked me. Kicked the twins. Walked over to our grandparents
and stood up straight. “Good to see you, Granny and Granddad.
I look forward to a happy summer.”
Tipper hugged him. “Your mother told you to say that,
didn’t she?”
“Yes,” said Johnny. “And I’m to say, nice to see you again.”
“Good boy.”
“Can I go now?”
Tipper kissed his freckled cheek. “Go on, then.”
Ed followed Johnny, having stopped to help the staff unload
the luggage from the motorboat. He was tall and slim. His skin
was very dark: Indian heritage, we’d later learn. He wore blackframed glasses and was dressed in dapper city clothes: a linen
suit and striped shirt. The pants were wrinkled from traveling.
Granddad set me down.
Granny Tipper’s mouth made a straight line. Then she
showed all her teeth and went forward.
“You must be Ed. What a lovely surprise.”
He shook hands. “Didn’t Carrie tell you we were coming?”
“Of course she did.”
Ed looked around at our white, white family. Turned to Carrie. “Where’s Gat?”
They called for him, and he climbed from the inside of the
boat, taking off his life vest, looking down to undo the buckles.
“Mother, Dad,” said Carrie, “we brought Ed’s nephew to
play with Johnny. This is Gat Patil.”
Granddad reached out and patted Gat’s head. “Hello, young
man.”
“Hello.”
43
5/17/16 12:29 PM
“His father passed on, just this year,” explained Carrie. “He
and Johnny are the best of friends. It’s a big help to Ed’s sister
if we take him for a few weeks. And, Gat? You’ll get to have
cookouts and go swimming like we talked about. Okay?”
But Gat didn’t answer. He was looking at me.
His nose was dramatic, his mouth sweet. Skin deep brown,
hair black and waving. Body wired with energy. Gat seemed
spring-loaded. Like he was searching for something. He was
contemplation and enthusiasm. Ambition and strong coffee. I
could have looked at him forever.
Our eyes locked.
I turned and ran away.
Gat followed. I could hear his feet behind me on the wooden
walkways that cross the island.
I kept running. He kept following.
Johnny chased Gat. And Mirren chased Johnny.
The adults remained talking on the dock, circling politely
around Ed, cooing over baby Will. The littles did whatever littles do.
We four stopped running at the tiny beach down by Cuddledown House. It’s a small stretch of sand with high rocks on either side. No one used it much, back then. The big beach had
softer sand and less seaweed.
Mirren took off her shoes and the rest of us followed. We
tossed stones into the water. We just existed.
I wrote our names in the sand.
Cadence, Mirren, Johnny, and Gat.
Gat, Johnny, Mirren, and Cadence.
That was the beginning of us.
*
*
*
44
5/17/16 12:29 PM
have Gat stay longer.
He got what he wanted.
The next year he begged to have him come for the entire
summer.
Gat came.
Johnny was the first grandson. My grandparents almost
never said no to Johnny.
JOHNNY BEGGED TO
5
SUM MER FOURTEEN, GAT and I took out the small motorboat alone. It was just after breakfast. Bess made Mirren play
tennis with the twins and Taft. Johnny had started running
that year and was doing loops around the perimeter path. Gat
found me in the Clairmont kitchen and asked, did I want to
take the boat out?
“Not really.” I wanted to go back to bed with a book.
“Please?” Gat almost never said please.
“Take it out yourself.”
“I can’t borrow it,” he said. “I don’t feel right.”
“Of course you can borrow it.”
“Not without one of you.”
He was being ridiculous. “Where do you want to go?” I
asked.
“I just want to get off-island. Sometimes I can’t stand it
here.”
I couldn’t imagine, then, what it was he couldn’t stand, but
I said all right. We motored out to sea in wind jackets and
45
5/17/16 12:29 PM
bathing suits. After a bit, Gat cut the engine. We sat eating pistachios and breathing salt air. The sunlight shone on the water.
“Let’s go in,” I said.
Gat jumped and I followed, but the water was so much
colder than off the beach, it snatched our breath. The sun went
behind a cloud. We laughed panicky laughs and shouted that it
was the stupidest idea to get in the water. What had we been
thinking? There were sharks off the coast, everybody knew
that.
Don’t talk about sharks, God! We scrambled and pushed
each other, struggling to be the first one up the ladder at the
back of the boat.
After a minute, Gat leaned back and let me go first. “Not because you’re a girl but because I’m a good person,” he told me.
“Thanks.” I stuck out my tongue.
“But when a shark bites my legs off, promise to write a
speech about how awesome I was.”
“Done,” I said. “Gatwick Matthew Patil made a delicious
meal.”
It seemed hysterically funny to be so cold. We didn’t have
towels. We huddled together under a fleece blanket we found
under the seats, our bare shoulders touching each other. Cold
feet, on top of one another.
