Parts of this book have been fifteen years in the making (gulp) so it’s only fair to give thanks to the writing group where I first began throwing out ideas. So here’s to Jill Hoffman, Jennifer Belle, Scott Jones, and everyone else who met on Franklin Street all those years ago. Thanks are also due to Joanna Hershon, Merrill Feitell, Bowman Hastie, and Barney Miller (I’m sure I’m forgetting people) who read parts of this book in various forms along the way. Enormous gratitude is owed to my agents, Edward Necarsulmer IV and Sarah Burnes. Ditto the good folks at Harper for brilliant editorial advice, above all Clare Hutton, Gretchen Hirsch, and Zareen Jaffery. Farrin Jacobs and Elise Howard deserve a shout, too. So do Maureen Johnson, Rachel Cohn, and E. Lockhart—you rule! And the biggest thanks, as always, to my insanely patient and ingenious spouse, Jessica.
DANIEL EHRENHAFT
is the author of many books for teens, including the Edgar Award-winning Wessex Papers (under the pseudonym Daniel Parker),
DIRTY LAUNDRY
, and
DRAWING A BLANK
. You can visit him online at www.danielehrenhaft.com.
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Jacket photo © 2010 Alloy Photography/Veer
Jacket design by Thomas Forget
FRIEND IS NOT A VERB
. Copyright © 2010 by Daniel Ehrenhaft. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Ehrenhaft, Daniel.
Friend is not a verb: a novel / by Daniel Ehrenhaft.—1st ed.
p. cm.
Summary: While sixteen-year-old Hen’s family and friends try to make his supposed dreams of becoming a rock star come true, he deals with the reality of being in a band with an ex-girlfriend, a friendship that may become love, and his older sister’s mysterious disappearance and reappearance.
ISBN 978-0-06-113106-6
[1. Interpersonal relations—Fiction. 2. Bands (Music)—Fiction. 3. Brothers and sisters—Fiction. 4. Fugitives from justice—Fiction. 5. Family life—New York (State)—New York—Fiction. 6. New York (N.Y.)—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.E3235Fri 2010 2009044006
[Fic]—dc22 CIP
AC
EPub Edition © April 2010 ISBN: 978-0-06-199339-8
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
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