Shining On (16 page)
Authors: Lois Lowry
“Well, you've come over all Wise Woman of Wonga.” “That's me,” she said with a laugh. “Wise and really rather wonderful, don'tcha think?”
I laughed with her. I liked what she said and what John Lennon had said too. It was true. I thought about my sister. All through school she was adamant about being a lawyer. Earning megabucks. Expensive hols. No kids. Now look at her. Not even twenty-five and she's at home with twins. Our next-door neighbor, Robin. He was in telesales. He
was
Mr. Salesperson. Lived for his job. He was made redun-dant a couple of years ago. Now he does garden design and has never been happier. My uncle Martin was a successful photographer for years. Now with digicams and photo libraries on the Net, no one will pay the fees he used to get. He's gone into property with his wife. They buy up old places, do them up, sell them on. He never dreamed in a million years that he'd end up doing that. Mary Jacobs, two roads over, used to work as a cleaner. She won the lottery and moved to Barbados. Katie Palmer Smythe was married to a rich executive and had an affair. Husband found out,
they had a messy divorce, now she works as a cleaner. Has Mary Jacobs's job, in fact. She never saw that coming.
Yeah. Allie was right. John Lennon too. Life is what happens when you're busy making plans.
The following day when Mrs. Goodwin cast her beady eyes over the class, I was ready for her.
“Now, Jessica. Have you thought any more about what you want to do when you leave school?”
“Yes I have, Miss.”
“And?”
“Still don't know.”
“Still don't know?”
“No, Miss.”
And this time, it felt OK to admit it. Yes, I'd pick my subjects for next year. Not maths. Definitely English. And art. And later, well, who knows what job I'll do. I'm not totally sure just yet what, but one thing I do know and that is whatever happens, whatever changes along the way, I will always have choice. And that's not a curse, it's a blessing.
Lois Lowry
is an award-winning author who has written many popular books for children and young adults, from her first novel,
A Summer to Die,
through the Ana-stasia Krupnik series, to her most recent novel,
Gossamer.
A two-time recipient of the Newbery Medal, for
Number the Stars
and for
The Giver,
Lois Lowry conveys through her writing her passionate awareness that we live intertwined on this planet and that our future depends upon our caring more and doing more for one another. Born in Honolulu, Lois Lowry has lived all over the world and now divides her time between Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Maine.
Meg' Rosoff
was born in Boston and had three or four ca-reers in publishing and advertising before moving to Lon-don in 1989. Her phenomenal first novel,
How I Live Now,
won several awards in the United States and Europe, among them the Michael L. Printz Award and the
Guardian
Award for Children's Fiction. Her second novel is
Just in Case.
Meg Rosoff lives in London with her husband and their daughter.
Meg' Cabot
is the author of many books for young readers and adults, including the phenomenally successful Princess Diaries series,
All-American Girl, Teen Idol,
and
How to Be Popular.
When she is not reliving the horrors of her high school experience through her fiction, Meg divides her time between New York City and Key West with her husband and their one-eyed cat, Henrietta.
Melvin Burgess
has written several highly acclaimed books for young readers, including
Smack,
which won the Carnegie Medal and the
Guardian
Children's Fiction Prize in England;
Lady: My Life as a Bitch;
and
Doing It,
winner of the
Los Angeles Times
Book Prize for Young Adult Fiction. He lives in Manchester, England, with his two children.
Anne Fine
is a former Children's Laureate of England and a two-time winner of both of England's highest literary awards, the Carnegie Medal and the Whitbread Children's Book of the Year. She has written many highly acclaimed books for young readers, including
Up on Cloud Nine; Alias Madame Doubtfire,
on which the Robin Williams movie hit
Mrs. Doubtfire
was based;
Flour Babies; The Tulip Touch;
and
Bad Dreams.
The mother of two daughters, Anne Fine lives in County Durham, England.