“This is only so we don’t get hypothermia,” said Gat. “Don’t
think I find you pretty or anything.”
“I know you don’t.”
“You’re hogging the blanket.”
“Sorry.”
A pause.
Gat said, “I do find you pretty, Cady. I didn’t mean that the
46
5/17/16 12:29 PM
way it came out. In fact, when did you get so pretty? It’s distracting.”
“I look the same as always.”
“You changed over the school year. It’s putting me off my
game.”
“You have a game?”
He nodded solemnly.
“That is the dumbest thing I ever heard. What is your
game?”
“Nothing penetrates my armor. Hadn’t you noticed?”
That made me laugh. “No.”
“Damn. I thought it was working.”
We changed the subject. Talked about bringing the littles to
Edgartown to see a movie in the afternoon, about sharks and
whether they really ate people, about Plants Versus Zombies.
Then we drove back to the island.
Not long after that, Gat started lending me his books and
finding me at the tiny beach in the early evenings. He’d search
me out when I was lying on the Windemere lawn with the
goldens.
We started walking together on the path that circles the
island, Gat in front and me behind. We’d talk about books
or invent imaginary worlds. Sometimes we’d end up walking
several times around the edge before we got hungry or bored.
Beach roses lined the path, deep pink. Their smell was faint
and sweet.
One day I looked at Gat, lying in the Clairmont hammock
with a book, and he seemed, well, like he was mine. Like he
was my particular person.
I got in the hammock next to him, silently. I took the pen
47
5/17/16 12:29 PM
out of his hand—he always read with a pen—and wrote Gat on
the back of his left, and Cadence on the back of his right.
He took the pen from me. Wrote Gat on the back of my left,
and Cadence on the back of my right.
I am not talking about fate. I don’t believe in destiny or
soul mates or the supernatural. I just mean we understood each
other. All the way.
But we were only fourteen. I had never kissed a boy, though
I would kiss a few the next school year, and somehow we didn’t
label it love.
48
5/17/16 12:29 PM
FALL IN LOVE with
THE BOYS OF SUMMER:
Finch is the
rebel with a cause in
All The Bright Places.
Discover More Bright Places At:
AlltheBrightPlaces.com
#AlltheBrightPlaces #BeLovely365 #YouStartHere
5/17/16 12:29 PM
THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A . KNOPF
This is a work of fiction. All incidents and dialogue, and all characters (with
the exception of the creators of the World’s Largest Ball of Paint and the Blue
Flash and Blue Too roller coasters), are products of the author’s imagination.
Any resemblance to persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.
Text copyright © 2015 by Jennifer Niven
Jacket photographs (flowers) copyright © 2015 by Neil Fletcher and Matthew
Ward/Getty Images
Hand-lettering and illustrations copyright © 2015 by Sarah Watts
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, an
imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House
LLC, a Penguin Random House Company, New York.
Knopf, Borzoi Books, and the colophon are registered trademarks of
Random House LLC.
Excerpt from Oh, the Places You’ll Go! by Dr. Seuss, TM and copyright ©
by Dr. Seuss Enterprises L.P. 1990. Used by permission of Random House
Children’s Books, a division of Random House LLC, a Penguin Random
House Company, New York. All rights reserved.
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Niven, Jennifer.
All the bright places / Jennifer Niven.—1st ed.
p. cm.
Summary: “Told in alternating voices, when Theodore Finch and Violet
Markey meet on the ledge of the bell tower at school—both teetering on the
edge—it’s the beginning of an unlikely relationship, a journey to discover the
‘natural wonders’ of the state of Indiana, and two teens’ desperate desire to
heal and save one another.”—Provided by publisher
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978-0-385-75588-7 (trade) — ISBN 978-0-385-75589-4 (lib. bdg.) —
[1. Friendship—Fiction. 2. Suicide—Fiction. 3. Emotional problems—
Fiction. 4. Indiana—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.N6434Al 2015
[Fic]—dc23
2014002238
The text of this book is set in 11-point Simoncini Garamond.
January 2015
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
First Edition
Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and
celebrates the right to read.
5/17/16 12:29 PM
I am awake again. Day 6.
Is today a good day to die?
This is something I ask myself in the morning when I wake
up. In third period when I’m trying to keep my eyes open while
Mr. Schroeder drones on and on. At the supper table as I’m
passing the green beans. At night when I’m lying awake because
my brain won’t shut off due to all there is to think about.
Is today the day?
And if not today—when?
I am asking myself this now as I stand on a narrow ledge six
stories above the ground. I’m so high up, I’m practically part of
the sky. I look down at the pavement below, and the world tilts.
I close my eyes, enjoying the way everything spins. Maybe this
time I’ll do it—let the air carry me away. It will be like floating
in a pool, drifting off until there’s nothing.
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Jennifer Niven
4
I don’t remember climbing up here. In fact, I don’t remember much of anything before Sunday, at least not anything so
far this winter. This happens every time—the blanking out,
the waking up. I’m like that old man with the beard, Rip Van
Winkle. Now you see me, now you don’t. You’d think I’d have
gotten used to it, but this last time was the worst yet because I
wasn’t asleep for a couple days or a week or two—I was asleep
for the holidays, meaning Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New
Year’s. I can’t tell you what was different this time around, only
that when I woke up, I felt deader than usual. Awake, yeah, but
completely empty, like someone had been feasting on my blood.
This is day six of being awake again, and my first week back at
school since November 14.
I open my eyes, and the ground is still there, hard and permanent. I am in the bell tower of the high school, standing on
a ledge about four inches wide. The tower is pretty small, with
only a few feet of concrete floor space on all sides of the bell
itself, and then this low stone railing, which I’ve climbed over
to get here. Every now and then I knock one of my legs against
it to remind myself it’s there.
My arms are outstretched as if I’m conducting a sermon
and this entire not-very-big, dull, dull town is my congregation.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” I shout, “I would like to welcome you
to my death!” You might expect me to say “life,” having just
woken up and all, but it’s only when I’m awake that I think
about dying.
I am shouting in an old-school-preacher way, all jerking
head and words that twitch at the ends, and I almost lose my
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ALL THE BRIGHT PLACES
5
balance. I hold on behind me, happy no one seems to have noticed, because, let’s face it, it’s hard to look fearless when you’re
clutching the railing like a chicken.
“I, Theodore Finch, being of unsound mind, do hereby bequeath all my earthly possessions to Charlie Donahue, Brenda
Shank-Kravitz, and my sisters. Everyone else can go f--- themselves.” In my house, my mom taught us early to spell that word
(if we must use it) or, better yet, not spell it, and, sadly, this has
stuck.
Even though the bell has rung, some of my classmates are
still milling around on the ground. It’s the first week of the
second semester of senior year, and already they’re acting as if
they’re almost done and out of here. One of them looks up in
my direction, as if he heard me, but the others don’t, either because they haven’t spotted me or because they know I’m there
and Oh well, it’s just Theodore Freak.
Then his head turns away from me and he points at the sky.
At first I think he’s pointing at me, but it’s at that moment I
see her, the girl. She stands a few feet away on the other side
of the tower, also out on the ledge, dark-blond hair waving in
the breeze, the hem of her skirt blowing up like a parachute.
Even though it’s January in Indiana, she is shoeless in tights, a
pair of boots in her hand, and staring either at her feet or at the
ground—it’s hard to tell. She seems frozen in place.
In my regular, nonpreacher voice I say, as calmly as possible,
“Take it from me, the worst thing you can do is look down.”
Very slowly, she turns her head toward me, and I know
this girl, or at least I’ve seen her in the hallways. I can’t resist:
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Jennifer Niven
6
“Come here often? Because this is kind of my spot and I don’t
remember seeing you here before.”
She doesn’t laugh or blink, just gazes out at me from behind
these clunky glasses that almost cover her face. She tries to take
a step back and her foot bumps the railing. She teeters a little,
and before she can panic, I say, “I don’t know what brings you
up here, but to me the town looks prettier and the people look
nicer and even the worst of them look almost kind. Except for
Gabe Romero and Amanda Monk and that whole crowd you
hang out with.”
Her name is Violet Something. She is cheerleader popular—
one of those girls you would never think of running into on
a ledge six stories above the ground. Behind the ugly glasses
she’s pretty, almost like a china doll. Large eyes, sweet face
shaped like a heart, a mouth that wants to curve into a perfect
little smile. She’s a girl who dates guys like Ryan Cross, baseball
star, and sits with Amanda Monk and the other queen bees at
lunch.
“But let’s face it, we didn’t come up here for the view. You’re
Violet, right?”
She blinks once, and I take this as a yes.
“Theodore Finch. I think we had pre-cal together last year.”
She blinks again.
“I hate math, but that’s not why I’m up here. No offense if
that’s why you are. You’re probably better at math than I am,
because pretty much everyone’s better at math than I am, but
it’s okay, I’m fine with it. See, I excel at other, more important
things—guitar, sex, and consistently disappointing my dad, to
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5/17/16 12:29 PM
7
name a few. By the way, it’s apparently true that you’ll never use
it in the real world. Math, I mean.”
I keep talking, but I can tell I’m running out of steam. I need
to take a piss, for one thing, and so my words aren’t the only
thing twitching. (Note to self: Before attempting to take own life,
remember to take a leak.) And, two, it’s starting to rain, which,
in this temperature, will probably turn to sleet before it hits the
ground.
