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  Contents

  Chapter 1: Fan Number One

  Chapter 2: A Portrait of the Author as a Young Girl

  Chapter 3: Mystery Man

  Chapter 4: City Kid

  Chapter 5: The Plot Thickens

  Chapter 6: Reality Attack

  Chapter 7: Business Lesson

  Chapter 8: A Portrait of the Bulldog as a Young Girl

  Chapter 9: The Agent

  Chapter 10: The Chosen Grown-Up

  Chapter 11: Welcome to the Club

  Chapter 12: In or Out?

  Chapter 13: Open for Business

  Chapter 14: Judgment Day

  Chapter 15: A New Island

  Chapter 16: Poker, Anyone?

  Chapter 17: High Stakes, Aces Wild

  Chapter 18: The Long Arm of the Law

  Chapter 19: The Red Pencil Blues

  Chapter 20: Family and Friends

  For Stephanie Owens-Lurie and

  Rick Richter—without whom, less

  —A. C.

  CHAPTER 1

  Fan Number One

  Natalie couldn’t take it. She peeked in the doorway of the school library, then turned, took six steps down the hall, turned, paced back, and stopped to look in at Zoe again. The suspense was torture.

  Zoe was still reading. The first two chapters only added up to twelve pages. Natalie leaned against the door frame and chewed on her thumbnail. She thought, What’s taking her so long?

  Zoe could see Natalie out of the corner of her eye. She could feel all that nervous energy nudging at her, but Zoe wasn’t about to be rushed. She always read slowly, and she liked it that way, especially when it was a good story. And this one was good.

  The Cheater by Natalie Nelson

  page 12

  I catch up with Sean between Eighty-second and Eighty-first Streets. His legs are longer than mine, so I’m panting. I grab his arm and he stops in front of a bodega.

  He says, “Why are you following me?”

  “I’ve got to talk to you.”

  “Yeah, well, too bad. You had your chance to talk during the Penalty Board hearing. And you didn’t.”

  “But if I told the truth, then the whole school would know I cheated. I’d get expelled.”

  He just looks at me. “But you really did cheat, right? . . . And I really didn’t steal that answer key, right? . . . And you know I didn’t steal it because you did, right?”

  I nod yes to all the questions.

  Sean is almost shouting now, his eyes wild. “So first you steal, then you cheat, and now you’ve lied. And me? You’ve left me to take the punishment.”

  The shopkeeper is worried. He moves from the counter to the doorway of the bodega, looking at us.

  Sean ignores him and gets right into my face, screaming. “Well, guess what, Angela. We’re not friends now—and I don’t know if we ever were!”

  He storms away, hands jammed in his pockets, shoulders hunched, stabbing the sidewalk with every step.

  Me, I cry.

  Zoe let page twelve slip onto the table and then stared at it, deep in thought.

  “So, what do you think?”

  Natalie was right behind her, and Zoe jumped six inches. “Jeez, Natalie! Scare me to death! And you ruined a nice moment too.”

  “But what do you think? Is it any good?”

  Zoe nodded. “I think it’s very good.”

  “Really?” Natalie pulled out a chair and sat down, leaning forward. “I mean, you’re not just saying that because we’re best friends?”

  Zoe shook her head. “No, I mean it. It’s good. Like I can’t wait to read the whole thing. Can you bring the rest tomorrow?”

  Natalie smiled and reached into her backpack. She pulled out a blue folder with a rubber band around it. “Here. I’ve still got to write about five more chapters. I just needed to know if the beginning was any good, but you can read what I’ve got done if you want.”

  Zoe took the folder carefully and said, “This is great. But you are going to finish it, right? Do you know the whole story already—like all the way to the end?”

  Natalie said, “Not all the way to the end . . . but almost. I know how the end feels, but not exactly what happens—at least, not yet.”

