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ABRAMS BOOKS - O'Porter Dawn

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126 pages

English

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Renee and Flo are the most unlikely of friends. Introspective and studious Flo and outspoken, wild, and sexually curious Renee have barely spoken in their years of going to school together in Guernsey, a small British island off the coast of France. And yet, when tragedy strikes, it is only wild child Renee, who lost her mother at a young age, who is able to comfort a grieving Flo. The girls form an intense bond that sees them through a host of deeply relatable, wince-inducing experiencesdrunken snogging; a seance in which clueless friends offer to summon Renee's mother; dating a guy for free fish and chips. But toxic mean girls and personal betrayals threaten to tear the girls' delicate new friendship apart. In this gripping debut, Dawn O'Porter shines an unflinchingly honest, humorous light on female friendship, lost innocence, and that moment when you are teetering on the threshold of adult life.Praise for Paper Airplanes Dawn OPorter was a teenager in her past life. Well, duh! How else could she have gotten this bitch-perfect, debut novel so right! Paper Aeroplanes is spot on! This teen friendship, is brutal and beautiful, flawed and forgiving. The angst and anguish of adolescence are made safer by her talented hand. Wish she had written this when I was 15! --Jamie Lee Curtis Poignant and edgy, this exploration of lively female friendships rises high. --Kirkus Reviews

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Publié par	ABRAMS BOOKS
Date de parution	09 septembre 2014
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781613126998
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	3 Mo

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PUBLISHER S NOTE: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
O Porter, Dawn. [Paper aeroplanes.] Paper airplanes / Dawn O Porter. pages cm Previously published in the United Kingdom by Hot Key Books in 2013 under title: Paper aeroplanes. ISBN 978-1-4197-1184-8 (hardback) - ISBN 978-1-61312-699-8 (ebook) [1. Friendship-Fiction. 2. Guernsey-Fiction.] I. Title. PZ7.O6135Pap 2014 [Fic]-dc23 2014005024
Text copyright 2014 Dawn O Porter Title page photograph copyright 2014 John de Garis Book design by Maria T. Middleton
First published in 2013 by Hot Key Books in the United Kingdom.
Published in 2014 by Amulet Books, an imprint of ABRAMS. All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher.
Amulet Books and Amulet Paperbacks are registered trademarks of Harry N. Abrams, Inc.
Amulet Books are available at special discounts when purchased in quantity for premiums and promotions as well as fundraising or educational use. Special editions can also be created to specification. For details, contact specialsales@abramsbooks.com or the address below.

115 West 18th Street New York, NY 10011 www.abramsbooks.com
For Nana
Paper Airplanes is a novel about Ren e and Flo-two teenage girls who realize pretty quickly that without each other they struggle to be themselves. It s about friendship, good and bad.
Although there are some similarities in the girls lives (particularly Ren e s) to my own, every character in this book is entirely fictional. I did, however, use my own teenage diaries for inspiration. The book is set in 1994, and the girls are fifteen, which is how old I was then. It s set in Guernsey-a small island just off France-and anyone who has visited may recognize many of the places I write about, but I have changed some names to create a new world for Ren e and Flo.
Reading back through my diaries from this age was as fascinating as it was excruciating. In a time when there was no Facebook, no Twitter, no mobile phones, and obviously no Internet, friendships worked very differently. As much as I rely on the Internet more than the air I breathe, it s been fun to remember how simple everything used to be.
I hope you enjoy this story. It s been cathartic to write, and it brought back lots of memories. Having my own diaries as my guide to how it really feels to be a teenager has been invaluable; I just wish I hadn t stopped writing them when I was sixteen. If you are a teenager now and keep one, don t stop. Reading your own words many years later is the best story of all.
CONTENTS
AUTHOR S NOTE
1. BACK TO SCHOOL
2. REALIZING YOU ARE ALONE
3. WHEN THE WORST THING HAPPENS
4. THE IMPORTANCE OF FAMILY AND FRIENDS
5. A SECRET AFFAIR
6. MEN COME AND GO
7. THE MOST WONDERFUL TIME OF THE YEAR?
8. A WRENCH IN THE WORKS
9. DRIBBLES DOWN THE SIDE OF A PAN
10. THE LETTER OF MASS DESTRUCTION
11. WORKING OUT THE ANSWERS
12. WHEN ALL ELSE FAILS
Epilogue OCTOBER 1995
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR

