Boy 23
Page 25
I get up off the ground and we start yomping again. Cos we have to save the world.
Acknowledgements
There are a few people I should thank for helping with the writing of this story. But I should start with the people whose real-life tales inspired this one. I’m always fascinated by the stories of people who live apart from society, and one day in September 2011, I read about a boy called Robin Van Helsum, who walked out of the forest and into a German town. When the police spoke to him, he claimed he’d lost his memory. He did, though, tell them that he’d been living in the forest with his father since the death of his mother in a car accident, and when his father had died and he was left alone he decided to walk to a town.
His story turned out to be a hoax, but it inspired me to look into the lives of other ‘wild’ children. One such famous case was that of Kaspar Hauser, a teenage boy who turned up in the town of Nuremburg in Germany in 1828. He said he’d been brought up in a dark cell, completely alone. One day a mysterious man, whose face Kaspar never saw, arrived and taught Kaspar to stand and walk. Then the man took Kaspar from his cell and left him in the forest with a note.
I discovered many similar stories of children who have grown up away from other people. A great place to read about them is Michael Newton’s book, Savage Girls and Wild Boys: A History of Feral Children, which helped me lots while I was researching.
Boy 23 grew from the seeds which those stories planted in my mind. But without the help of others, it certainly wouldn’t have become the book it has. I’d like to thank Emma Matthewson, Caroline Sheldon, Rebecca McNally, Ellen Holgate, Polly Whybrow and Helen Vick for their time, patience, encouragement, advice and expert editing skills.
I’d also like to thank my family and friends for their patience whilst I’ve been researching and writing Boy 23, especially Lloyd for sharing his experiences of Romanian orphanages with me, and Sonja, Daisy, Flora and Billy for always listening and encouraging me.
About the author
Jim Carrington is the author of four books for young adults. His first novel, Inside My Head, was nominated for the Carnegie Medal, and the Branford Boase and UKLA awards. His third novel, Drive By, won the James Reckitt KS3 Book of the Year prize. He has also written two books for younger readers. He lives in London with his family and teaches in a primary school in his spare time.
Praise for Jim Carrington
Inside My Head
‘Provocative, honest and gripping . . . a must’
Telegraph
‘Witty and hard-hitting dialogue and a compellingly written storyline’
Irish Post
‘To say this is a page-turner is an understatement . . . This is a journey of discovery, high-octane excitement and eventually pure, living terror’
Flipside Magazine
‘One of the most thought-provoking and compelling books I have read . . . There should be a copy of this book in every secondary school library’
Book Zone 4 Boys
‘Wonderfully honest and tremendously tense’
TheBookbag.co.uk
In the Bag
‘A thoroughly good read and teenagers, especially boys, will love it’
TES Magazine
Drive By
‘Carrington keeps us guessing, right up to the very last page . . . an absorbing narrative’
Books for Keeps
‘A very, very pacy and unputdownable contemporary novel’
Love Reading 4 Kids
Also by Jim Carrington
Inside My Head
In the Bag
Drive By
First published in Great Britain in November 2015 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
This electronic edition published in 2015 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Copyright © Jim Carrington 2015
The moral right of the author has been asserted
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