The Ant Colony. Jenny Valentine

       Copyright

      HarperCollins Children’s Books A division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

       www.harpercollins.co.uk

      Copyright © Jenny Valentine 2009

      First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Children’s Books in 2009

      Jenny Valentine asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

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      Source ISBN: 9780007283590

      Ebook Edition © MAY 2012 ISBN: 9780007381012 Version: 2015-04-01

       For Alex

       (and Reg)

      Contents

       Cover Page

       Title Page

Copyright

       Dedication

One (Sam)

Two (Bohemia)

Three (Sam)

Four (Bohemia)

Five (Sam)

       The Story of My Life Part One by B Hoban

       Six (Sam)

       Seven (Bohemia)

       The Story of My Life Part Two by B Hoban

       Eight (Sam)

       Nine (Bohemia)

       The Story of My Life Part Three by B Hoban

       Ten (Sam)

       The Story of My Life Part Four by B Hoban

       Eleven (Bohemia)

       Twelve (Sam)

       Thirteen (Bohemia)

       Fourteen (Sam)

       Fifteen (Bohemia)

       Sixteen (Sam)

       Seventeen (Bohemia)

       Eighteen (Sam)

       Nineteen (Bohemia)

       Twenty (Sam)

       Twenty-one (Bohemia)

       Twenty-two (Sam)

       Twenty-three (Sam)

       The Story of My Life Part Five by B Hoban

       Twenty-four (Bohemia)

       Keep Reading

       Acknowledgments

       About the Author

       Also by Jenny Valentine

       About the Publisher

       One (Sam)

      I saw a girl. Just a kid. It’s not what happened first, but it’s a good place to start. I can see her now. She could be standing right in front of me. I wish she was. Dark red hair, cream white skin, eyes to the ground.

      I was walking past and she was there in a doorway, an open doorway on to the street. Behind her was another door into the place, a bar I think, or a club maybe. And around her, between the two doorways, was just black, pure matt black. Her clothes were black, so her dark red hair and her pale face and hands were the only places of light.

      She looked like she was appearing out of the night, sitting for a painter who’d been dead two hundred years. I’m not joking. There she was, in the rougher end of Camden High Street, looking like she belonged on the wall of the National Gallery.

      I kept walking and I held her picture in my head, and I remember thinking, What if I went back and said hello? What if I told her how she looked, and how much I wished I had a camera and some idea of how to use it? I’d scare her, a big bloke like me. She’d think I was a freak. She’d move away and leave her