Down and Across
Viking Press Inc (Verlag)
978-0-451-47959-4 (ISBN)
- Titel erscheint in neuer Auflage
- Artikel merken
"[A] humorous, deeply human coming-of-age story." -The Washington Post
Scott Ferdowsi has a track record of quitting. His best friends know exactly what they want to do with the rest of their lives, but Scott can hardly commit to a breakfast cereal, let alone a passion. With college applications looming and his parents pushing him to settle on a "practical" career, Scott sneaks off to Washington, DC, seeking guidance from a famous psychologist who claims to know the secret to success.
He never expects an adventure to unfold. But that's what Scott gets when he meets Fiora Buchanan, a ballsy college student whose life ambition is to write crossword puzzles. When the bicycle she lends him gets Scott into a high-speed chase, he knows he's in for the ride of his life.
Soon, Scott finds himself sneaking into bars, attempting to pick up girls at the National Zoo, and even giving the crossword thing a try-all while opening his eyes to fundamental truths about who he is and who he wants to be.
PROLOGUE Eight mornings before running away, I found myself at McDonald's, wondering about the direction of my life. It was one of those moments that should have felt important. I should have said to myself: Hey, Self! You're having a Pivotal Moment in a Sentimental Place. On a scale of 1 to Serious, I should have rated this occasion at least a 9. But I didn't. My Serious Scale didn't even register. Not a single cell in my brain cared to define that morning in the grand scheme of things. Or in any scheme of things, really. That morning I wondered about dirty tables. The one in front of me had almost certainly just been wiped down, still freshly wet and slippery. I imagined the motions the McDonald's employee made cleaning that surface: up, down, up, down. Left to right. Loop-de-flippin'-loop, like a drunk man on a Zamboni joyride. Still, the table reeked, so I knew they cleaned it with a dirty rag. This conundrum hijacked my focus. On one hand, sure, it was better for the environment to clean hard surfaces with a rag. But then, wasn't the rag just transferring gunk from one surface to another? "Pay attention," he snapped. "I'm trying to understand what you want." Right. My dad. He clenched his hands tight, the skin bunching up around his knuckles. I felt guilty. Not for anything I had actually done, but for what I wasn't doing. We sat at our usual booth in the very back. It was like our boxing ring. In one corner: Me, Scott Ferdowsi, my lanky five-foot-ten frame slouched like a golden arch. Fighting to quit a summer internship that hadn't even begun yet. In the other corner: My dad. Fighting to keep me on the right track, any track, because I'd been known to derail. "I know what I don't want," I said, stabbing my plastic fork into a rubbery glob of eggs. "I don't want to look at microscopic mouse poop for the rest of my life. Research is boring." My dad chuckled. "What could be more exciting than mouse poop?" I glanced over at the table next to us. A girl in a sparkly Frozen costume was stomping her My Little Pony toy into her hash browns. "Horse poop," I said. "Perhaps I will become an equestrian." Dad scrunched up his face. "Saaket bash," he hissed. Be quiet. "I am," I teased softly. My Iranian name is Saaket, which means "quiet" in Farsi. It's one of my best jokes: "Be quiet!" "That's my name!" Dad didn't laugh. "When are you going to get serious, Saaket? This is your life. You need to stop playing games and plan for your future." Bingo. It would be his usual lecture. I rolled my eyes and slid lower into the tattered cushion to get comfortable. If there's one thing Iranian parents love more than chelo kebab and their children, it's making a point. "You're all over the place," he said, waving his hands frantically. "Look at the opportunities you've already screwed up. High school! You get accepted to a very nice high school, but you hardly study. You're pulling lousy grades." Jab. "Last summer. I got you a job with Majid's law firm. You quit after three weeks." Punch. "And now, after I pulled every mediocre connection I have to get you an internship at the university lab, you're giving up before you even start." Knockout. He kept going, as if he hadn't just put me down over and over: "You know, I was reading a study the other day by a very famous professor at Georgetown . . . Cecily Mallard. She's a genius, Saaket. Really! They just gave her an award that is specifically for geniuses. The genius award, it's-" "Okay, Dad," I moaned. "What did she say?" My dad paused dramatically and pointed his finger upward, à la eureka. "Grit," he said. "She discovered that the best predictor of success isn't IQ or how wealthy your parents are, or even your grades. It's grit. Do you know what
| Erscheinungsdatum | 26.01.2018 |
|---|---|
| Verlagsort | New York, NY |
| Sprache | englisch |
| Maße | 1 x 1 mm |
| Gewicht | 1 g |
| Themenwelt | Kinder- / Jugendbuch ► Kinderbücher bis 11 Jahre |
| ISBN-10 | 0-451-47959-9 / 0451479599 |
| ISBN-13 | 978-0-451-47959-4 / 9780451479594 |
| Zustand | Neuware |
| Informationen gemäß Produktsicherheitsverordnung (GPSR) | |
| Haben Sie eine Frage zum Produkt? |
aus dem Bereich
