His mother poked her head round the door. “Noah – exciting news! I’ve just heard from your father. He used his one phone call to ring me.”
“Wants you to pay for a good lawyer, does he?”
“Au contraire,” his mum said, alarmingly using French, which meant she was feeling smug about something. “Your father has been doing a lot of thinking whilst ‘doing time’…”
“He’s only been in the cell at the police station for a few hours!”
“And he’s realized a lot of things,” his mum said. “And of course, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking myself lately. I mean, what was I thinking, running around with a nineteen-year-old? That’s not me. So I’ll cut to the chase, Noah. Your dad has asked me to reaffirm our marriage vows.”
Noah’s blood ran cold. He stared at his mum, long and hard. “What did you say, Mother?”
His mum smiled sweetly. “I said yes, of course! Oh, Noah! We’re going to get him out of jail and he’s going to move back in. We’re going to all be a family again!” She looked across at Gran. “Looking great, Millie. Love the … hospital gown and the … drip. Good news, huh?”
With that, his mum disappeared and left Noah staring at the door.
Life did not wrap itself neatly into pleasing episodes. There was no such thing as a “happy ending”. No sooner had everything gone right than Noah’s life was about to plummet into a brand-new circle of hell…
Oh God…
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
It might be my name on the front cover, but you wouldn’t be reading this book if it wasn’t for a lot of very talented (and very lovely) people who have helped me along the way. So, in no particular order…
Thanks to Sam Mills and Catherine Coe, who both read early drafts of the book and gave me such insightful editorial feedback.
I owe an awful lot to everyone at the Golden Egg Academy, especially Imogen Cooper for all her help and support, and my wonderful Golden Egg editor,
Jenny Glencross, who helped me hone and shape the manuscript and gave me the confidence to get it “out there”.
Huge thanks to Sara Grant and the whole team at SCBWI Undiscovered Voices. The first two chapters of this book were selected for the 2016 anthology and within a year I had an agent and a publishing deal – thank you.
I’m lucky to have the most wonderful agent ever – Joanna Moult at Skylark Literary, who has held my hand through the whole process, been brilliant at working on the manuscript with me and is generally all-round fantastic. Thanks, Jo! Jo runs Skylark with the equally lovely and supportive Amber Caraveo, and they really are the bee’s knees!
To Linas Alsenas, my awesome editor at Scholastic: I couldn’t have wished for a better, more talented, funny or lovely person to work with on bringing Noah into the world. Thank you for championing me, and the book, for all your brilliant notes and ideas, and for your endless support. You. Are. Wonderful.
Massive thanks also to the rest of the team at Scholastic – especially my publicist, Olivia Horrox, Roisin O’Shea and the marketing team, Lauren Fortune, Sam Smith, all the other fab editors, the sales team, copy-editors, and the amazing Liam Drane, who designed the brilliant cover.
Travis – thank you for your feedback and comments. It’s been great being able to run this by a real teenager!
Thank you to all my friends, fellow writers from SCBWI and Golden Egg, book bloggers and Twitter pals for your support, humour and, where appropriate, gin.
Mum, thank you for believing in me and supporting me from the start – right from when I wrote Toxic Danger! on Gran’s typewriter, through to now actually being able to pick up a real book. You’re the best. And to Jonathan, Alfie, Liz, Tricia and the rest of the family; I think Dad, Granddad and Gran would have been very pleased about Noah … even if some of the content might raise the odd eyebrow! Thanks for everything.
Sue and Peter Counsell – thank you for your support and generosity and for the perfect excuse to come down to Devon and spend time writing!
Finally, there is one incredibly special person, who has been so kind, generous and supportive. So, to Sarah Counsell, who has read the manuscript about a million times, who has been on this rollercoaster journey with me from the start, and who turned back on the motorway at Bristol when it transpired I had left my laptop (and the entire novel) in a barn in Devon – thank you. You’ve always believed in me and Noah, and that means the world to me. This book would not have happened without you. And now you can go through it all again with the next one!
SIMON X
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Simon James Green grew up in a small town in Lincolnshire that definitely wasn’t the inspiration for Little Fobbing – so no one from there can be mad with him, OK? He enjoyed a classic British education of assorted humiliations and barbaric PE lessons before reading Law at Queens’ College, Cambridge, where he further embarrassed himself by accidentally joining the rowing team despite having no upper body strength and not being able swim. When it turned out that being a lawyer was nothing like how it looks in Suits or The Good Wife, and buoyed by the success of his late night comedy show that involved an inflatable sheep, he travelled to London to pursue a glamorous career in show business. Within weeks he was working in a call centre, had been mugged and had racked up thousands of pounds worth of debt. Finding strength and inspiration in the lyrics of “Tubthumping” by Chumbawumba, he eventually ended up working on a range of West End shows and UK tours, co-writing a feature-length rom-com for the BBC and directing Hollyoaks for C4 / Lime Pictures. After trying really, really hard, he also managed to write Noah Can’t Even. If you are interested in stalking him, he still lives in London, where he spends a lot of time telling people that Noah Can’t Even is only partly autobiographical, and his mum has definitely never done a Beyoncé tribute act.
You can follow Simon on Twitter and Instagram@simonjamesgreen.
For bonus content, breaking news and awkward pictures of Simon trying to act like he’s some sort of cool author, visit www.simonjamesgreen.com.
Scholastic Children’s Books
An imprint of Scholastic Ltd
Euston House, 24 Eversholt Street
London, NW1 1DB, UK
Registered office: Westfield Road, Southam, Warwickshire, CV47 0RA SCHOLASTIC and associated logos are trademarks and or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc.
First published in the UK by Scholastic Ltd, 2017
This electronic edition published by Scholastic Ltd, 2017
Copyright © Simon James Green, 2017
The right of Simon James Green to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him.
eISBN 978 1407 18007 6
A CIP catalogue record for this work is available from the British Library.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of Scholastic Limited.
Produced in India by Newgen
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, incidents and dialogues are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
www.scholastic.co.uk
100%); filter: grayscale(100%); " class="sharethis-inline-share-buttons">share
Noah Can't Even Page 25