Allen Zadoff - Boy Nobody

“How are you doing, Erica?”

“I’m not fine. I want a drink so badly I can’t stand it.”

“You shouldn’t drink when you’re feeling like this.”

“Thanks for the public service announcement,” she says.

She puts a hand on my forearm.

“Sorry. I’m being a bitch. I know you care. It’s just that I kind of hate you. You turned me down three times. Nobody does that and lives.”

“Yet here I am, alive and well.”

“I let you live,” she says. “For Sam’s sake. Maybe I’m getting cheesy in my old age.”

“How old are you?”

“Nearly eighteen.”

“That is old.”

“Shut up,” she says.

She punches me in the arm.

A challenge.

No.

Something else.

People are acting strangely today. Crying one minute, laughing the next. Flirting and hugging and falling apart.

Grief. This is what it does to people. It makes them strangers to themselves.

It’s good that I’ve put it away.

“What am I going to do without her?” Erica says.

She groans and hugs herself.

This is not part of my training, grieving people and aftermath. I do not stay for aftermath. Not usually.

When in doubt, emulate.

“What are any of us going to do?” I say to Erica.

This seems to comfort her.

“Call me if you need anything,” she says.

“I will.”

“Promise me?”

I don’t promise. I drift away.

I have instructions from Father now, and it’s time to go.

I continue through the halls, my energy receding.

I move past clusters of grieving students, past teachers trying to comfort them, past empty classrooms and full halls. This is not my school anymore. I am no longer one of them.

Maybe I never was.

Eventually people stop looking at me, stop meeting my eye.

There is nothing to meet.

There is nobody here.

Boy Nobody may be a solo act, but I most certainly am not.

I’d like to thank Rich Tackenberg, tech blogger and friend, whose analysis of technology and social media trends was enormously helpful to me in the preparation of this book.

Thanks to Kate Sullivan, my incredible editor, who found Boy Nobody , championed it, and gave the series a home.

Special thanks to publisher Megan Tingley, who invited me into the LBYR family. And what a family it is—Andrew Smith, Melanie Chang, Eileen Lawrence, Victoria Stapleton, and Amy Habayeb, to name only a few. I look forward to making the journey with all of you.

Thanks to Sally Willcox at CAA for her tireless efforts to bring Boy Nobody to the big screen.

Finally I’d like to thank my agent, Stuart Krichevsky, and the SK team—Shana Cohen and Ross Harris. Stuart has guided me, grown with me, and believed in me over several years, several projects, and several bumps in the road. That’s my idea of a great agent.

In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher is unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at permissions@hbgusa.com. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

Copyright © 2013 by Allen Zadoff

Cover design by Tom Sanderson

Image of boy © Arcangel Images; images of woods and city © the-parish.com

Cover © 2013 Hachette Book Group, Inc.

All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher is unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at permissions@hbgusa.com. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

Little, Brown and Company

Hachette Book Group

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www.lb-teens.com

First ebook edition: June 2013

Little, Brown and Company is a division of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

The Little, Brown name and logo are trademarks of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.

ISBN: 978-0-316-24389-6