There was nothing on the other side, but I wasn’t scared.
I sat on the windowseat with my chin in my hands, stared out at the rectangle of lawn, and waited for first light.
◆ ◆ ◆
The sun was a pink stain on the horizon when I slipped downstairs. My furry escort met me at the back door and led the way along a path to a garden shed. Inside, I found a shovel leaning up against a wall.
It takes time to believe again.
I broke ground where the middle of the pool would have been.
About a foot down, beneath black earth, the shovel grated and stopped.
VIKKI WAKEFIELD is the author of the award-winning All I Ever Wanted. She lives in Adelaide, Australia. Her second book, Friday Never Leaving, is her U.S. debut. Visit her at vikkiwakefield.com.
SIMON & SCHUSTER • NEW YORK
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An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division
1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, New York 10020
www.SimonandSchuster.com
This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2012 by Vikki Wakefield
Originally published in 2012 in Australia by The Text Publishing Company.
All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.
is a trademark of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
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Book design by Lucy Ruth Cummins
Jacket design by Lucy Ruth Cummins
Jacket photo-illustration copyright © 2013 by Stacey Ruggles
The text for this book is set in Adobe Jenson Pro.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Wakefield, Vikki.
Friday never leaving / Vikki Wakefield.
pages cm
Originally published in Australia in 2012 by Text Publishing.
Summary: Friday Brown and her mother Vivienne live their lives on the road, but when Vivienne succumbs to cancer, seventeen-year-old Friday decides to search for the father she never knew. Her journey takes her to a slum of orphans and runaways, ruled by a charismatic leader named Arden.
ISBN 978-1-4424-8652-2 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-4424-8655-3 (eBook)
[1. Coming of age—Fiction. 2. Australia—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.W13355Fr 2013
[Fic]—dc23
2012036386
Friday Never Leaving Page 24