The Fall - Hardcover

Preller, James

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0312643012 ISBN 13: 9780312643010

Verlag: FEIWEL & FRIENDS, 2015

Inhaltsangabe

From James Preller, the author of Bystander, another unflinching book about bullying and its fallout.

The summer before school starts, Sam's friend and classmate Morgan Mallen kills herself. Morgan had been bullied. Maybe she kissed the wrong boy. Or said the wrong thing. What about that selfie that made the rounds? Morgan was this, and Morgan was that. But who really knows what happened?

As Sam explores the events leading up to the tragedy, he must face a difficult and life-changing question: Why did he keep his friendship with Morgan a secret? And could he have done something-anything-to prevent her final actions?

This title has Common Core connections.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

James Preller is the author of Bystander, Six Innings, Before You Go, and the Scary Tales series. He's also known for his beloved Jigsaw Jones series. He travels the country making school appearances, and blogs about writing for children. He lives with his family in upstate New York.

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The Fall

By James Preller

Feiwel and Friends

Copyright © 2015 James Preller
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-0-312-64301-0

Contents

Title Page, 
Copyright Notice, 
Dedication, 
Epigraphs, 
Not Like Me, 
Cast Out, 
Slogans on Shirts, 
One Spectacular Fact, 
The Game, 
Super Awkward, 
The First Time, 
Somebody Else, 
The Shrine, 
What's Done is Done, 
Blank, 
Filling in the Blanks, 
People Talking, 
Still Nothing, 
Accident, 
The Tower Gets Tagged, 
Alone, Together, 
Dance Lessons, 
I See Her Flying without Wings, 
The Goddess, 
Could Have Said, 
The Library, 
About Me, 
I Looked Away, 
Not Me, 
"Go," She Said, 
I was It, 
Somebody Laughed, 
Sorry, 
The Great Auk, 
The Water Tower, 
The Water Tower Again, 
Sorry, 
One Truth, 
The Beast, 
The Sister, 
Doubts, 
Dad's Gun, 
Somebody's Fingerprint, 
She Liked Baths, 
Meeting with Laneway, 
Clear All, 
Groundhog Life, 
Gotta Get Going, 
She Quit Dance, 
That Time I Kind of Tried, 
Something, 
Nothing, 
Satisfaction Guaranteed, 
The Refusal, 
Handled, 
The Fallout, 
Identity, 
Hours Seem Long, 
Good Dog, 
Laneway, Revisited, 
Baby Steps, 
Spring, 
Spit and Shake, 
Knew Her, 
Summer Meeting, 
Things She Said, 
The Day I Heard the News ..., 
The Gift, 
Dad Says, 
Public Speaking, 
Face Meets Fist, 
I Knocked, 
Things I Like, 
Words, 
Reading, 
You Are, 
The Apology, 
Oh Why, 
Where Dreams Come True, 
I Hate the World, 
The Only One, 
In the Stairwell, 
The Note, 
Jewelry Store, 
The Last Time I saw Morgan, 
Kinder, 
Mr. Smoothie, 
One Last Thing, 
About the Author, 
Copyright, 

CHAPTER 1

NOT LIKE ME

Two weeks before Morgan Mallen threw herself off the water tower, I might have typed a message on her social media page that said, "Just die! Die! Die! No one cares about you anyway!"

(I'm just saying, it could have been me.)

And I say "could have" because the message was anonymous. Untraceable. Nobody knows who said that horrible thing. That was the beauty of the deal. Nobody knew exactly who said what, except for Athena, I guess. The rest of us sent messages from the shadow places and let them run loose like wolves in the forest.

No one was responsible.

I sure don't know who typed what. Whose fingers punched the keys? Who said such cruel, unspeakable things? I wonder, Could it have been me?

No, that wasn't like me at all.

CAST OUT

I barely knew her. Not many people did. But I knew this: She was out there.

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I ask you: Am I not allowed to say even that? It doesn't make me a bad person for stating the obvious. It was a fact — Morgan Mallen was different, but not in a good way. Like in a waaaaay way.