“It’s starting to rain,” I say, as if she doesn’t know this. “I
guess there’s an argument to be made that the rain will wash
away the blood, leaving us a neater mess to clean up than
otherwise. But it’s the mess part that’s got me thinking. I’m not
a vain person, but I am human, and I don’t know about you,
but I don’t want to look like I’ve been run through the wood
chipper at my funeral.”
She’s shivering or shaking, I can’t tell which, and so I slowly
inch my way toward her, hoping I don’t fall off before I get
there, because the last thing I want to do is make a jackass out
of myself in front of this girl. “I’ve made it clear I want cremation, but my mom doesn’t believe in it.” And my dad will do
whatever she says so he won’t upset her any more than he already has, and besides, You’re far too young to think about this,
you know your Grandma Finch lived to be ninety-eight, we don’t
need to talk about that now, Theodore, don’t upset your mother.
“So it’ll be an open coffin for me, which means if I jump, it
ain’t gonna be pretty. Besides, I kind of like my face intact like
this, two eyes, one nose, one mouth, a full set of teeth, which,
if I’m being honest, is one of my better features.” I smile so she
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5/17/16 12:29 PM
Jennifer Niven
8
can see what I mean. Everything where it should be, on the
outside at least.
When she doesn’t say anything, I go on inching and talking.
“Most of all, I feel bad for the undertaker. What a shitty job
that must be anyway, but then to have to deal with an asshole
like me?”
From down below, someone yells, “Violet? Is that Violet up
there?”
“Oh God,” she says, so low I barely hear it. “OhGodohGodohGod.” The wind blows her skirt and hair, and it
looks like she’s going to fly away.
There is general buzzing from the ground, and I shout,
“Don’t try to save me! You’ll only kill yourself!” Then I say,
very low, just to her, “Here’s what I think we should do.” I’m
about a foot away from her now. “I want you to throw your
shoes toward the bell and then hold on to the rail, just grab
right onto it, and once you’ve got it, lean against it and then lift
your right foot up and over. Got that?”
She nods and almost loses her balance.
“Don’t nod. And whatever you do, don’t go the wrong way
and step forward instead of back. I’ll count you off. On three.”
She throws her boots in the direction of the bell, and they
fall with a thud, thud onto the concrete.
“One. Two. Three.”
She grips the stone and kind of props herself against it and
then lifts her leg up and over so that she’s sitting on the railing.
She stares down at the ground and I can see that she’s frozen
again, and so I say, “Good. Great. Just stop looking down.”
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9
She slowly looks at me and then reaches for the floor of the
bell tower with her right foot, and once she’s found it, I say,
“Now get that left leg back over however you can. Don’t let go
of the wall.” By now she’s shaking so hard I can hear her teeth
chatter, but I watch as her left foot joins her right, and she is
safe.
So now it’s just me out here. I gaze down at the ground one
last time, past my size-thirteen feet that won’t stop growing—
today I’m wearing sneakers with fluorescent laces—past the
open windows of the fourth floor, the third, the second, past
Amanda Monk, who is cackling from the front steps and swishing her blond hair like a pony, books over her head, trying to
flirt and protect herself from the rain at the same time.
I gaze past all of this at the ground itself, which is now slick
and damp, and imagine myself lying there.
I could just step off. It would be over in seconds. No more
“Theodore Freak.” No more hurt. No more anything.
I try to get past the unexpected interruption of saving a life
and return to the business at hand. For a minute, I can feel it:
the sense of peace as my mind goes quiet, like I’m already dead.
I am weightless and free. Nothing and no one to fear, not even
myself.
Then a voice from behind me says, “I want you to hold on to
the rail, and once you’ve got it, lean against it and lift your right
foot up and over.”
Like that, I can feel the moment passing, maybe already
passed, and now it seems like a stupid idea, except for picturing
the look on Amanda’s face as I go sailing by her. I laugh at the
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Jennifer Niven
10
thought. I laugh so hard I almost fall off, and this scares me—
like, really scares me—and I catch myself and Violet catches
me as Amanda looks up. “Weirdo!” someone shouts. Amanda’s
little group snickers. She cups her big mouth and aims it skyward. “You okay, V?”
Violet leans over the rail, still holding on to my legs. “I’m
okay.”
The door at the top of the tower stairs cracks open and my
best friend, Charlie Donahue, appears. Charlie is black. Not
CW black, but black-black. He also gets laid more than anyone
else I know.
He says, “They’re serving pizza today,” as if I wasn’t standing
on a ledge six stories above the ground, my arms outstretched, a
girl wrapped around my knees.
“Why don’t you go ahead and get it over with, freak?” Gabe
Romero, better known as Roamer, better known as Dumbass,
yells from below. More laughter.
Because I’ve got a date with your mother later, I think but
don’t say because, let’s face it, it’s lame, and also he will come up
here and beat my face in and then throw me off, and this defeats
the point of just doing it myself.