  • • • • •

  Natalie’s book had begun by accident on the bus with her mom late one afternoon back in September. Sixth grade was already three weeks old, and both she and her mom had settled into the routine of commuting together. It was a Friday afternoon, and they were going home on the 5:55 coach, thundering through the Lincoln Tunnel from New York City to Hoboken, New Jersey.

  Her mom looked exhausted. Natalie studied the face tilted toward her on the headrest. It was a pretty face—Prettier than mine, she thought. But there were little lines at the corners of her mother’s eyes and mouth. Care lines, worry lines.

  Natalie said, “Hard day, Mom?”

  Eyes still closed, her mom smiled and nodded. “The editorial department met all day with the marketing department—all day.”

  Natalie asked, “How come?” When her dad died, Natalie had decided she needed to talk to her mom more. Sometimes she pretended to be interested in her mom’s work at the publishing company even when she wasn’t. Like now.

  Her mom said, “Well, the marketing people keep track of what kinds of books kids and parents and teachers are buying. Then they tell us, and we’re supposed to make more books like the ones they think people will buy.”

  Natalie said, “Makes sense. So, what kinds of books do they want you to make?”

  Hannah Nelson lifted her head off the seat back and turned toward Natalie. “Here’s the summary of a six-hour meeting. Ready?”

  Natalie nodded.

  Her mom used a deep voice that sounded bossy. “People, we need to publish more adventure books, more series books, and more school stories.” In her regular voice she said, “That was it. A six-hour meeting for something that could have gone into a one-page memo—or a three-line E-mail.”

  Then Natalie asked, “What’s a school story?”

  “A school story is just what it sounds like—it’s a short novel about kids and stuff that happens mostly at school.”

  Natalie thought for a second and then said, “You mean like Dear Mr. Henshaw?”

  And her mom said, “Exactly.”

  Then Natalie said to herself, Hey, who knows more about school than someone who’s right there, five days a week, nine months a year? I bet I could write a school story.

  And that was all it took. Natalie Nelson the novelist was born.

  Or almost born. Her career as an author didn’t officially spring to life until about four months later—on that afternoon in the school library after Zoe read the first two chapters.

  Because it’s the same for every new author, for every new book. Somebody has to be the first to read it. Somebody has to be the first to say she likes it. Somebody has to be that first fan.

  And of course, that was Zoe.

  CHAPTER 2

  A Portrait of the Author as a Young Girl

  Some people are writers, and some people are talkers. Natalie had always been a writer.

  Like all writers, first she was a reader. As a baby and then a toddler, Natalie loved it when her mom or dad read to her. She loved how the same story would change,
depending on who was reading it.

  Mom read calmly, evenly, thoughtfully. Even if the story was exciting or scary or sad, Natalie always felt warm and safe when Mom was reading.

  But not with Dad. He was loud and reckless. He made funny voices for all the firemen and ducks and princesses. He made sound effects for the trains and the caterpillars, and if the words weren’t exciting or silly or scary enough, he threw in some new ones. When Dad was reading, anything could happen.

  And so Natalie got her first taste of reading in the very best way, from people who loved good books almost as much as they loved her.

  By the time she was four, Natalie couldn’t wait any longer. She wanted more stories than her parents had time to read to her. She already knew her ABCs, and she made her mom and dad point at every word as they read to her. Then Natalie would sit and turn the pages of her picture books again and again. She started being able to see the words and hear the sounds they made, and once she began to crack the code, there was no stopping her. Natalie became a reader.

  Even after Natalie could read by herself, her mom and dad read stories to her at bedtime—Dad one night, and Mom the next. Natalie always got to choose the story from her shelf of favorites.

  The car crash changed all that. Natalie was in second grade, and after the accident there was only Mom to read at bedtime. And that was when Natalie hid some of her favorite books in the back of her closet. She didn’t want her mom to read them anymore. Those were Daddy’s books. Sometimes late at night, or on a quiet Sunday afternoon, Natalie would open up The Sailor Dog or The Grouchy Ladybug, and she could hear her father’s voice reading to her.

