Throwback, p.20
Throwback, page 20
The butterfly effect. One change leads to another. Frederick Ruggles’s saved life. Ratboy Karelian’s lost life.
The paper dropped to the floor and Corey looked up to his grandmother. His yiayia. “You wouldn’t have wanted to work for them anyway,” he said.
His grandmother gave him a curious smile. Mom, Dad, and Zenobia were staring at him, looking like they wanted to go back to sleep.
But his papou’s eyes were tearing. Corey knew that somehow, he was figuring out what must have happened. “Oh dear God . . .” he murmured.
Corey would tell him all about it. Every detail. But that could wait.
He had a grandmother now, and it would be fun to get to know her.
He felt Leila’s arm around his shoulder. He put his around her, too—and his other arm around Maria Harvoulakis Fletcher.
His own, honest-to-goodness yiayia.
She was looking at him with such love. She’d been there. She’d seen him grow up. She knew him.
Would he ever gain those memories? Why hadn’t his own mind “adjusted”?
There was so much he didn’t understand. His thoughts flitted in his head like a small cave filled with a thousand bats.
He had to tell them. He had to explain what happened. But for now, he’d wait. The feeling was too good, and he wanted to savor it.
“I guess,” he said, “we should have that baklava.”
“We have baklava?” Zenobia shouted.
“Into the kitchen!” his dad announced.
Yiayia’s smile was like starlight, her laugh like a song heard for the first time. She took Corey’s hand and led him toward the kitchen. Her skin felt warm and soft and alive.
In his mind Corey heard a distant, Wyoming-accented voice shouting, “Yee-HAH!”
But he knew that was in his imagination. He had a big imagination.
Everyone said that.
And that was fine with him.
About the Author
Photo by Joseph Lerangis
PETER LERANGIS is the author of more than one hundred and sixty books, which have sold more than six million copies and been translated into thirty-four different languages. These include the five books in the New York Times bestselling Seven Wonders series—The Colossus Rises, Lost in Babylon, The Tomb of Shadows, The Curse of the King, and The Legend of the Rift—and two books in the 39 Clues series. Peter is a Harvard graduate with a degree in biochemistry. He has run a marathon and gone rock climbing during an earthquake—though not on the same day. He lives in New York City with his wife, musician Tina deVaron, where they raised their two sons, Nick and Joe. In his spare time, he likes to eat chocolate.
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Copyright
THROWBACK. Copyright © 2019 Peter Lerangis. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, 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 hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
www.harpercollinschildrens.com
Cover illustration © 2019 by Levente Szabo
Cover design and hand lettering by Joe Merkel
Digital Edition OCTOBER 2019 ISBN: 978-0-06-240640-8
Print ISBN: 978-0-06-240638-5
1920212223CPIG10987654321
FIRST EDITION
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Peter Lerangis, Throwback
