The smart man took a bright white handkerchief from inside the pocket of his blazer and used it to delicately mop up a line of sweat that had formed between the edge of the bandage on his forehead and the thin wisps of blond hair.
He then finished his coffee, placed a twenty-dollar bill underneath a glass on the table and stood up.
There was a plastic bin loosely attached by wire to the stem of a street lamp and, as he crossed the pavement, the smart man threw the folded newspaper at it. Remarkably, he missed and the paper landed on the road. The smart man felt a slight tingle of pleasure when he placed his brown leather brogue squarely on the story he had just read, as he made his way across the empty street.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Book writing seems, from the outside at least, like a lonely business. In reality, it’s a team effort. The Dot. Robot team consists of oodles of strangers who listened and smiled politely as I enthused on trains and in cafes. It also includes my teachers, who all (and I do mean all) inspired in me a love of words and numbers. And then there’s each of my beta testers – my buddies Rich and Jamie, the boy at the end of my road, Joss, and my nephew Jacob who speaks Messenger language better than anyone.
My heartfelt thanks go to my TV agent, Debbie, and my literary agent, Luigi Bonomi, who were the first professional types to take my idea for a twelve-year-old computer-gaming roboteer-maths-genius seriously.
I must also thank The Gadget Show team, Ewan Keil in particular, for opening up a trove of technological treasure and paying me to play with it.
I’ll never forget the day that Puffin Books said ‘Yes!’ to Dot.Robot. If the Puffin gang’s energy and enthusiasm for children’s books could be bottled, there would be no need for oil. And a special thanks to my editor, Lindsey Heaven, who has a doctor’s handwriting but a surgeon’s skill – and who I count as my newest friend.
I have read many great books while dreaming up and fact-checking Dot.Robot, but the one I would recommend to anyone with an interest in space and science is A Tribble’s Guide to Space. Thanks to Alan C. Tribble’s amazing book, the space stuff in Dot.Robot should be spot on.
Finally, I must acknowledge my long-suffering girlfriend, Claire, without whose patience and support none of my words would have made it to the page.
How do you follow that? Easy with more …
Dot Robot Page 20
