Which wolf would win?
Ben stared out the window, letting the world go by in a blur of trees and sky. He felt empty now, totally empty. In a good way. As though he had released his wolves from captivity. There was no “good” or “bad” wolf anymore, nothing to run from. For the moment, the terrible battle was done.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The origin of the “two wolves” parable is often attributed as an old Cherokee tale, but this is disputed.
Thanks to Varuna Writers Centre. I wrote there for four glorious days and I carry that stillness with me now. Thanks to the Northern Rivers Writers Centre, where I wrote part of this manuscript. Thanks to the people who encouraged me to write this when I pitched it to them—kids and teens in schools, Sophie Hamley, John Boyne, Hux, and Luca. Thanks to Catherine Drayton for daring me to dig deeper and complete the journey.
I am indebted to Kimberley Bennett and Zoe Walton at Random House Australia and to Margaret Ferguson at Farrar Straus Giroux, who pushed me to rethink and rediscover. I have learned most of what I know about writing from the excellent editors I have worked with.
Thanks to my wife, Amber, for encouraging and inspiring my creative endeavors. Thanks to Jean Craighead George for writing My Side of the Mountain and to the other authors whose work dares me to be better and more honest.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
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CONTENTS
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Epigraph
Cops
The Vacation
Vacation Haircuts
Chase
Within the Woods
The Dead of Night
The Bag
The Secret
In Which Ben Gets Caught
Culpam Poena Premit Comes
My Side of the River
Knife
Detective Ben Silver
Evidence
The Hunt
Notebook
Trapped
Hole
The Plan
Apricots
Think I Better Run
Into the Wild
Flesh and Blood
The Fugitive
Hope
Stuck
First Night
Tangled
Tempest
The End
The Wreckers
The Road
Dead or Alive
Hide-and-Seek
Last Stand
Life
Within the Woods
One Wolf
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Copyright
Farrar Straus Giroux Books for Young Readers
175 Fifth Avenue, New York 10010
Text copyright © 2015 by Tristan Bancks
All rights reserved
First U.S. hardcover edition, 2015
eBook edition, November 2015
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The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:
Bancks, Tristan.
On the run / Tristan Bancks. —First U.S. edition.
pages cm
First published in Australia by Random House Australia.
Summary: Twelve-year-old Ben, who aspires to be a police officer, struggles to do the right thing when his parents suddenly take him and his little sister “on vacation,” and he learns they took a large amount of money that was mistakenly deposited in their bank account.
ISBN 978-0-374-30153-8 (hardback)
ISBN 978-0-374-30154-5 (e-book)
[1. Criminals—Fiction. 2. Fugitives from justice—Fiction. 3. Fathers and sons—Fiction. 4. Conduct of life—Fiction. 5. Family life—Australia—Fiction. 6. Australia—Fiction.] 1. Title.
PZ7.B21766On 2015
[Fic]—dc23
2014042435
eISBN 9780374301545