Instead I shout, “Thanks for saving me, Violet. I don’t know
what I would’ve done if you hadn’t come along. I guess I’d be
dead right now.”
The last face I see below belongs to my school counselor,
Mr. Embry. As he glares up at me, I think, Great. Just great.
I let Violet help me over the wall and onto the concrete.
From down below, there’s a smattering of applause, not for me,
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5/17/16 12:29 PM
11
but for Violet, the hero. Up close like this, I can see that her
skin is smooth and clear except for two freckles on her right
cheek, and her eyes are a gray-green that makes me think of fall.
It’s the eyes that get me. They are large and arresting, as if she
sees everything. As warm as they are, they are busy, no-bullshit
eyes, the kind that can look right into you, which I can tell even
through the glasses. She’s pretty and tall, but not too tall, with
long, restless legs and curvy hips, which I like on a girl. Too
many high school girls are built like boys.
“I was just sitting there,” she says. “On the railing. I didn’t
come up here to—”
“Let me ask you something. Do you think there’s such a
thing as a perfect day?”
“What?”
“A perfect day. Start to finish. When nothing terrible or sad
or ordinary happens. Do you think it’s possible?”
“I don’t know.”
“Have you ever had one?”
“No.”
“I’ve never had one either, but I’m looking for it.”
She whispers, “Thank you, Theodore Finch.” She reaches
up and kisses me on the cheek, and I can smell her shampoo,
which reminds me of flowers. She says into my ear, “If you
ever tell anyone about this, I’ll kill you.” Carrying her boots,
she hurries away and out of the rain, back through the door
that leads to the flight of dark and rickety stairs that takes you
down to one of the many too-bright and too-crowded school
hallways.
59
5/17/16 12:29 PM
Jennifer Niven
12
Charlie watches her go and, as the door swings closed behind her, he turns back to me. “Man, why do you do that?”
“Because we all have to die someday. I just want to be
prepared.” This isn’t the reason, of course, but it will be
enough for him. The truth is, there are a lot of reasons, most
of which change daily, like the thirteen fourth graders killed
earlier this week when some SOB opened fire in their school
gym, or the girl two years behind me who just died of cancer,
or the man I saw outside the Mall Cinema kicking his dog, or
my father.
Charlie may think it, but at least he doesn’t say “Weirdo,”
which is why he’s my best friend. Other than the fact that I appreciate this about him, we don’t have much in common.
60
5/17/16 12:29 PM
5/17/16 12:29 PM
You are wanted.
You are loved.
Illustrations © 2016 Shutterstock
See the truth inside 10.4.16
New from
JENNIFER NIVEN
New York Times bestselling author of
JenniferNiven.com #HoldingUpTheUniverse
5/17/16 12:29 PM
FALL IN LOVE with
THE BOYS OF SUMMER:
Oliver is a
real-life Prince Charming.
in Off The Page.
OFF
THE
PAGE
Jodi Picoult
&
Samantha van Leer
#OffThePage
5/17/16 12:29 PM
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the
product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to
actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Text copyright © 2015 by Jodi Picoult and Samantha van Leer
Interior illustrations copyright © 2015 by Scott M. Fischer
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Ember, an imprint of
Random House Children’s Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.
Originally published in hardcover with additional artwork in the United States by
Delacorte Press, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, New York, in 2015.
Ember and the E colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.
Educators and librarians, for a variety of teaching tools, visit us at RHTeachersLibrarians.com
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.
ISBN 978-0-553-53559-4 (tr. pbk.) — ISBN 978-0-553-53558-7 (ebook)
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
First Ember Edition 2016
Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment
and celebrates the right to read.
5/17/16 12:29 PM
DELILAH
I’ve been waiting my whole life for Oliver, so you’d think another fifteen minutes wouldn’t matter. But it’s fifteen minutes
that Oliver is alone on a bus, unmonitored, for the first time,
with the most ruthless, malicious, soul-sucking creatures on
earth: high school students.
Going to high school is a little like being told you have to get
up each morning and run headlong at sixty miles an hour into
the same brick wall. Every day, you’re forced to watch Darwin’s
principle of survival of the fittest play out: evolutionary advantages, like perfect white teeth and gravity-defying boobs, or a
football team jacket keep you from falling prey to the demons
that grow to three times their size when they feed on the fear
of a hapless freshman and bully him to a pulp. After years of
public school, I’ve gotten pretty good at being invisible. That
way, you’re less likely to become a target.
But Oliver knows none of this. He has always been the center
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5/17/16 12:29 PM
6
JODI PICOULT & SAMANTHA VAN LEER
of attention. He’s even more undeveloped socially than the boy
who enrolled last year after nine years of being homeschooled
in a yurt. Which is why I’m actually breaking a sweat, imagining everything Oliver could be doing wrong.
