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  Cover Title Page Books by A. F. Harrold Dedication Contents Some Are Born MONDAY MONDAY NIGHT TUESDAY TUESDAY NIGHT WEDNESDAY WEDNESDAY NIGHT THURSDAY THURSDAY NIGHT FRIDAY eCopyright    Books by A. F. Harrold The Imaginary Illustrated by Emily Gravett The Afterwards Illustrated by Emily Gravett The Song from Somewhere Else Illustrated by Levi Pinfold The Worlds We Leave Behind Illustrated by Levi Pinfold The Book of Not Entirely Useful Advice Illustrated by Mini Grey  BLOOMSBURY CHILDREN’S BOOKS Bloomsbury Publishing Inc., part of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 1385 Broadway, New York, NY 10018 This electronic edition published in 2023 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc BLOOMSBURY, BLOOMSBURY CHILDREN’S BOOKS, and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published in Great Britain in August 2022 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published in the United States of America in February 2023 by Bloomsbury Children’s Books Text copyright © 2022 by A. F. Harrold Illustrations copyright © 2022 by Levi Pinfold Title typography copyright © 2022 by David Wardle All rights reserved  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form  or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any  information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.  Bloomsbury books may be purchased for business or promotional use. For information on bulk purchases please contact Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department at [email protected] Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data available upon request ISBN: 978-1-5476-1095-2 (HB) ISBN: 978-1-5476-1096-9 (eBook) To find out more about our authors and their books please visit www.bloomsbury.com where you will find extracts, author interviews and details of forthcoming events, and to be the first to hear about latest releases and special offers, sign up for our newsletters. For Michael Groom, Alex Bell, and James Heywood—for the wild woods we knew back then A. F. HARROLD For Isaac LEVI PINFOLD  CONTENTS MONDAY MONDAY NIGHT TUESDAY TUESDAY NIGHT WEDNESDAY WEDNESDAY NIGHT THURSDAY THURSDAY NIGHT FRIDAY Some Are Born Every night and every morn Some to misery are born. Every morn and every night Some are born to sweet delight. William Blake, from “Auguries of Innocence”   MONDAY Hex wasn’t entirely sure how the girl had come to be hurt. That morning he and Tommo had got on their bikes and they’d headed over the train tracks and down the hill, down to the woods. On a map, the woods were a fat finger pointing away from town. A brook ran through the middle and the trees formed a strip, a couple of hundred yards wide on either side, but dwindling and narrowing, closing in and petering out the farther you went. Beyond them, on the left, was the road that led off to the next town. Beyond them, on the right, were wide, flat farmer’s fields. It wasn’t big enough to get lost in, but it was big enough to forget yourself in. The trees towered over you, little specks of blue twinkling high above like stars in the night sky, saying nothing. As smoke and squeals had poured off Hex’s and Tommo’s brake pads at the bottom of the last road, they had seen the girl in her front garden. She was some years younger than they were. Down at the bottom of the school, probably still in preschool while they were up at the top. She was called Sascha Something-or-Other and was sitting on the lawn of her front garden pretending to read from a book to her toys. (“Pretending” only because Hex couldn’t believe the story was actually in the book, which looked like one about tractors.) “There was a prince who killed a giant,” the girl had said, “and he got sent to prison because killing is wrong, and when he was in prison he fell in love with the prison boss’s daughter, but she wouldn’t marry him because he had killed a giant and killing is wrong. But he said, ‘The giant was going to eat the king,’ and she said, ‘The king should be more careful.’ And she married an apple and ate it all up and was happily ever after. The end.” The front door had been open a crack and they’d heard distant voices somewhere inside. She’d lowered her book and looked at them, squinting at the sun and shading her eyes with a hand. “Whatcha doing?” she’d asked. “Nothing,” they’d said.  But she’d asked again and so they’d told her they were going into the woods. There was a rope swing set up on the high bank, over the brook. It was a good place to spend a hot day. “I’ll come,” she’d said, putting a plastic horse between the pages of her book and laying it down carefully on the grass. “Nah,” they’d said. But she’d just stood up and brushed her bottom with both hands. She’d sniffed her palms and said, “Mmmm, don’t you love that fresh smell?” She’d probably meant the grass, but it was still weird. Tommo and Hex had looked at each other at that point. A half chuckle, nervous and uncertain. “Nah, you’re okay,” they’d said, shaking their heads. Pulling their bikes up, they’d walked off, not looking back. And she had followed them. They hadn’t invited her, hadn’t forced her, hadn’t encouraged her, hadn’t wanted her to come, but there she was, a little kid suddenly in their care. And now they were in the woods and it had all gone wrong.  Hex often wondered why adults insisted on there being reasons for things. That didn’t match the world he saw. Sometimes he’d stand up in class, in the middle of doing something else, and point at a squirrel out the window or do a little dance or ask a question about something they weren’t studying that day, and the other kids would laugh, and Miss Short, his teacher (or, ten minutes later, Mr. Dedman, the head), would look