Both of Me - Softcover

Friesen, Jonathan

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0310731879 ISBN 13: 9780310731870

Verlag: Study Resources, 2016

Inhaltsangabe

It was supposed to be just another flight, another escape into a foreign place where she could forget her past, forget her attachments. Until Clara found herself seated next to an alluring boy named Elias Phinn—a boy who seems to know secrets she has barely been able to admit to herself for years.

When her carry-on bag is accidentally switched with Elias’s identical pack, Clara uses the luggage tag to track down her things. At that address she discovers there is not one Elias Phinn, but two: the odd, paranoid, artistic, and often angry Elias she met on the plane, who lives in an imaginary world of his own making called Salem; and the kind, sweet, and soon irresistible Elias who greets her at the door, and who has no recollection of ever meeting Clara at all. As she learns of Elias’s dissociative identity disorder, and finds herself quickly entangled in both of Elias’s lives, Clara makes a decision that could change all of them forever. She is going to find out what the Salem Elias knows about her past, and how, even if it means playing along with his otherworldly quest. And she is going to find a way to keep the gentle Elias she’s beginning to love from ever disappearing again.

“Friesen’s writing is…stunning” – Kirkus Reviews

“Friesen’s storytelling is laser-beam sharp” – Booklist starred review

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Jonathan Friesen is an author, speaker, and youth writing coach from Mora, Minnesota. His first young adult novel, Jerk, California, received the ALA Schneider Award. When he’s not writing, speaking at schools, or teaching, Jonathan loves to travel and hang out with his wife and three kids.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Both of Me

By Jonathan Friesen

BLINK

Copyright © 2014 Jonathan Friesen
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-0-310-73187-0

CHAPTER 1

The accent. Tell me where you're from." The young fool crumpled his McDonald's bag and leaned over the table. "I could listen to that all day."

I took aim and lobbed a chip at his nose. It bounced off his eyelid, and still he smiled. Quite the idiot. "It's the little things you miss, really. Little, like chips and a shake. Nepal had neither." I stuffed my mouth and eased back. "Is it cold in here? I'm thinner than when I left home, and it seems I'm always cold." I glanced around the terminal—after eight months and hundreds of layovers, they all looked the same. Even the faces blurred. Travelers, different only in age and size. Their voices long ago faded to white noise.

They drifted by me harmlessly, like so many clouds ...

Then he walked by, and my gaze fixed on him.

He walked between his 'rents. His proud dad. His watchful mum, eyes darting for lanes through the bustle.

The child carried a little Superman bag, and from the look on his face, he was happy. So happy he didn't notice the stuffed bear poking out his bag's zip. So happy he didn't notice the bear fall.

"One minute." I grabbed my own bag, jumped up, and joined the fray, weaving through the crowd. I reached the fallen bear, and a well-dressed loser distracted by his mobile stepped on the toy. I shoved him, and he stumbled and cursed, but he no longer existed to me. I bent down and gently picked up the loved animal, with its patchy fur and one eye.

Little T owned a bear like this.

I pushed forward. Toward the boy. He would want this, need this. I reached the family and placed my hand on Mum's shoulder. She reached for her son's hand and spun around.

"Yes?"

"Your son. He dropped his bear."

The boy's smile widened, and I swallowed hard.

"This nice young lady found Pooh!" Mum knelt beside him, rounding his shoulder with her arm. "What do you say?"

He said nothing, but rather reached out his hands, and I placed the bear inside them. He squeezed the bear and I wanted to squeeze the boy. His almond-shaped eyes, the muted features. He had Down syndrome, and he was perfect.

I backed up slowly. "I just wanted to reunite the two of you. I once had a brother who loved a bear like yours." I turned and walked slowly back toward my new mate. A hundred nobodies parted around me.

Reaching the table, I slumped down into my seat and stroked the tiny number 3 tattooed between my left thumb and pointer.

"What was that about?"

I shook my head. The little boy had looked happy.

"Now, then. What were you saying? Oh, yes. London," I said quietly, glancing at the bloke across the table. "Born in London. Seems forever ago."

"Clara, it's been almost a year, right? I know we just met, so you can take this or leave it, but, nobody wanders forever. You've got to go home sometime."

