Jennifer Donnelly - Revolution

ALSO BY JENNIFER DONNELLY

A Northern Light

This is a work of fiction. All incidents and dialogue, and all characters with the exception of some well-known historical and public figures, are products of the authors imagination and are not to be construed as real. Where real-life historical or public figures appear, the situations, incidents, and dialogues concerning those persons are fictional and are not intended to depict actual events or to change the fictional nature of the work. In all other respects, any resemblance to persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.

Copyright 2010 by Jennifer Donnelly

All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Delacorte Press, an imprint of Random House Childrens Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

Delacorte Press is a registered trademark and the colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Donnelly, Jennifer.
Revolution / Jennifer Donnelly. 1st ed.
p. cm.
Summary: An angry, grieving seventeen-year-old musician facing expulsion from her prestigious Brooklyn private school travels to Paris to complete a school assignment and uncovers a diary written during the French revolution by a young actress attempting to help a tortured, imprisoned little boyLouis Charles, the lost king of France.
eISBN: 978-0-375-89760-3 [1. GriefFiction. 2. Emotional problemsFiction. 3. Family problemsFiction. 4. MusiciansFiction. 5. DiariesFiction. 6. Paris (France)Fiction. 7. FranceFiction. 8. FranceHistoryRevolution, 17891799Fiction. 9. Louis XVII, of France, 17851795Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.D7194Re 2010
[Fic]dc22
2010008993

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v3.1

For Daisy,
who kicked out the walls of my heart

Contents

I found myself within a forest dark ,
For the straightforward pathway had been lost. Ah me! How hard a thing it is to say ,
What was this forest savage, rough, and stern ,
Which in the very thought renews the fear. So bitter is it, death is little more .

D ANTE The Divine Comedy

HELL

And to a place I come where nothing shines .

D ANTE

T hose who can, do.

Those who cant, deejay.

Like Cooper van Epp. Standing in his roomthe entire fifth floor of a Hicks Street brownstonetrying to beat-match John Lee Hooker with some piece of trip-hop horror. On twenty thousand dollars worth of equipment he doesnt know how to use.

This is the blues, man! he crows. Its Memphis mod. He pauses to pour himself his second scotch of the morning. Its like then and now. Brooklyn and Beale Street all at once. Its like hanging at a house party with John Lee. Smoking Kents and drinking bourbon for breakfast. All thats missing, all we need

are hunger, disease, and a total lack of economic opportunity, I say.

Cooper pushes his porkpie back on his head and brays laughter. Hes wearing a wifebeater and an old suit vest. Hes seventeen, white as cream and twice as rich, trying to look like a bluesman from the Mississippi Delta. He doesnt. He looks like Norton from The Honeymooners .

Poverty, Coop, I add. Thats what you need. Thats where the blues come from. But thats going to be hard for you. I mean, son of a hedge fund god and all.

His idiot grin fades. Man, Andi, why you always harshing me? Why you always so

Simone Canovas, a diplomats daughter, cuts him off. Oh, dont bother, Cooper. You know why.

We all do. Its getting boring, says Arden Tode, a movie stars kid.

And one last thing, I say, ignoring them, talent. You need talent. Because John Lee Hooker had boatloads of it. Do you actually write any music, Coop? Do you play any? Or do you just stick other peoples stuff together and call the resulting calamity your own?

Coopers eyes harden. His mouth twitches. Youre battery acid. You know that?

I do.

I am. No doubt about it. I like humiliating Cooper. I like causing him pain. It feels good. It feels better than his dads whiskey, better than his moms weed. Because for just a few seconds, someone else hurts, too. For just a few seconds, Im not alone.

I pick up my guitar and play the first notes of Hookers Boom Boom. Badly, but it does the trick. Cooper swears at me and storms off.

Simone glares. That was brutal, Andi. Hes a fragile soul, she says; then she takes off after him. Arden takes off after her.

Simone doesnt give a rats about Cooper or his soul. Shes only worried hell pull the plug on our Friday-morning breakfast party. She never faces school without a buzz. Nobody does. We need to have something, some kind of substance-fueled force field to fend off the heavy hand of expectation that threatens to crush us like beer cans the minute we set foot in the place.

I quit playing Boom Boom and ease into Tupelo. No one pays any attention. Not Coopers parents, who are in Cabo for the holidays. Not the maid, whos running around opening windows to let the smoke out. And not my classmates, who are busy trading iPods back and forth, listening to one song after another. No Billboard Hot 100 fare for us. Were better than that. Those tunes are for kids at P.S. Whatever-the-hell. We attend St. Anselms, Brooklyns most prestigious private school. Were special. Exceptional. Were supernovas, every single one of us. Thats what our teachers say, and what our parents pay thirty thousand dollars a year to hear.

This year, senior year, its all about the blues. And William Burroughs, Balkan soul, German countertenors, Japanese girl bands, and New Wave. Its calculated, the mix. Like everything else we do. The more obscure our tastes, the greater the proof of our genius.

As I sit here mangling Tupelo, I catch broken-off bits of conversation going on around me.

But really, you cant even approach Flock of Seagulls without getting caught up in the metafictive paradigm, somebody says.

And Plastic Bertrand can, I think, best be understood as a postironic nihilist referentialist.

And But, like, New Wave derived meaning from its own meaninglessness. Dude, the tautology was so intended.

And then, Wasnt that a mighty time, wasnt that a mighty time

I look up. The kid singing lines from Tupelo, a notorious horndog from Slater, another Heights school, is suddenly sitting on the far end of the sofa Im sitting on. He smirks his way over until our knees are touching.

Youre good, he says.

Thanks.

You in a band?

I keep playing, head down, so he takes a bolder tack.

Whats this? he says, leaning over to tug on the red ribbon I wear around my neck. At the end of it is a silver key. Key to your heart?

I want to kill him for touching it. I want to say words that will slice him to bits, but I have none. They dry up in my throat. I cant speak, so I hold up my hand, the one covered in skull rings, and clench it into a fist.

He drops the key. Hey, sorry.

Dont do that, I tell him, tucking it back inside my shirt. Ever.

Okay, okay. Take it easy, psycho, he says, backing off.

I put the guitar into its case and head for an exit. Front door. Back door. Window. Anything. When Im halfway across the living room, I feel a hand close on my arm.