"ua17b0939-e34b-562e-b7ed-88ea651279b0">
First published in the USA 2013 by Greenwillow Books,
a division of HarperCollins Publishers
First published in Great Britain 2013 by Electric Monkey,
an imprint of Egmont UK Limited, The Yellow Building,
1 Nicholas Road, London W11 4AN
Text copyright © 2013 Josin L. McQuein
The moral rights of the author have been asserted
First e-book edition 2013
ISBN 978 1 4052 6394 8
e-book ISBN 978 1 7803 1182 1
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Stay safe online. Any website addresses listed in this book are correct at the time of going to print. However, Egmont is not responsible for content hosted by third parties.
Please be aware that online content can be subject to change and websites can contain content that is unsuitable for children. We advise that all children are supervised when using the internet.
EGMONT
Our story began over a century ago, when seventeen-year-old Egmont Harald Petersen found a coin in the street. He was on his way to buy a flyswatter, a small hand-operated printing machine that he then set up in his tiny apartment.
The coin brought him such good luck that today Egmont has offices in over 30 countries around the world. And that lucky coin is still kept at the company’s head offices in Denmark.
Dedicated to Ms. Rob and Mrs. Soriano: teachers who took a kid who liked to write and taught her how to be an author, and who knew that dreaming isn’t a waste of time.
Consider this a promise kept.
A fearful hope was all the world contain’d;
Forests were set on fire—but hour by hour
They fell and faded—and the crackling trunks
Extinguish’d with a crash—and all was black.
CONTENTS