Excerpt from Boy Swallows Universe by Trent Dalton, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

He doesn't look away from his words. Boy didn't even see us drive away.

'What's he scribblin' now?' Slim asks.

The same two words over and over again. The crescent moon of a capital 'C'. Chubby little 'a'. Skinny little 'i', one descending stroke in the air with a cherry on top. August sits in the same spot on the fence that he usually sits on, by the missing brick, the space two bricks along the fence from the red wrought-iron letterbox. August is the missing brick. The moon pool is my brother. August is the moon pool.

'Two words,' I say. 'A name starting with "C".'

I will associate her name with the day I learned to drive and,

forever more, the missing brick and the moon pool and Slim's Toyota LandCruiser and the crack in Slim's windscreen and my lucky freckle, and everything about my brother, August, will remind me of her.

'What name?' Slim asks.

'Caitlyn.'

Caitlyn. There's no doubt about it. Caitlyn. That right forefinger

and an endless blue sky sheet of paper with that name on it.

'You know anyone named Caitlyn?' asks Slim.

'No.'

'What's the second word?'

I follow August's finger, swirling through the sky.

'It's "spies",' I say.

'Caitlyn spies,' Slim says. 'Caitlyn spies.' He drags on his cigarette,

contemplatively. 'What the fuck does that mean?'

Caitlyn spies. No doubt about it.

Your end is a dead blue wren. Boy swallows universe. Caitlyn

spies.

No doubt about it.

These are the answers.

The answers to the questions.

From Boy Swallows Universe by Trent Dalton. Copyright © 2019 by Trent Dalton. Reprinted courtesy of Harper, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.