Everything Beautiful (22 page)

Also by Simmone Howell

Notes from the Teenage Underground

Manifesto Revised

•
I believe in Chloe and friendship and love now.

•
I will always think of Dylan when I hear the Boobook owl.

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I believe most girls are insecure and most guys are bluffing.

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I believe the more you spill the messier you get.

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I don’t believe in miracles, but I do believe inspirits.

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I believe there are more questions than answers.

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I believe the best part is still to come.

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I still believe in chocolate!

Acknowledgments

I would like to extend elaborate thank-yous to Melanie Cecka, Anna McFarlane, Jill Grinberg, and Fran Bryson for all their smart stuff; country roses to my family and friends who put up with me nicking their stories and dodging their phone calls; excellent scotch to Alana Lucas and Campbell Message for tech support in all things “mutard”; Tiffany glass to Melita Granger, who believed in Riley from the first; and everything beautiful to Mark and Willeford, who keep life sweet.

I wrote
Everything Beautiful
at Glenfern, an old St. Kilda mansion-turned-writers’ residence. Without its existence my book would be half written and covered in Play-doh. Many thanks to Joel Becker, Iola Matthews, and The Victorian Writer’s Centre for the residency, and to the writers with whom I shared cups of tea and word counts.

Copyright © 2008 by Simmone Howell

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

Lines from
With Mercy for the Greedy
Reprinted by Permission of S11/Sterling Lord Literistic Inc.
Copyright by Anne Sexton

First published in the United States of America in November 2008
by Bloomsbury Books for Young Readers
E-book edition published in April 2011
www.bloomsburykids.com

For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to
Permissions, Bloomsbury BFYR, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10010

The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition as follows:
Howell, Simmone.

Everything beautiful / Simmone Howell.—1st U.S. ed.
p. cm.

Summary: When sixteen-year-old Riley unwillingly attends a religious summer camp,
she forms a deep bond with another camper who happens to be wheelchair bound.
ISBN-13: 978-1-59990-042-1 • ISBN-10: 1-59990-042-4 (hardcover)
[1. Camps—Fiction. 2. Religious life—Fiction. 3. Friendship—Fiction. 4. People with
disabilities—Fiction. 5. Wheelchairs—Fiction.] I. Title.

PZ7.H8383Ev 2008     [Fic]—dc22      2008017211

ISBN 978-1-59990-808-3 (e-book)

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Contents

Dedication

On the Fifth Day

1 Outlaws

In the Beginning

2 The Palace of Suckdom

On the First Day

3 Safe Fun

4 Black Ball

5 A Rare Bird

6 Poetic and Condemned

7 Orientation

8 The Idea of Kinship

9 Breaking and Entering

10 Bad-Weird and Jesus-Freaky

11 Lucky Smoke

On the Second Day

12 Drama Queens

13 Capsized!

14 Healthy Animals

15 The Tail of a Q

16 Fatal Flaws

17 Field Recordings

18 The Geek Shall Inherit the Earth

19 In the Thick

20 Wildlife

21 It Is All Good

On the Third Day

22 Spiritual Development

23 A Pig’s Ear

24 Wheelchair 101

25 Period of Adjustment

26 A Basically Hostile Environment

27 God’s Great Hearth

28 Assorted Guys

29 She’s So Satan

30 Fond Farewell

31 Walkabout

On the Fourth Da

32 Nevermore

33 Involved

34 The Story of February 2

35 Crazy People

36 Are You Rampant?

37 Healing Properties

38 Yesterday’s Girl

39 Petition

40 A Little Salvation

41 Aces

On the Fifth Day

42 Wonderfully Made

43 Past Life

44 Cultural Anthropology

45 Conversation Without Words

46 Dressed!

47 Accidents 1 and 2

48 Parallel Lines

49 Wanting

50 Repent, Repent

51 Trust Games

On the Sixth Day

52 Everything Beautiful

53 Suckingfish

54 Contact High

55 A Different Movie

56 Que Sera, Sera

57 The Girl I Was

58 End of Faith Discussion

59 This Way Utopia

60 Hootenanny

61 The Appeal of Wrongness

On the Seventh Day

62 Sir Thomas More’s Prayer for the Maybes

Also by Simmone Howell

Manifesto Revised

Acknowledgments

Imprint