At this point, he’s probably ten minutes into a story about
the first dragon he ever encountered—and while he might think
it’s a great icebreaker, the rest of the bus will either peg him as
the new druggie in town, who puts ’shrooms in his breakfast
omelet, or as one of those kids who run around speaking Elvish,
wearing homemade cloaks, with foam swords tucked into their
belts. Either way, that kind of first impression is one that sticks
for the rest of your life.
Believe me, I know.
I’ve spent my entire school career as that girl. The one who
wrote VD Rocks! on all her second-grade valentines and who
literally walked into a wall once while reading a book. The one
who recently reaffirmed her subterranean spot on the socialstatus totem pole by accidentally punching out the most popular girl in school during swim practice.
Oliver and I make a fabulous couple.
Speaking of which . . . I kind of still can’t believe we are one.
It’s one thing to have a boyfriend, but to have someone who
looks like he just stepped out of a romantic comedy—well, it
doesn’t happen to people like me. Girls spend their lives dreaming of that perfect guy but always wind up settling when they
realize he doesn’t exist. I found mine—but he was trapped inside a fairy tale. Since that’s the only world he’s ever lived in,
acclimating to this one has been a bit of a challenge. How he
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O FF TH E PAG E
7
came to be real—and mine—is a long story . . . but it’s been the
biggest adventure of my life.
So far, anyway.
“Delilah!” I hear, and I turn around to see my best friend,
Jules, barreling toward me. We hug like magnets. We haven’t
seen each other all summer—she was exiled to her aunt’s house
in the Midwest, and I was totally preoccupied with Oliver’s arrival. Her Mohawk has grown out into an Egyptian bob, which
she’s dyed midnight blue, and she’s wearing her usual thick
black eyeliner, combat boots, and a T-shirt with the name of
her favorite band du jour: Khaleesi and the Dragons. “So where
is he?” she asks, looking around.
“Not here yet,” I tell her. “What if he called the bus his
trusty steed again?”
Jules laughs. “Delilah, you’ve been practicing with him the
whole summer. I think he can handle a fifteen-minute bus ride
without you.” Suddenly she grimaces. “Oh crap, don’t tell me
you guys are going to be Gorilla-glued together, like BrAngelo,”
Jules says, jerking her head toward Brianna and Angelo, the
school’s power couple, who seem to have an uncanny ability to
be making out on my locker at the exact moment I need to get
inside. “I think it’s great that you have a hot new boyfriend, but
you better not ditch me.”
“Are you kidding?” I say. “I’m going to need your help. Being
around Oliver is like when you’re babysitting a toddler and you
realize the entire house is a potential danger zone.”
“Perfect timing,” murmurs Jules as Oliver’s bus pulls up to
the front of the school.
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8
You know how there are some moments in your life when
time just slows down? When you remember every minute detail: how the wind feels against your face, how the freshly cut
grass smells, how snippets of conversation become a dull background buzz, and how in that instant, there’s only the beat of
your heart and the breath that you draw and the person whose
eyes lock with yours?
Oliver is the last one to step off the bus. His black hair is
ruffled by the breeze. He’s wearing the white shirt and jeans I
picked out for him, and an unzipped hoodie. A leather satchel
is strung across his chest, and his green eyes search the crowd.
When he sees me, a huge smile breaks across his face.
He walks toward me as if there aren’t three hundred people
staring at him—the new kid—as if it doesn’t matter in the least
that the popular girls are tossing their hair and batting their
lashes like they’re at a photo shoot, or that the jocks are all sizing him up as competition. He walks as if the only thing he can
see is me.
Oliver wraps his arms around me and swings me in a circle,
like I weigh nothing at all. He sets me down, then gently holds
my face in his hands, looking at me as if he has found treasure.
“Hello,” he says, and he kisses me.
I can feel everyone’s eyes on me, their mouths gaping.
Not gonna lie: I could get used to this.
Y
Y
Y
I met Oliver inside a book. Last year, I got obsessed with a kids’
fairy tale that I found in the stacks of the school library—in
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O FF TH E PAG E
9
particular, with the prince who was illustrated throughout the
pages. Now, lots of readers crush on fictional characters, but
mine turned out to be not so fictional. Oliver wanted out of his
book, where every day was the same, and into a life that didn’t
have such a rigid plotline.
