Susan Pfeffer - This World We Live In

This is the last time I’ll write in my diaries. I’m choosing not to burn them. They’re witness to my story, to all our stories. If I burn them, it’s like denying that Mom ever lived or Jon or Matt or Syl. Dad and Lisa. Gabriel. Mrs. Nesbitt. Charlie.

Julie.

Alex.

I can’t deny them their stories just to protect mine. So when we go in the morning, I’ll leave the diaries behind. I’ll never write in one again. My story is told. Let someone else write the next one.

There’ve been times in my life when I thought I knew everything worth knowing, the sweetness of a robin’s song, the brilliance of a field of dandelions, the exhilaration of gliding across the ice on a clear winter’s day.

This past year I grew to know hunger, grief, darkness, fear. I began to understand how lonely you can feel even when all you want is to be alone.

Then the rain came. And I learned so much more.

From Syl came lessons of survival. From Gabriel, the message that despair can give birth to hope.

Charlie showed me friendship and family can be one and the same.

Without Julie I wouldn’t have remembered that the darkest sky is filled with stars, that the sun casts its warmth on the coldest day.

“Miranda?”

That’s Alex’s voice, Alex calling to me. I’ll put the diary away now, hiding it with all my others. I’ll go to him, stand with him, hold his hand as he takes his first steps toward life.

He taught me to trust in tomorrow.

“Yes, Alex,” I say. “I’m coming.”

Dear Amazon reader,

I love you.

No, I really do. I have loved you since the first of the Last Survivors trilogy, Life As We Knew It , was published. It was then that I began monitoring (such a nice euphemism for stalking) my Amazon ranking. I cheered when it dipped below 20,000 for the first time. I marveled when it landed at 7,777 and 6,666. When, for one glorious moment, it was in the extremely high three digits, I wrote an entire celebratory blog entry. I went through the same emotional extremes when the second volume, The Dead & The Gone , came out. When its Amazon ranking was lower than Life As We Knew It , I felt that same trill of excitement that I experienced when kid sister Serena beat Venus Williams for the first time. Now the trilogy is complete, with the publication of This World We Live In . I celebrated on July 13, 2009, at 4:06 p.m., when it debuted at 271,527. Each morning and afternoon and evening and night and occasionally at tea time, I check on all three books. It’s like the Milwaukee Brewers Sausage Race. Now in first place is Life As We Knew It at 2,911, but fast on its heels is the up-and-comer This World We Live In at 2,983. Falling back to third place is The Dead & The Gone , at 3,240, from its midafternoon high of 2,829. Yes, dear Amazon reader, I love you. But could you please do something about my 1993 novel, The Ring of Truth ? It’s feeling very lonely at 5,235,538!

Best,

Susan Beth Pfeffer

(Photo © Marci Hanners)

Boston New York 2010

Copyright © 2010 by Susan Beth Pfeffer

All rights reserved. For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 215 Park Avenue South, New York, New York 10003.

Harcourt is an imprint of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.

www.hmhbooks.com

Text set in Spectrum MT

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-publication Data

Pfeffer, Susan Beth, 1948—

This world we live in / Susan Beth Pfeffer.

p. cm.

Summary: When the moon’s gravitational pull increases, causing massive natural disasters on earth, Miranda and her family struggle to survive in a world without cities or sunlight, and wonder if anyone else is still alive.

ISBN 978-0-547-24804-2 (hardcover: alk. paper)

[1. Survival—Fiction. 2. Family life—Fiction. 3. Diaries—Fiction. 4. Science fiction.]. I. Title.

PZ7.P44855Ti 2010

[Fic]—dc22 2009026939

Manufactured in the United States of America

DOC 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3

4500227515