Patrick Ness - The Knife of Never Letting Go

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the authors imagination or, if real, are used fictitiously.

Copyright 2008 by Patrick Ness
Cover photograph copyright 2009 by Brad Wilson/Stone/Getty Images (landscape)

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in an information retrieval system in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, taping, and recording, without prior written permission from the publisher.

First U.S. electronic edition 2010

The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition as follows:

Ness, Patrick, date.
The knife of never letting go / Patrick Ness. 1st U.S. ed.
p. cm. (Chaos walking ; [bk. 1])
Summary: Pursued by power-hungry Prentiss and mad minister Aaron, young Todd and Viola set out across New World searching for answers about his colonys true past and seeking a way to warn the ship bringing hopeful settlers from Old World.
ISBN 978-0-7636-3931-0 (hardcover)
[1. Science fiction. 2. Social problems Fiction. 3. Telepathy Fiction. 4. Human-animal communication Fiction. 5. Space colonies Fiction.] I. Title. II. Series.
PZ7.N43843Kni 2009

[Fic] dc22 2007052334

ISBN 978-0-7636-4576-2 (paperback)
ISBN 978-0-7636-5216-6 (electronic)

Candlewick Press
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The first thing you find out when yer dog learns to talk is that dogs dont got nothing much to say. About anything.

Need a poo, Todd.

Shut up, Manchee.

Poo. Poo, Todd.

I said shut it.

Were walking across the wild fields south-east of town, those ones that slope down to the river and head on towards the swamp. Bens sent me to pick him some swamp apples and hes made me take Manchee with me, even tho we all know Cillian only bought him to stay on Mayor Prentisss good side and so suddenly heres this brand new dog as a present for my birthday last year when I never said I wanted any dog, that what I said I wanted was for Cillian to finally fix the fissionbike so I wouldnt have to walk every forsaken place in this stupid town, but oh, no, happy birthday, Todd, heres a brand new puppy, Todd, and even tho you dont want him, even tho you never asked for him, guess who has to feed him and train him and wash him and take him for walks and listen to him jabber now hes got old enough for the talking germ to set his mouth moving? Guess who?

Poo, Manchee barks quietly to himself. Poo, poo, poo.

Just have yer stupid poo and quit yapping about it.

I take a switch of grass from beside the trail and I swat after him with it. I dont reach him, I dont mean to reach him, but he just laughs his little barking laugh and carries on down the trail. I follow after him, switching the switch against the grass on either side, squinting from the sun, trying not to think about nothing at all.

We dont need apples from the swamp, truth to tell. Ben can buy them at Mr Phelpss store if he really wants them. Also true: going to the swamp to pick a few apples is not a job for a man cuz men are never allowed to be so idle. Now, I wont officially become a man for thirty more days. Ive lived twelve years of thirteen long months each and another twelve months besides, all of which living means Im still one month away from the big birthday. The plans are being planned, the preparayshuns prepared, it will be a party, I guess, tho Im starting to get some strange pictures about it, all dark and too bright at the same time, but nevertheless I will become a man and picking apples in the swamp is not a job for a man or even an almost-man.

But Ben knows he can ask me to go and he knows Ill say yes to going because the swamp is the only place anywhere near Prentisstown where you can have half a break from all the Noise that men spill outta theirselves, all their clamour and clatter that never lets up, even when they sleep, men and the thoughts they dont know they think even when everyone can hear. Men and their Noise. I dont know how they do it, how they stand each other.

Men are Noisy creachers.

Squirrel! Manchee shouts and off he goes, jumping off the trail, no matter how loud I yell after him, and off I have to go, too, across the (I look round to make sure Im alone) goddam fields cuz Cillianll have a fit if Manchee falls down some goddam snake hole and of course itll be my own goddam fault even tho I never wanted the goddam dog in the goddam first place.

Manchee! Get back here!

Squirrel!

I have to kick my way thru the grass, getting grublets stuck to my shoes. One smashes as I kick it off, leaving a green smear across my trainers, which I know from experience aint coming out. Manchee! I rage.

Squirrel! Squirrel! Squirrel!

Hes barking round the tree and the squirrels skittering back and forth on the tree trunk, taunting him. Come on, Whirler dog, says its Noise. Come on, come get, come on, come get. Whirler Whirler Whirler.

Squirrel, Todd! Squirrel!

Goddam, animals are stupid.

I grab Manchee by the collar and hit him hard across his back leg. Ow, Todd? Ow? I hit him again. And again. Ow? Todd?

Come on, I say, my own Noise raging so loud I can barely hear myself think, which is something Im about to regret, you watch.

Whirler boy, Whirler boy, thinks the squirrel at me. Come get, Whirler boy .

You can eff off, too, I say, except I dont say eff, I say what eff stands for.

And I really, really shoulda looked round again.

Cuz heres Aaron, right here, rising outta the grass from nowhere, rising up and smacking me cross the face, scratching my lip with his big ring, then bringing his hand back the other way, closed as a fist, catching my cheekbone but at least missing my nose because Im falling into the grass, trying to fall away from his punch, and I let go of Manchees collar and off he runs back to the squirrel, barking his head off, the traitor, and I hit the grass with my knees and my hands, getting grublet stains all over everything.

And I stay there, on the ground, breathing.

Aaron stands over me, his Noise coming at me in fragments of scripture and of his next sermon and Language, young Todd and the finding of a sacrifice and the saint chooses his path and God hears and the wash of pictures thats in everyones Noise, of things familiar and glancing flashes of

What? What the forsaken?

But up flies a loud bit of his sermon to block it out and I look up into his eyes and suddenly I dont wanna know. I can already taste the blood where his ring cut my lip and I dont wanna know. He