We had a bunch of failed attempts—including one involving a magic easel that reproduced him in the real world but
flat as a pancake, and a brief period of time where I got sucked
into the book and found myself swimming with mermaids and
fending off a deranged princess who fancied herself in love with
Oliver. Our last-ditch attempt to get him written out of the
story included a covert trip to Cape Cod to find the author of
the book, Jessamyn Jacobs, who had written the story for her
son, Edgar, after his dad died. As it turned out, Edgar was a
dead ringer for Oliver, and just the replacement we needed in
the book for Oliver. For the past three months, Edgar’s been
living in the fairy tale, and Oliver’s been living on Cape Cod,
impersonating him—American accent, teenage moods, twentyfirst-century clothing, and all. After weeks of persuasion, Oliver
finally convinced Jessamyn to move here, to New Hampshire,
so he could be with me.
Oliver and I walk down the hall, where girls bunch together,
jockeying into position to take a Snapchat selfie; bros try to
jam a shipping container’s worth of sports gear into a locker
the size of a carry-on suitcase; cheerleaders gaze at themselves
in their locker mirrors, putting on lip gloss in slow motion, as
if they’re starring in their own Sephora commercial. Suddenly
two nerds zoom down the hallway, clutching stacks of books
to their chests, careening off bystanders like human pinballs.
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10
Oliver nearly gets mowed down in the process. “Is there a fire?”
he asks.
“No, we only have fifteen minutes till class starts. To a nerd,
that means you’re already a half hour late.” I glance down the
hallway. “They run everywhere. All the time.”
I can feel everyone’s eyes on my back as Oliver and I pass. As
we move through the crowds, I purposely bump into him every
so often. I do this so I can make sure he’s really here. You have
to understand—I’m just not a lucky person. I never win a raffle;
every penny I come across is tails-up; my last fortune cookie
said Good luck with that. This is literally a dream come true.
Suddenly I realize that Oliver is doing the queen’s wave as we
head down the science wing. I grab his hand and pull it down.
“These are not your subjects,” I whisper, but when he threads
his fingers through mine, I completely forget to be frustrated.
Before I realize what he’s doing, he’s pulling me around a
corner, into the narrow hallway that leads to the photography
lab. In a delicate choreography, he spins me so that my back
is against the wall and his hands are bracketing me. His hair
is falling across his eyes as he leans forward, lifts my chin, and
kisses me.
“What was that for?” I ask, dizzy.
He grins. “Just because I can.”
I can’t help smiling back. Three months ago, I never imagined that I could even reach out and touch Oliver’s hand, much
less sneak away during school for a secret kiss.
The terrible thing about falling in love is that real life always
gets in the way. I sigh, taking his hand. “As much as I’d like to
stay here, we have to get you to class.”
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O FF TH E PAG E
11
“So,” Oliver says. “What’s my first task?”
“Well,” I reply, taking the printed schedule out of his hand.
EDGAR JACOBS, it reads, startling me. It’s hard for me to remember that Oliver is masquerading as someone else; how difficult
must it be for him? “Your first class is chemistry.”
“Alchemy?”
“Um, not quite. More like potions.”
Oliver looks impressed. “Wow. Everyone here hopes to be a
wizard?”
“Only the ones with a death wish,” I murmur. I stop in front
of a bank of lockers, matching the number to the one on his
schedule. “This is yours.”
He tugs on the lock, frowning at the numerical puzzle of the
combination. Then suddenly he brightens and, out of nowhere,
pulls out a dagger and hacks it against the metal.
“Oh my God!” I shout, grabbing the knife and stuffing it
into my backpack before anyone else can see. “Do you want to
get arrested?”
“I’m really not that tired,” Oliver says.
I sigh. “No knives. Ever. Understand?”
His eyes flicker with remorse. “There’s just so much here
that’s . . . different,” he says.
“I know,” I empathize. “That’s why you’ve got me.” I take off
the numeric lock, using the code on the back of Oliver’s schedule, and replace it with a padlock whose combination is five
letters. “Watch,” I say, using my thumb to roll the wheels until
they spell E-D-A-H-E. “Everyone deserves a happy ending.”
“I think I can remember that.” He grins and backs me against
the lockers. “You know what else I remember?”
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12
His eyes are as green as a summer field, and as easy to get
lost in.
“I remember the first time I saw you,” Oliver says. “You were
wearing that shirt.”
When he looks at me like that, I can’t even remember my
name, much less what I’m wearing today. “I was?”
“And I remember the first time I did this,” he adds, and he
leans in and kisses me.
Suddenly I hear a voice over my shoulder. “Um,” a boy says.
“You guys are kind of draped across my locker?”
Oh God. I’ve become BrAngelo.
Immediately I shove Oliver away and tuck my hair behind
my ears. “Sorry,” I mutter. “Won’t happen again.” I clear my
throat. “I’m Delilah, by the way.”
The kid jerks the metal door open and looks at me. “Chris,”
he says.
Oliver extends his hand. “I’m Oli—”
“Edgar,” I interrupt. “His name is Edgar.”
“Yes. Right,” Oliver says. “That is my name.”
“I feel like I haven’t seen you before,” I say to Chris.