For example: The sky is gray, the grass is green, and Morgan Mallen became the saddest girl I'd ever seen. It even rhymes. Green, seen, mean, teen, sardine.

(Etcetera, etcetera.)

Some girls in school claimed she was this and alleged she was that. There was also a selfie that famously made the rounds. She maybe kissed the wrong boy. Who knows what really happened.

Once a message was spray-painted on the girls' bathroom door, and another day it appeared on the side of the snack shack by the football field: "Morgan Mallen is a slut."

Check that tense. Was, not is.

Was a tramp. A selfie-sharer. An outcast.

None of this makes me a bad person.

Right?

SLOGANS ON SHIRTS

There are a lot of phonies in this town, I'll tell you that much.

A lot of them.

(A lot.)

The whole anti-bullying campaign is suddenly everywhere. Posters in the hallways, words on everybody's lips during morning announcements, in classrooms.

Somebody made a big sign for the front of the school:

THIS IS A BULLY-FREE ZONE!

So, whew, that's a relief. Now we can feel good about ourselves again. We forgive everybody, even the creeps. Please admire our cleaned-up images, like shiny pennies in a sock drawer — and about as useful.

The whole town was at the funeral, stunned and sobbing. Long-sleeved T- shirts were handed out for the students to wear, announcing to the world that we were SOLDIERS AGAINST BULLYING! We didn't even have to buy the shirts. Just pulled them over our heads, like wool over somebody's eyes. Now look at us, TV cameras: We're good peeps. Baa!

Do unto others. Yeah, right, we've memorized all the best slogans.

But at night we peel off our shirts. We stand barefoot and alone before the bathroom mirror, examining ourselves through hollow eyes. And we know. Deep down we know what we did and didn't do.

I sometimes wonder how Morgan would have reacted. You know that bracelet some people wear, WWJD? Jesus, I honestly don't know. I think about Morgan, if she could look down on us from some fluffy cloud in outer space or wherever. I think she'd laugh out loud — an empty, sad, sarcastic laugh. The way she usually laughed, a little crookedly. She'd look at all of us wearing shirts like Halloween costumes. Masking our true selves. She might even be looking down on us right now, laughing at the big joke. Ho- ho-ho.

Funniest thing ever.

ONE SPECTACULAR FACT

Don't expect to get all the facts from me. Okay? She stepped off the water tower. A spectacular statement, concise and final. That's the only fact you're going to need. Says it all right there.

So don't get the idea this journal will be some kind of complete document where you learn "her story," or even "my story."

There are holes in this leaky ship. We could all drown together.

All the cops standing around like on detective shows, scratching their heads, saying, "There are things here we still don't know."

No kidding.

I do have impressions, details, memories. I'll write down some things that happened. Try to remember.

Maybe it will help.

I will sit down, open this book to a clean page, and set the timer on my cell to fifteen minutes. That's the promise I've made to myself. Or maybe it's the promise I've made to her. The least I can give. If time's up, that's that. Even if the page stays blank.

THE GAME

A lot of people wrote a ton of trash. You want specifics? It became this thing we all did sometime last year, around the start of school. It was a game of tag, basically. And what's a game without rules? That was Athena's idea. She devised the system, set the guidelines, enforced the rules.

No comment could be longer than twenty-five words. And it was important, very important, that every comment was anonymous, like a Secret Santa, but, you know, way different. The opposite of a gift.

There was a bright-blue piece of laminated poster board, about half the size of an index card. In red letters it said:

TAG. YOUR TURN.

Another rule: You had twenty-four hours to post the next message. That was important too. You had to keep it going, you know, and not think about it too much.

(That was the trick, the "not thinking.")

When it was your turn, you had to post a secret comment on Morgan Mallen's stupid page, then you slipped the note back into Athena Luikin's...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: FEIWEL & FRIENDS
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2015
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0312643012
• ISBN 13: 9780312643010
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Anzahl der Seiten: 208
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Feiwel and Friends; https://us.macmillan.com/publishers/feiwel-and-friends/; ; 120 Broadway; New York; NY; 10271; USA
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar