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First published in the USA by HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. in 2018 First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Children’s Books in 2018 Published in this ebook edition in 2018 HarperCollins Children’s Books is a division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd, HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF The HarperCollins Children’s Books website address is Text copyright © Mike Van Waes 2018 Cover and inside illustrations © Jamie Littler Cover design © HarperCollinsPublishers 2018 Mike Van Waes asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook onscreen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins. Source ISBN: 9780008249120 Ebook Edition © June 2018 ISBN: 9780008249137 Version: 2018-04-17
To Madison, Jack and Evie – it’s a big life; try not to let the little things bug you.
Contents
Chapter 10: The Treatment Plan
Chapter 15: The Burning Sensation
Chapter 16: The Sound and Fury
Chapter 20: The Results May Vary
I’m not going to start at the beginning because that would be my birth and it’s probably gross and boring and I don’t actually remember it. And I’ll also save you the full “origin story” of my superhuman ability to be freaked out. The “previously on” version is that I woke up one night two years ago and I felt like I couldn’t breathe. I started dry-heaving and sweating and crying and shaking. I was so convinced I was dying that my parents rushed me to the ER. When the doctor saw me, she literally laughed in my face. “It was just a panic attack.” As if that made it feel any less like a near-death experience. With the scribble of a pen and a rip off a prescription pad, she assured me it would most likely be a one-time thing. But those sounds are something I’ve been very used to hearing ever since. And I still wake up in a panic some nights. Except now I’m in a different home. Or homes, really, because the divorce ended with two of them. And even though that went down a few months ago, it’s just one more trigger for the panic to pull. Once I start to worry, it’s only a matter of time. And so many things make me worry. It can start with a comment or an irritation or even a noise or a smell, and then I’m off. I can’t stop it. “You’re too young to be so stressed out,” is what my parents would say. But any twelve-year-old can tell you that grown-ups don’t have a monopoly on grown-up feelings. That is, if any twelve-year-old were willing to talk about it. That was one of my problems. Maybe my biggest problem. But that was before the “incident” in Old Wayford. Before the end of life as I knew it. And that ending actually begins with my name.