I leaned back, and stared upward. "I know a man who never did. He was brilliant. His 'rents put him through university, and he became the most sought-after architect in his class. He had job offers across the United States. But one month before graduation, he packed his bags, left school, left his family and his country. He never went back. He wandered the world digging wells for the poor, building hospitals, churches. I carry a record of his route."

"So you're following in this guy's footsteps."

"No." I took a deep breath. "I don't dig. I don't build, and I will not rot penniless in prison. But his path keeps me safe. People remember him, help me on my way." I scooted nearer. "Have you ever followed what you're running from?"

"Last call, Flight 302 departing for Minneapolis."

"That's me." I rose, reached down, and gathered my bag. "Thanks for the meal. It has earned you a place in my diary, though I've quite forgotten your name. How would you like to be remembered?"

Young fool jumped up and grabbed my wrist. "Take the next flight, Clara. Let me show you New York City. Honest, if you'd just get to know me ..."

I pried loose his fingers, and patted his cheek. "We've already met. In Paris and Pakistan and Brazil. Accommodating lads like you are everywhere. If there's one thing I've learned these last eight months, it's this ... involvements equal pain." My voice fell. "Not that I've always remembered the equation."

I hoisted the strap over my shoulder. "And I've a mate waiting on the far end of this flight."

The last passengers boarded, and I sauntered toward the gate agent. She left her desk and moved toward the gate door. I raised my ticket high.

I would not jog. I would not shout. Those actions belonged to the responsible, to those who cared. The memory of my first flight returned and tugged at the corners of my lips. How early I had arrived. For five hours, I sat nervously inside Heathrow, checking and rechecking my flight's status. But that was before. Before the world reminded me there was always another plane, and revealed to me the wild joys of plan B, the spontaneous path the punctual never travel.

I peeked over my shoulder, blew a kiss to the young fool still watching from a distance.

He would certainly take me in if the agent would not.

She gave a final glance about the gate and our eyes met. She beckoned wildly.

"You on this flight? Get a move on, girl. You came mighty close to missin' the plane."

"Yes, I suppose I did."

She swiped my ticket and I wandered into the tunnel. Tunnels were the Great In-Between. Tucked between the leaving and the arriving, these bridges, these portals, existed on every continent. Inside, I always pictured myself back in London, slogging toward a bus. The same bus. Stuck in the middle.

I hated tunnels, but they were a necessary evil.

Planes—now, they were different. They held mystery and promise, and over the course of my Third World travels, a chicken or two. They also held the very real possibility of death.

I ducked inside and paused in first class, surveying my travel mates. The red-eye from New York to Minneapolis held nothing but the comatose. Self-satisfied businessmen, ties loosened and shirts untucked, returning to knackered wives. Beyond, a sea of the ragged and unwashed. My world.

I greeted the stewardess and slipped toward the rear of the plane, toward the one empty seat, a middle. I opened the overhead and pressed my bag into the compartment, and then paused to analyse my neighbours.

On the aisle, a tall, bald man. He winced and groaned, undoubtedly wishing for hinges with which to fold up his legs. His knees barricaded my row, but he quickly dislodged and stood, likely grateful for one last stretch. Beyond him, tucked into the window seat, sat a good-looking lad with a serious face, his gaze locked in a sketchbook and his pencil working feverishly. He was so absent, he almost blended into the plane.

I eased down in-between.

Neither spoke. I could do worse.

I removed Dad's journal from my jacket pouch, tracing the numbers 1–9–9–5 and the cross on its cover. I removed his shredded map from inside it and a marker from my pocket, and dotted Nepal yellow. A quick count: Eighty stars across five continents.

Dad, I will soon have you beat.

Minutes later, the plane taxied away from LaGuardia. Someday, I would experience New York, but not with an idiot I met at McDonald's. The cabin lights went dark. I yawned and Aisle Man groaned, but Window Boy reached franticly for his reading beam. He managed to turn on all three vents and hit and cancel the...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Study Resources
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2016
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0310731879
• ISBN 13: 9780310731870
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 256
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: gpsr@libri.de; gpsr@libri.de; ; Europaallee 1; Bad Hersfeld; 36244; Deutschland