Crocodile

Shortlisted for the Encore Award 2019From the author of Fallow, winner of the Betty Trask Prize 2017She's remembering curtains closed against whatever might harm them and all the knick-knacks: the porcelain fairy, the chain of rubber dolphins, CDs piled a metre high. This was what home meant.It's the summer before high school and Chloe's been sent to her grandparents because her mother can't cope. At first, all Chloe wants is to go home, but when she falls in with a feral gang of local boys, life takes a darker turn. By the time summer ends, Chloe will have learned where the greater danger lies.