On the Run

by Tristan Bancks

Which wolf would win?

  Ben stared out the window, letting the world go by in a blur of trees and sky. He felt empty now, totally empty. In a good way. As though he had released his wolves from captivity. There was no “good” or “bad” wolf anymore, nothing to run from. For the moment, the terrible battle was done.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  The origin of the “two wolves” parable is often attributed as an old Cherokee tale, but this is disputed.

  Thanks to Varuna Writers Centre. I wrote there for four glorious days and I carry that stillness with me now. Thanks to the Northern Rivers Writers Centre, where I wrote part of this manuscript. Thanks to the people who encouraged me to write this when I pitched it to them—kids and teens in schools, Sophie Hamley, John Boyne, Hux, and Luca. Thanks to Catherine Drayton for daring me to dig deeper and complete the journey.

  I am indebted to Kimberley Bennett and Zoe Walton at Random House Australia and to Margaret Ferguson at Farrar Straus Giroux, who pushed me to rethink and rediscover. I have learned most of what I know about writing from the excellent editors I have worked with.

  Thanks to my wife, Amber, for encouraging and inspiring my creative endeavors. Thanks to Jean Craighead George for writing My Side of the Mountain and to the other authors whose work dares me to be better and more honest.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  TRISTAN BANCKS: You can sign up for email updates here.

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  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Copyright Notice

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Cops

  The Vacation

  Vacation Haircuts

  Chase

  Within the Woods

  The Dead of Night

  The Bag

  The Secret

  In Which Ben Gets Caught

  Culpam Poena Premit Comes

  My Side of the River

  Knife

  Detective Ben Silver

  Evidence

  The Hunt

  Notebook

  Trapped

  Hole

  The Plan

  Apricots

  Think I Better Run

  Into the Wild

  Flesh and Blood

  The Fugitive

  Hope

  Stuck

  First Night

  Tangled

  Tempest

  The End

  The Wreckers

  The Road

  Dead or Alive

  Hide-and-Seek

  Last Stand

  Life

  Within the Woods

  One Wolf

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Copyright

  Farrar Straus Giroux Books for Young Readers

  175 Fifth Avenue, New York 10010

  Text copyright © 2015 by Tristan Bancks

  All rights reserved

  First U.S. hardcover edition, 2015

  eBook edition, November 2015

  mackids.com

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

  Bancks, Tristan.

  On the run / Tristan Bancks. —First U.S. edition.

  pages cm

  First published in Australia by Random House Australia.

  Summary: Twelve-year-old Ben, who aspires to be a police officer, struggles to do the right thing when his parents suddenly take him and his little sister “on vacation,” and he learns they took a large amount of money that was mistakenly deposited in their bank account.

  ISBN 978-0-374-30153-8 (hardback)

  ISBN 978-0-374-30154-5 (e-book)

  [1. Criminals—Fiction. 2. Fugitives from justice—Fiction. 3. Fathers and sons—Fiction. 4. Conduct of life—Fiction. 5. Family life—Australia—Fiction. 6. Australia—Fiction.] 1. Title.

  PZ7.B21766On 2015

  [Fic]—dc23

  2014042435

  eISBN 9780374301545