Dying to Know You (25 page)
Authors: Aidan Chambers
When they’d gone, I toured the house, relieved to be among my own things in my own place.
I sat in the reading chair in my workroom. But didn’t read. I wanted to rest, breathe myself in again, so to speak.
Didn’t want to lie down. I’d had enough of that in hospital.
I thought of everything that had happened in the last few days. And this extended, back and forth, over the events since Karl first came to see me.
And I knew it was time.
I moved to my desk. The desk on which I’ve written all my books. I’ve never been able to write them anywhere else.
You must go on making, I’d told Karl.
You can’t let the philistines destroy you.
What was true for Karl was true for me.
You mustn’t allow even death to destroy you.
And it can’t if you live in what you make.
I looked at the photo of Jane, which has always stood on my desk. And I knew what she would say.
If you can’t do it for it for yourself, do it for me.
I took from my drawer a new refill pad made of recycled paper, with faint narrow ruled lines and four holes in the margin for filing. I’ve always used them for drafting my books.
I took a new 2B pencil. The kind I always use.
I wrote the date and time at the top of the page. I always do when I start a day’s work.
And began.
“Could I talk to you?”
“Why?”
AIDAN CHAMBERS
has written seven young adult novels, six of which make up the award-winning Dance Sequence, as well as short stories, literary criticism, plays, and two novels for children. He lives in Gloucestershire, England, with his wife, Nancy. Visit him online at
www.aidanchambers.com
.
THIS BOOK WAS DESIGNED
by Robyn Ng and art directed by Chad W. Beckerman. The text is set in 12-point Adobe Garamond, a type-face based on those created in the sixteenth century by Claude Garamond. Garamond modeled his typefaces on ones created by Venetian printers at the end of the fifteenth century. The modern version used in this book was designed by Robert Slimbach, who studied Garamond’s historic typefaces at the Plantin-Moretus Museum in Antwerp, Belgium. The display type is Hannah.
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