Sue Limb
lives on an organic farm in a remote part of Gloucestershire. Her writing career has included various assignments for magazines and newspapers, radio work, television series, and several novels for adults published in Britain. Her books for children include
Big and Little, China Lee, Me Jane, Big Trouble, Mr. Loopy and Mrs. Snoopy,
and
Come Back, Grandma,
which was shortlisted for the Smarties Prize. Her novels about the charmingly crazed Jess Jor-dan, who is featured in her story “You're a Legend,” include
Girl, 15, Charming but Insane; Girl, Nearly 16: Absolute Torture;
and
Girl, Going on 17: Pants on Fire,
and are available from Delacorte Press. Sue Limb is quite interested in gar-dening, travel, green politics, agriculture, and rare breeds of poultry, about which she is particularly mad.
Jacqueline Wilson
has written more than eighty-five books for young readers of all ages. In England, her
Double Act
won both the Children's Book of the Year Award and the Smarties Prize. Jacqueline Wilson also won the Children's Book Award for
The Suitcase Kid, Girls in Tears,
and
The Illustrated Mum
and has been short-listed five times and runner-up twice for the prestigious Carnegie Medal. She was named Children's Laureate for 2005 through 2007. Jacqueline Wilson lives near London in a small house crammed with fifteen thousand books.
Celia Rees
was born and brought up in Solihull, England, and taught English in city comprehensive schools for seventeen years. She now spends her time writing, talking to readers in schools and libraries, tutoring creative writing students, and reviewing. She writes for children and teenagers. Her first book was published in 1993. Since then she has written many more novels and a number of short stories. Her novels have been translated into twenty-seven different languages and include
Witch Child, Sorceress,
and
Pirates!,
all of which were short-listed for major awards, both in Britain and abroad. Celia Rees lives in Leamington Spa, England, with her husband. She has a grown-up daughter, Catrin, who lives in London.
Malorie Blackman
was a computer programmer before her first book was published in 1990. Since then she has had more than fifty books published, including the Naughts and Crosses trilogy (published in the United States by Simon and Schuster and winner of the FCBG Children's Book Award 2002 in Britain),
Pig Heart Boy
(which was short-listed for the Carnegie Medal in Britain and also won a BAFTA for Best Children's Drama),
Thief!,
and
Hacker.
When Malorie is not writing, she loves to read, watch films, and play computer games. More information can be found on her Web site, www.malorieblackman.com.
Rosie Rushton
has written more than thirty novels for teens and young adults, including the Fab Five series,
which is very popular in the United States; the What a Week series; and some very successful novels for older teens, her favorites being
Waving, Not Drowning; Tell Me I'm OK Really;
and
Last Seen Wearing Trainers.
She lives in Northamptonshire, in the middle of England, which is odd for someone who loves the sea. She is passionately interested in the lives and loves, as well as the angst, of teenagers and gets much of her inspiration from the young people she meets in her roles as a school governor, a grandmother, and a lay minister in the Church of England. She knows a book is working out well when her characters start refusing to do as she tells them—something that happens with alarming regularity. Her interests include researching her family tree, playing with her grandchildren, traveling, sharing good food with friends, and reading.
Cathy Hopkins
lives in London with her husband and four cats, Molly, Maisie, Emmylou, and Otis. She spends most of her time locked in a shed at the bottom of the gar-den pretending to write books but is actually in there lis-tening to music, hippie dancing, and talking to her friends on e-mail. Apart from that, she is looking for the answers to why we're here, where we've come from, and what it's all about. She is also looking for the perfect hairdresser. So far she has had forty-two books published, including the Mates, Dates series for teens, which has been published in twenty-three countries, including the United States, where the series has sold more than a million copies.
Published by Delacorte Press
an imprint of Random House Children's Books
a division of Random House, Inc.
New York
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are
the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance
to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Text copyright © 2007 by Delacorte Press
Originally published in slightly different form in the United Kingdom
by Piccadilly Press Ltd., in 2006
All rights reserved.
Delacorte Press and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
1% of profits from the sale of this book will be donated to CureSearch.
Educators and librarians, for a variety of teaching tools, visit us at
www.randomhouse.com/teachers
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.
eISBN: 978-0-307-49785-7
v3.0