The Alex Crow. Andrew Smith

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      First published in the USA in 2015 by Dutton Books

       a division of the Penguin Group (USA) LLC,

       375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

      First published in Great Britain in 2015

       by Electric Monkey – an imprint of Egmont UK Limited

       The Yellow Building, 1 Nicholas Road, London W11 4AN

      Text copyright © 2015 Andrew Smith

       The moral rights of the author have been asserted

      First e-book edition 2015

      ISBN 978 1 4052 7342 8

       eISBN 978 1 7803 1622 2

       www.egmont.co.uk

      A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library

      All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

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       For Chiara Luciana Smith, my beautiful daughter, who went with me to see the great welcoming mannequin that rises from the water.

       THE ALEX CROW

       Cover

       Title Page

       Copyright

       Dedication

Prologue: Here Is a Pinwheel

We Five Boys of Jupiter

The Great Welcoming Mannequin

Mrs Nussbaum, Larry, and the Snore Wall

This Is What We Do at Camp

Scary Stories

Marshmallow Jeff and the Boys from Earth

       Demikhov’s Dogs and the Alex Cat

       Teacher’s Pet and the Dumpling Man

       Francis MacInnes in the Cemetery

       So Much for Good Luck!

       This Is Probably Why You Don’t Wake Up Sleepwalkers

       Sock Puppet Jesus

       Red Mercury and Bottled Water

       Male Extinction

       You Never Know

       Crystal Lutz and Igor Zelinsky

       The Yoke of Inauspicious Stars

       Suck It Up, Iceman

       All in the Name of Research, Ariel

       Coffee for God

       The Vernacular of Max

       The Strange Case of Dr Alexander Merrie’s Siberian Ice Man

       The Caboose of Natural Selection

       SIM

       The Book of Max and Cobie

       I’m Still the Same Old Guy I’ve Always Been

       A Little Game of Stones in a Grid

       The Cat and the Mice

       Fox in the Snow

       Boys in the Woods

       Major Knott

       The Best Thing To Do with Ariel

       Happy Birthday to Me

       Something More Like Fondue

       Out for a Walk While Our Porridge Cools

       Up in the Woods a Way Up There!