First published in the USA in 2006 by Alfred A Knopf,
an imprint of Random House Children’s Books,
a division of Random House Inc, New York
First published in Great Britain in 2014
by Electric Monkey, an imprint of Egmont UK Limited
The Yellow Building, 1 Nicholas Road, London W11 4AN
Text copyright © 2006 Rachel Cohn and David Levithan
The moral rights of the authors have been asserted
First e-book edition 2014
ISBN 978 1 4052 7243 8
eISBN 978 1 7803 1500 3
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library
All rights reserved. No part of this publicattion 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.
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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.
To Martha and Real Nick
Electric Monkey books by David Levithan
Every Day
How They Met and Other Stories
Two Boys Kissing
Written with Rachel Cohn
Naomi and Ely’s No Kiss List
Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist
Contents
The day begins in the middle of the night. I am not paying attention to anything but the bass in my hand, the noise in my ears. Dev is screaming, Thom is flailing, and I am the clockwork, I am the one who takes this thing called music and lines it up with this thing called time. I am the ticking, I am the pulsing, I am underneath every part of this moment. We don’t have a drummer. Dev has thrown off his shirt and Thom is careening into feedback and I am behind them, I am the generator. I am listening and I am not listening because what I’m playing isn’t something I’m thinking about, it’s something I’m feeling all over. All eyes are on us. Or at least that’s what I can imagine in my stageblindness. It’s a small room and we’re a big noise and I am the nonqueer bassist in a queercore band who is filling the room with undertone as Dev sing-screams, Fuck the Man / Fuck the Man / I really want to / Fuck the Man. I am punctuating and I am puncturing and I am punching the air with my body as my fingers press hard into the chords. Sweat, malice, and hunger pour from me. This is release, or maybe it’s just a plea for release. Dev is wailing now and Thom is crashing and even though my feet don’t move I am traveling hard. I look past the light and see people shaking, people jumping around,