FLO
You look fine. Hurry up.
I look at my reflection. I do not look fine.
I look better with it up.
No you don t. Wear it down. Up makes your chin look big.
Ouch. I never wear my hair down, she knows that.
And anyway, I m wearing my hair up today, so you can t. Sally spins around and pounds for the door, leaving me to stare back at myself in the mirror and rebelliously yank my limp, dark brown hair into a ponytail. Hurting my fingers with the elastic band and wincing as hairs are plucked from my skull. When it s up, all I can see is chin.
Brilliant! In under three minutes she s managed to inspire a brand-new insecurity. My fat chin is now right up there with the big nose she informed me of when we were ten. If there was an exam this year in making me feel paranoid, she would get an A+.
I leave the toilets, hair down, and chase her up the corridor. She barges her way into the classroom with all the menace of a headmistress in the making. No one wears the green school uniform quite like Sally, her shirt neatly tucked in all the way around and her thick green skirt exactly at the regulation length, just at the knee. Her tie-real, unlike my fake one on an elastic band-is in the perfect knot, her light brown hair gathered on top of her head like a dog poo. She moves forward like she s on rails, her nose in its usual tilted position, her eyes searching for something to tell off, her aura oozing imminent battle. I walk alongside her, my big nose leading the way like an arrow losing speed. All summer I have told myself that this year will be different, but I m only one morning into a new school year and my best friend has me quivering in my knee-length socks.
Why do we have to sit right at the front? I ask nervously.
Flo, you do this every year. I get us to school as early as I can so we can get the best desks in the classroom, and you just moan, AND you always make me late. We only just about made it before anyone else because you were faffing so much.
Sorry. I had to give Abi her breakfast.
Why doesn t your mum do that? It s her child, Sally says, proving she s never listened to a word I ve said.
Because Mum and Julian were in the living room talking about Dad. I dump my rucksack onto my new desk. Did I tell you he moved out?
Julian moved out? Why? She wobbles the chair that s at her desk and swaps it for one that doesn t wobble in the row behind.
No, Dad has moved out, I say, getting annoyed but trying not to show it.
Flo, are you going to go on about your dad being depressed again? It really brings me down.
He moved out, and I miss him.
It s all you talk about, says Sally.
I start to arrange my desk.
Haven t you even got a new pencil case this year? Sally asks, moving the conversation on.
This one is OK, I say quietly.
OK, OK, OK. Everything is always just OK. It s so boring. Who wants to be OK ?
I sit for a moment and think about what she said. It doesn t take me long to realize that I, quite genuinely, just want to be OK.
REN E
Nana rips open the curtains and stands over us, mumbling something along the lines of New term, new start. I throw my hands over my eyes to try to ignore the morning, but she is determined that this will be her first and final visit to our bedroom before school.
I m in the bathroom first, barks Nell as her skinny silhouette stalks past the end of my bed. She ll be in there for ages as usual, but I can wait. My hunger is already forcing me to get up.
Pop is sitting at the kitchen table wearing a white undershirt, gulping hot tea like it s a glass of water and fixing the sole of one of Nana s shoes. He is making grunting noises.
Morning, Pop. Want some bacon? I ask.
I don t eat during the day, he replies, not looking up.
I already knew that. He s never eaten during the day. Mum told me it was about control. That he sets himself challenges to remind himself who is boss. If you ask me, he doesn t need to skip meals to show anyone who is boss. With a temper like his, no one is in any doubt who makes the rules in this house.
Make sure you make enough for your little sister, Ren e. Don t be selfish.
I loaf over to the fridge, peel four slices of value bacon from the massive pile in the packet and dangle them in front of me as I walk over to the stove. I know full well that making breakfast for Nell is a total waste of time. She will just throw it up later.
I want an egg as well. No, I want two eggs, and bacon, and three slices of toast, and Coco Pops, she says when she comes downstairs. She shovels food into her mouth like she hasn t eaten for weeks. Nana and Pop tell her she s a good girl, but I find it hard to watch.
After washing up my plate and the cups that were left in the sink, I kiss Nana. She s holding her fixed shoe that s just two short walks away from failing her for the fiftieth and final time. I head up to the bathroom.
You washed your plate, Ren e? Pop shouts after me.
I bite my tongue.
With the bathroom door closed I open Mum s makeup drawer. It s still just as she left it eight years ago. The smell of Chanel No. 5 comes wafting out. Her blusher brush still red at the tips, exactly the same color her cheeks used to be. I close my eyes and run it over my face. As the bristles tickle my nose, all the hairs on my arm stand up, and then a solid tear falls out of my eye and lands on my top lip. I don t know why some mornings I get a tear and some mornings I don t. Maybe it has something to do with my dreams. Last night I dreamed that Mum didn t really die, that she had just gotten in trouble with the police and had to go into hiding until they stopped looking for her. I woke in the night convinced it was true, then realized it couldn t be, as I was in bed in her old bedroom, the room that she died in. The last place I ever saw her.
I love Mum s drawer. The fact that no one has thrown anything from it away is proof that we re all clinging onto something. This evidence is comforting, as no one would ever say it out loud. I know the others look in it too, because sometimes I lay a hair over her makeup and by the end of the day it has always moved. The drawer is like an altar in a church. It s sacred. To get rid of Mum s drawer would be the final stage of letting her go. None of us is ready to do that.
HURRY UP!! yells Nell as she pounds on the door. I quickly brush my teeth and let her in. She snarls at me as I skim past her, giving me just enough time to slide through before the door is slammed shut.
Five minutes later, I am dressed. My school un