  The writing part came gradually, naturally. At first it was imitation. If Natalie read a good poem, she tried to make up one like it. If a character grabbed her imagination, Natalie would talk to her stuffed animals and pretend she was the Sailor Dog or the Steadfast Tin Soldier or Raggedy Ann. She would act out parts of a story and make up words for everyone to say. Sometimes she pretended to be Gretel, helping Hansel push the wicked witch into the oven. Other times she pretended to be the wicked witch.

  And always, always, Natalie thought about the authors. She thought about Hans Christian Andersen or Margaret Wise Brown or Beatrix Potter, and she imagined these people sitting in a garden or a cabin or an attic, making up new stories. And she knew that one day she would sit down in a garden or a cabin or an attic and try it out for herself.

  When Natalie got to fourth grade, she began to spend more time writing. She made herself a little writing place in the back corner of the loft that she and her mom had moved to. Her desk was a door laid flat across two small filing cabinets. She sat in her dad’s old red desk chair and used his old Macintosh computer. Not quite a cabin or an attic, but close enough—and it was as close as Natalie could get to her dad.

  CHAPTER 3

  Mystery Man

  “So, what are you going to do with the book,” asked Zoe, “you know, when it’s all finished?”

  “Don’t know yet.” Natalie gathered up the first twelve pages from the library table in front of Zoe. “Maybe print out a copy for you, and maybe one for Lill and Sparky . . . maybe let some other kids read it. I might even show it to Ms. Clayton—maybe get some extra credit in English.” Natalie handed the pages to Zoe, and she tucked them into the blue folder with the rest of the manuscript.

  Zoe shook her head, and her curly brown hair bounced from side to side. “It’s way too good for that. I think you should get it all done and then give it to your mom. She should get it published—you know, for real.”

  Natalie snorted. “Yeah, like my mom is going to take it to her boss and say, ‘Guess what? My daughter wrote this wonderful little book,’ and then her boss goes, ‘Gee, that’s great—let’s pay her a bunch of money and start printing her book right away!’ Get real, Zoe. You don’t know anything about publishing.”

  “Do too,” said Zoe. “My dad gets this magazine called Publishers Weekly at his office, and when I go there, I read all about what the bestsellers are and who’s making the big deals.” Zoe’s dad was a lawyer, and she always bragged to Natalie about big deals and famous clients.

  Natalie shook her head. “Well, I’ve seen that magazine too, and I’ve also been to my mom’s office at her publishing company, and I’ve seen stacks and stacks of envelopes filled with new books from new authors, and most of them don’t get published. So there!”

  “Shhh!” Mr. Levy glared at the girls from his perch at the front desk. Even though it was after three on a Thursday afternoon and they were the only kids in the room, it was still his library, and he liked it quiet.

  Natalie whispered, “Let’s go.”

  Zoe never admitted that there was something she did not know or could not do. They gathered up their coats and backpacks, and by the time they had walked halfway down the stairs toward the front door of the school, Zoe had a good idea—no, a great idea. But she wasn’t going to just blurt it out. What’s the fun of that? Zoe wanted to make Natalie work for it.

  So she said, “I know how to get your book published.”

  Natalie shifted her backpack to the other shoulder and glanced sideways at Zoe. She said, “Oh, really?” There was just a trace of sarcasm, but Zoe heard it loud and clear.

  Zoe said, “Yes, really.”

  Natalie and Zoe had been best friends since their first day of kindergarten at the Deary School. From the start it had been a push-and-pull friendship, the kind that can happen when two very different people like each other a lot.

  They stepped out onto the sidewalk. It was sunny, but a cold wind whipped across the Hudson River and skittered off the buildings on Riverside Drive. January in New York wasn’t picnic weather. Pulling up the hood of her parka, Natalie said, “So, what’s your big idea?”

  Zoe said, “Ever hear of Ted Geisel?”

