Woundabout
Page 12
“What about the children?” someone shouted.
“No one will hurt them,” Gray said. “They did what children do. They changed things. It’s in their nature. Let’s see if we can be as strong as the children.”
Some in the crowd grumbled again, but no one wanted to fight Gray.
“We can stop our old routines!” Mrs. Washburn said. “I can get an electric dryer!” She grinned from ear to ear. And other townsfolk, realizing how they could change their lives for the better, started to smile, too. Gray folded his arms and looked at them, pleased.
“So let’s try this out,” he said. “Everyone with me?”
The townspeople all looked at Gray and nodded. Some of them looked frightened. Some looked thrilled. The children didn’t know what any of it meant, but they felt good, somehow, as if they’d done the right thing.
Gray turned away from the townspeople and walked up to the children.
“They’ll see it’s better this way,” he whispered to Aunt Marigold. “We can become better this way, if we work toward it. The other way, we couldn’t become anything.”
Nico suddenly bolted out of the crowd and ran up to Connor and Cordelia.
“You did it, mates!” he said. “Real impressive. Ines’s gonna be sad she missed it. But then she’ll be out here to study the machine in no time, I’ll bet. And I played no small part, I’m proud to say. I had a dozen or so of ’em chasing me around the sewers thinking I was you. I led them on a real fun ride.”
“Thanks,” Connor said.
“Yeah, thank you,” Cordelia said. “If you hadn’t stolen the crank in the first place…” She looked over to where the crank was, fallen by the side of the Mayor’s house. “What do we do with the crank now?”
“I’ll take care of it,” Gray said. “I’ll put it somewhere safe.”
The children walked over to the crank and stared down at it. It wasn’t very impressive. Just metal bent the right way. But it was magic, too. They leaned down and together took it off the ground and handed it to Gray. They thought that if this were a story, this would be the ending. But endings don’t really happen, because an ending means everything stayed the same forever, and the children knew now that they didn’t ever want that.
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Acknowledgments
We have so many people to thank, but first and foremost we’d like to thank our family for all their support. Especially Mom, not just for her reading it over and over, but also for her insistence that a capybara would make a great children’s companion. Also, Meghan, for her encouragement and for her weird childhood games, and Chris, for his insights into the field of writing for a younger audience.
We owe so much to our agent, Joy, as well as Luke and the whole team at David Black. Thank you guys so much for constantly looking out for us.
This book would not have happened without our editor, Alvina, who took the time to really show us what a middle grade book was, even when it was clear we had no idea what we were doing. She taught us so much over the course of this project and took what was essentially just an idea and helped us shape it into a book. We would have been totally lost without her. We cannot say thank-you enough. And so many thanks to the rest of our team at Little, Brown: Bethany, Nikki, Christine, Jennifer, Jenny, Faye, and all the rest for all the hard work and crafting of this book. Special thanks to Tracy for being so amazing and visionary with all the art—especially the cover, which we had some trouble with. And special thanks to Victoria, not just for all her hard work on the book but also for her amazing company and friendship.
Lev would particularly like to thank Robin, Robin (both of them), Jessica, Kristin, Renee, and Madi for reading drafts and giving him valuable feedback, and Ellis would like to thank Ben, Emi, Bender, Sam, Chaz, Fish, Lowe, Duncan, Ian, Jerald, Josh, and Jackie for giving him advice and help on crafting the art.
And of course, Lev would like to thank Ellis, for being an awesome brother and illustrator, and Ellis would like to thank Lev, for being an awesome brother and for writing the book for him to illustrate.
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Welcome
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Acknowledgments
Copyright
Copyright
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.
Text copyright © 2015 by Lev Rosen
Illustrations copyright © 2015 by Ellis Rosen
Cover art © 2015 by Ellis Rosen
Cover design by Andrea Vandergrift
Cover © 2015 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.
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First ebook edition: June 2015
ISBN 978-0-316-37079-0
E3