“I’m new. Just moved here from Detroit.”
“I just moved here too,” Oliver replies.
“Oh yeah? Where from?”
“The kingdom of—”
“Cape Cod,” I blurt out.
Chris snorts. “She doesn’t let you talk much, man. Where
are you guys headed?”
“Edgar’s got chemistry with Mr. Zhang,” I say.
72
5/17/16 12:29 PM
O FF TH E PAG E
13
“Cool, me too. I’ll see you there?” Chris shuts his locker
and, with a wave, walks down the hall.
Oliver watches him. “How come he’s allowed to wave?”
I roll my eyes. It’s 8:15 a.m. and I’m already exhausted. “I’ll
explain later,” I say.
I have enough time to drop Oliver off at his chemistry classroom before I have to head to French. As we turn the corner, Jules slips up behind us and links her arm through mine.
“Guess who broke up,” she says.
Oliver smiles. “This must be the famous Jules.”
“Reports of my awesomeness are usually underrated,” Jules
answers. She gives Oliver a once-over and then nods and turns
to me. “Well done.”
“I’m kind of in a rush—I’m trying to get him to Zhang’s
room before the bell rings,” I explain.
“Trust me, you want to hear this. . . . Allie McAndrews and
Ryan Douglas?”
Oliver looks at me, questioning.
“Prom queen and king,” I explain quickly.
He looks impressed. “Royalty.”
“They think they are,” Jules agrees. “Anyway, they broke up.
Apparently being faithful comes as easily to Ryan as Shakespeare.”
Having been in Ryan’s English class last year, I know that’s
saying a lot.
“Speak of the devil,” says Jules.
As if we’re watching a soap opera, Allie turns the corner,
flanked by her posse. From the opposite direction, simultaneously,
73
5/17/16 12:29 PM
14
Ryan swaggers down the hall. We bystanders freeze, holding our
breath, waiting for the inevitable train wreck.
“Oh, look! What a rare sighting,” Allie says loudly. “A manslut in the wild!” Her girls giggle in response.
Ryan looks her up and down. “Did you eat all your feelings,
Allie?”
At that, Allie propels herself at him, claws out. Just in time,
a kid steps between them—James, the president of the LGBT
Alliance, who has his own bow tie business and runs conflictresolution training for student mentors. “Walk it off, girlfriend,”
James says to Ryan, who shoves him into the wall.
“Back off, fairy,” Ryan growls.
Before I realize what’s happening, Oliver is no longer standing next to me. He’s heading straight for Ryan.
“Oh crap,” Jules says. “You had to date a hero?”
But Oliver rushes past Ryan, moving toward James, who’s
now sprawled on the ground. He extends a hand and helps
James up. “Are you all right?”
“Yeah, thanks,” James replies, brushing himself off.
This is good, this is really good. Oliver has created the best
reputation possible. Everyone is looking at him as if he is a
champion.
Including Allie McAndrews.
Oliver puts a hand on James’s shoulder. “Fairies here are
much bigger than I expected,” he says, delighted.
For a moment, time stops. Something flickers across James’s
face—disappointment. Resignation. Pain.
What happens next is so fast I can barely see it: James pulls
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5/17/16 12:29 PM
O FF TH E PAG E
15
back his arm and socks Oliver hard so that he falls backward,
knocked out cold.
Oh yeah. This is gonna be a great year.
I fly to Oliver’s side, crouching down. By now the crowd has
scattered, afraid of repercussions. I help him sit up; he winces
as he leans against the wall.
“Let me guess,” Oliver mutters. “Fairy means something different here?”
But I can’t answer, because when I look at him I see it: the
trickle of black from his nose, the stains on his white shirt.
“Oliver,” I whisper. “You’re inking.”
75
5/17/16 12:29 PM
4
KNOW WHICH BOOK
Then one day
you reached onto
a shelf,
and out of
all the books
YOU
WANT
TO
FALL
FOR
?
in the world, you chose this one.
Now, don’t
get mecovers
wrong. It’s not
as if you’re
not important.
Click
the
below
for
more!For
the moment you opened this tale, your mind awakened the characters. If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, does
it really fall? If a character sits in a book and no one reads it, is he
truly alive? As your eyes moved across the pages, as you heard the
story in your head, the characters moved for you, spoke for you, felt
for you.
So you see, it’s quite difficult to know who owns a story. Is it the
writer, who crafted it? The characters, who carry the plot forward?
Or you, the reader, who breathes life into them?
Or perhaps none of the three can exist without the other.
Jack
Ja
ackkett photoograp
a h © 2014
20 Get
201
Geetty
ty Ima
maagees/ka
mage
s/ ng-g
ng--gg
Perhaps without this magical combination, a story would be
nothing more than words on a page.
5/17/16 12:29 PM

- Random House Kids

Transcription

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