  Natalie shook her head and said, “No . . . does he go to school here?”

  Zoe looked amazed, shocked. She put her hands on her hips and said, “You mean you’ve never heard of Ted Geisel? Really? Well. Then that’s your homework assignment.”

  Natalie laughed. “You don’t have an idea at all—you’re just trying to send me on some wild goose chase.”

  Zoe shook her head and put on an air of superiority. “No, I really do have a plan, and it’s a very good plan. But until you know who Ted Geisel is, it won’t make any sense to you. So go learn what you have to learn, and we’ll talk about it tomorrow, maybe.”

  Natalie lifted her nose into the air and said, “Fine!” She turned on her heel and headed south. She had to walk down to Seventy-second Street and then east to Broadway to catch a bus to her mom’s office in midtown. Most of the schoolkids in the city used the subway. It was a lot faster, but Natalie always felt too closed in down there. Besides, the buses smelled better. Natalie was never in a rush anyway. Today, like almost every school day, it would be about another three hours before she got home.

  Zoe would be home in twenty minutes, and all she had to do was put up her hand. When she did, a yellow cab pulled out of the traffic on Riverside Drive. It veered over and lurched to a stop at the curb. Zoe lived on East Sixty-fifth Street, and she always went home in a taxi. As Zoe opened the rear door of the cab she yelled to Natalie, “Remember—Ted Geisel!”

  Natalie was almost to the first cross street. She looked back over her shoulder, made a face, and stuck out her tongue. Then she turned and kept walking, smiling to herself.

  Zoe could be a pain, but once in a while she really did come up with a great idea. Natalie couldn’t wait to find out something about this Ted Geisel.

  CHAPTER 4

  City Kid

  Natalie’s mom was nervous when her twelve-year-old daughter had to get around New York City on her own—so she was nervous almost every afternoon. She didn’t like it, but she didn’t have any choice. Every weekday morning she put Natalie into a taxi at the bus station. The cab drove straight uptown to the Deary School at a time of day when most
of the traffic was going the other direction. Even so, that ride still cost about nine dollars. But an afternoon cab ride to her office building near Rockefeller Center took much longer, and the fare was almost twice as much. Hannah Nelson just couldn’t afford to pay that much for transportation every single school day.

  She worried, but she knew Natalie was a good city kid—always had been. Back when Natalie was only three and they still lived in Manhattan, her dad had taught her to look for a police officer if she ever got lost. If she couldn’t see a police officer, Natalie learned she should talk only to a lady with children, because a mother or a nanny would always help a lost child. She also learned how to dial collect from a pay phone and how to use 911. Her dad had taught her well.

  Natalie knew she had to be careful in the city, but she also knew that she didn’t have to walk around feeling afraid all the time. She felt fine about her daily trip to her mom’s office. She was tall for a girl of twelve and looked as if she might be fourteen or fifteen. She had plenty of street smarts, but she was also well equipped. Natalie had a whistle on the lanyard around her neck and a twenty-dollar bill under the liner in her left shoe. Hannah Nelson also made her daughter carry an emergency cell phone. Natalie could push one button that sent a message to the police, to her mom at the office, and to her uncle Fred. Fred Nelson was her dad’s younger brother, and he’d made a point of spending time with Natalie ever since the accident. He lived a few blocks from the Deary School, and his office was on Madison Avenue. If there was ever a problem, Natalie would have plenty of help.

  Still, at least once a week her mom would remind Natalie of the basic rules: If a person begins bothering you, yell and start running. Never get into a car or a van, and if someone asks you to come closer, run the other way. Always stay on the main streets, where there are plenty of people. If someone ever grabs hold of you, bite, scratch, kick, scream—do whatever it takes to get away, and then run, keep calling for help, and hit 911 on the cell phone. Don’t get into an empty bus or an overcrowded one. Sit or stand at the front, near the driver. Never go into a strange building.