A starkly original and heartbreaking tale of friendship and rebellion

A starkly original and heartbreaking tale of friendship and rebellion

A novel for the square pegs, and for those who try to make them fit. Readers need to come to this book armed with imagination - which is kind of the point. It's part-fable, part-dystopian, and wholly brilliant

Vorwort
A starkly original and heartbreaking tale of friendship and rebellion

Autorentext
Sally Gardner is a multi-award-winning novelist whose work has been translated into more than twenty-two languages. Her novel MAGGOT MOON (Hot Key Books) won both the Costa Children's Book Prize and the Carnegie Medal 2013. Sally's genre-defying novel THE DOUBLE SHADOW (Orion) received great critical acclaim and was also longlisted for the Carnegie Medal 2013. THE RED NECKLACE (shortlisted for 2007 Guardian Book Prize) and THE SILVER BLADE are set during the French Revolution, the film rights for which have been purchased by Dominic West. Sally also won the 2005 Nestle Children's Book Prize for her debut novel I, CORIANDER. She is currently writing the popular WINGS & CO Fairy Detective Agency Series (Orion) for 7-11 year olds - hailed as 'Agatha Christie for kids' - and has recently released her latest Young Adult fiction novel, which is a modern gothic tale called TINDER, illustrated by David Roberts (Orion). Follow Sally at www.sallygardner.net or on Twitter: @TheSallyGardner

Klappentext

What if the football hadn't gone over the wall? What if Hector had never gone looking for it? What if he hadn't kept the dark secret to himself? What if...? Then I suppose I would be telling myself another story. You see, the 'what if's' are as boundless as the stars. CONTAINS SOME STRONG LANGUAGE

Zusammenfassung
A starkly original and heartbreaking tale of friendship and rebellion

Leseprobe

I wasn't listening to the lesson when the note arrived from the headmaster's office. Because me and Hector were in the city across the water, in another country where the buildings don't stop rising until they pin the clouds to the sky. Where the sun shines in Technicolor. Life at the end of a rainbow. I don't care what they tell us, I've seen it on the TV. They sing in the streets - they even sing in the rain, sing while dancing round a lamp post.

This is the dark ages. We don't sing.

But this was the best daydream I'd had since Hector and his family vanished. Mostly I tried not to think about Hector. Instead I liked to concentrate on imagining myself on our planet, the one Hector and I had invented. Juniper.

It was better than being worried sick about what had happened to him. Except this was one of the best daydreams I'd had for a long time. It felt as if Hector was near me again. We were driving round in one of those huge, ice-cream-coloured Cadillacs. I could almost smell the leather. Bright blue, sky blue, leather seats blue. Hector in the back. Me with my arm resting on the chrome of the wound-down window, my hand on the wheel, driving us home for Croca-Colas in a shiny kitchen with a checked tablecloth and a garden that looks as if the grass was Hoovered.

That's when I became vaguely aware of Mr Gunnell saying my name.

'Standish Treadwell. You are wanted in the headmaster's office.'