Between the Lines Read online

  “REAL FAIRY TALES are not for the fainthearted. Children get eaten by witches and chased by wolves; women fall into comas and are tortured by evil relatives. Somehow all that pain and suffering is worthwhile, though, when it leads to the ending: happily ever after. Suddenly it no longer matters if you got a B- on your midterm in French or you’re the only girl in the school who doesn’t have a date for the spring formal. Happily ever after trumps everything.

  But what if ever after could change?”

  JODIPICOULT.COM

  WHAT HAPPENS WHEN

  HAPPILY EVER AFTER…

  ISN’T?

  Delilah hates school as much as she loves books. In fact, there’s one book in particular she can’t get enough of. If anyone knew how many times she has read and reread the sweet little fairy tale she found in the library, especially the popular kids, she’d be sent to social Siberia…forever.

  To Delilah, though, this fairy tale is more than just words on the page. Sure, there’s a handsome (well, okay, hot) prince, and a castle, and an evil villain, but it feels as if there’s something deeper going on. And one day Delilah finds out there is. Turns out, this Prince Charming is real, and a certain fifteen-year-old loner has caught his eye. But they’re from two different worlds, and how can it ever possibly work?

  Together with her daughter, Samantha van Leer, #1 New York Times bestselling author Jodi Picoult has written a classic fairy tale with a uniquely modern twist. Readers will be swept away by this story of a girl who crosses the border between reality and fantasy in a perilous search for her own happy ending.

  JODI PICOULT is the author of nineteen novels, including the #1 New York Times bestsellers Lone Wolf, Sing You Home, House Rules, Handle with Care, Change of Heart, Nineteen Minutes, and My Sister’s Keeper. She lives in New Hampshire with her husband and three children. Visit her website at jodipicoult.com.

  SAMANTHA VAN LEER is a junior in high school. She conceived the idea for this book and pitched it to her mom, who was in the middle of a book tour. In her spare time, Samantha can be found playing softball, doing contemporary dance, acting and singing in musicals, and cuddling on the ground with her three dogs, Dudley, Alvin, and Oliver (for whom the prince in this fairy tale was named).

  Jacket design by Jeanne M. Lee

  Jacket photograph copyright © 2012 by Getty Images

  Photo of authors by Adam Bouska

  Simon Pulse • Emily Bestler Books • Atria

  Simon & Schuster, New York

  Watch videos, get extras, and read

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  Between the Lines

  ALSO BY JODI PICOULT

  Lone Wolf

  Sing You Home

  House Rules

  Handle with Care

  Change of Heart

  Nineteen Minutes

  The Tenth Circle

  Vanishing Acts

  My Sister’s Keeper

  Second Glance

  Perfect Match

  Salem Falls

  Plain Truth

  Keeping Faith

  The Pact

  Mercy

  Picture Perfect

  Harvesting the Heart

  Songs of the Humpback Whale

  AND FOR THE STAGE

  Over the Moon: An Original Musical for Teens

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Divisions of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

  www.SimonandSchuster.com

  First Simon Pulse/Emily Bestler Books/Atria Books hardcover edition June 2012

  Copyright © 2012 by Jodi Picoult and Samantha van Leer

  Full-color interior illustrations copyright © 2012 by Yvonne Gilbert

  Black-and-white interior illustrations copyright © 2012 by Scott M. Fischer

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address the Atria Books Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

  SIMON PULSE and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  EMILY BESTLER BOOKS/ATRIA BOOKS and colophon are trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

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  Designed by Jessica Handelman and Mike Rosamilia

  The text of this book was set in Adobe Caslon Pro.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Picoult, Jodi, 1966-

  Between the lines / by Jodi Picoult & Samantha van Leer.—1st Simon Pulse hardcover ed.

  p. cm. Summary: Told in their separate voices, sixteen-year-old Prince Oliver, who wants to break free of his fairy-tale existence, and fifteen-year-old Delilah, a loner obsessed with

  Prince Oliver and the book in which he exists, work together to seek his freedom.

  [1. Books and reading—Fiction. 2. Fairy tales—Fiction. 3. Princes—Fiction. 4. High schools—Fiction. 5. Schools—Fiction. 6. Mothers and daughters—Fiction.]

  I. Leer, Samantha van. II. Title.

  PZ7.P5557Bet 2012 [Fic]—dc23 2011039108

  ISBN 978-1-4516-3575-1 ISBN 978-1-4516-3582-9 (eBook)

  To Ema,

  Who will always be

  the hero in my story.

  Love,

  Sammy

  To Tim,

  Because sometimes

  fairy tales do come true.

  Love,

  Jodi

  contents

  A Note from Jodi Picoult

  The Beginning

  Oliver

  Delilah

  Page 11

  Oliver

  Delilah

  Page 27

  Oliver

  Delilah

  Page 31

  Oliver

  Delilah

  Page 32

  Oliver

  Delilah

  Page 37

  Oliver

  Delilah

  Page 40

  Oliver

  Delilah

  Page 44

  Oliver

  Delilah

  Page 52

  Oliver

  Delilah

  Page 58

  Oliver

  Delilah

  Page 60

  Oliver

  Acknowledgments

  A Note from Jodi Picoult

  I was on a book tour in Los Angeles when my telephone rang. “Mom,” my daughter, Sammy, said. “I think I have a pretty good idea for a book.”

  This was not extraordinary. Of my three children, Sammy has always been the one with an imagination that is unparalleled. When other kids were playing “stuffed animals,” Sammy would scatter her toys around the house and create elaborate scenarios—this teddy bear is wounded and stuck on top of Mt. Everest and needs a rescue dog to climb to the top and save him. In second grade, her teacher called me to ask if I’d type up Sammy’s short story. Apparently, it was forty pages long. He sent it home with my daughter, and I fully expected a rambling stream of words—instead, I wound up reading a very cohesive story about a duck and a fish that meet on a pond and become best friends. The duck invites the fish to dinner and the fish says he’d love to come. But then the fish has second thoughts: What if I am dinner?

  That, ladies and gentlemen, is called CONFLICT, an