Stolen

by Lucy Christopher

  I’ll be in the Separates, and I’ll be digging with my bare hands. When I’ve made a hole deep enough to plant a tree, I’ll place my fingers inside. I’ll slip off the ring you gave me. It will catch the light and glint a rainbow of colors over my skin, but I will take my hands away, leaving it there. I’ll start to sprinkle the earth back over it, and I will bury it. Back where it belongs.

  I’ll rest against a tree’s rough trunk. The sun will be setting, its dazzling colors threading through the sky, making my cheeks warm.

  Then I will wake up.

  Good-bye, Ty,

  Gemma

  Copyright

  Text copyright © 2010 by Lucy Christopher

  Cover art and design © 2009 by Steve Wells with Christopher Stengel

  All rights reserved. Published by Chicken House, an imprint of Scholastic Inc., Publishers since 1920. CHICKEN HOUSE, SCHOLASTIC, and associated logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc.

  www.scholastic.com

  First published in the United Kingdom by Chicken House,

  2 Palmer Street, Frome, Somerset BA11 1DS.

  www.doublecluck.com

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission of the publisher. For information regarding permission, write to Scholastic Inc., Attention: Permissions Department, 557 Broadway, New York, NY 10012.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Christopher, Lucy.

  Stolen / Lucy Christopher. — 1st American ed.

  p. cm.

  Summary: Sixteen-year-old Gemma, a British city-dweller, is abducted while on vacation with her parents and taken to the Australian outback, where she soon realizes that escape attempts are futile, and in time she learns that her captor is not as despicable as she first believed.

  ISBN 978-0-545-17093-2

  [1. Kidnapping—Fiction. 2. Interpersonal relations—Fiction. 3. Adventure and adventurers—Fiction. 4. Australia—Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.C4576Sto 2010

  [Fic]—dc22

  2009026330

  First American edition, May 2010

  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, down-loaded, 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 publisher.

  E-ISBN 978-0-545-36111-8