Buster
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And finishing the primary trio of this story’s support squad is my editor, David Levithan. My life is permanently different because of the chances you’ve taken on me, and I’ll never be able to pay you back for all you’ve given—I can only hope to make something good out of the tools you’ve provided. Thank you for believing in me even when I don’t, and for being the most generous and thoughtful friend and teammate anyone could wish for.
The whole team at Scholastic has been amazing across all of my projects so far, especially Maya Marlette. You handle more categories of problem than seem possible in a single job, PLUS edit your own books, PLUS are an incredible board game player and comedian. That’s my friend!!!
Thanks to Charlie Olsen for keeping the train running, making me look professional, and sharing your love of comics and Mario Kart. You always have all the answers, and you’re always the first to say yes to my weirdest and truest ideas.
My therapist during the writing of this book, Patrycja Baska, was an incredible help when I was exhausted and tired from staring frankly and directly at my own anxiety during this process. To my past therapists, and all the therapists and doctors who listen: thank you.
My parents, Kim and Connie and Jason, and my siblings, Jacy and Willow and Jack and Rianna, keep dreaming big right alongside me! Seeing my family support each other and push themselves to new and greater heights inspires me, too. I strive to be as cool as the rest of them. And thank you to the wide web of grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins who still care about how I’ve been, even when we’re apart for a while.
Thank you to my other early readers, Dr. Charlie Kamen-Mohn, Nick Splendorr, and Rianna Turner, for their advice and guidance. And thank you to Dr. Paul Baker for his suggestions in the early stages of talking about how to represent Tonio’s anxiety honestly and accurately.
It should be no surprise to anyone after reading this that games are close to my heart. I believe one of the greatest and most important things we can do with each other is play, so thank you to all the people who played with me during this process, among all their other kinds of support: Peter Reitz, Andy Carter, Lucy Ralston, Faith Jones, Tony Ransom, Patrick Brick, Ryan Kingdom, Dr. Karl Kamen-Mohn, Erin Lovett, Sean Ireland, Nick Kelly, Sydney Rappis, Leon Barillaro, Kelly White, Noah Salaway, Sofi Pujol, Tyler Lawrence, Andrew Nelson, Mila Nery, all the kids in the Dalton D&D group, and everyone who even played a single board game with me during this time!
Thank you to my book world families: Avid Bookshop in Athens, Georgia, and its booksellers past and present, WORD Bookstore, and Anyone Comics. (My comic book squad, Nick Eliopulos and John Jennison, finally got me back into X-Men during this, which I am impossibly grateful for.) Thank you to Holley Brown and all the other librarians and bookstores who hosted me during the Top Elf tour! Also shout-out to the New York Public Library for being way, way, way cooler than I could have even imagined.
If you are someone who listens, pays attention, and cares about what the people around you are feeling and struggling with: thank you, too. I hope this book reminds you of how important that work is.
Oh, and thank you for a decade of being an extremely good boy, Bogart. I miss you.
Caleb Zane Huett is a tabletop gamemaster, former bookseller, and definitely not a dog with a pen name. He’s a graduate of the University of Georgia, and he’s really good at trading card games. Eight different dogs have protected him throughout the years, and he currently has two cats who are furious they weren’t featured in this book. You can find him at calebzanehuett.com.
Copyright © 2021 by Caleb Zane Huett
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data available
First edition, March 2021
Cover art © 2021 by Betsy Luk
Cover design by Maeve Norton
e-ISBN 978-1-338-71754-9
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