Arctic Zoo
Chapters (88)
- Cover
- Title Page
- Dear Reader …
- Also by Robert Muchamore
- PART ONE
- Walter J Freeman Adolescent Mental Health Unit – East Grinstead, UK
- ONE
- TWO
- THREE
- FOUR
- FIVE
- SIX
- SEVEN
- EIGHT
- NINE
- TEN
- ELEVEN
- PART TWO
- TWELVE
- THIRTEEN
- FOURTEEN
- FIFTEEN
- SIXTEEN
- SEVENTEEN
- EIGHTEEN
- NINETEEN
- TWENTY
- TWENTY-ONE
- TWENTY-TWO
- TWENTY-THREE
- TWENTY-FOUR
- TWENTY-FIVE
- TWENTY-SIX
- TWENTY-SEVEN
- TWENTY-EIGHT
- TWENTY-NINE
- THIRTY
- THIRTY-ONE
- THIRTY-TWO
- THIRTY-THREE
- THIRTY-FOUR
- THIRTY-FIVE
- THIRTY-SIX
- THIRTY-SEVEN
- THIRTY-EIGHT
- PART THREE
- Walter J. Freeman Adolescent Mental Health Unit – East Grinstead, UK
- THIRTY-NINE
- FORTY
- FORTY-ONE
- FORTY-TWO
- FORTY-THREE
- FORTY-FOUR
- FORTY-FIVE
- FORTY-SIX
- FORTY-SEVEN
- FORTY-EIGHT
- FORTY-NINE
- FIFTY
- FIFTY-ONE
- FIFTY-TWO
- FIFTY-THREE
- FIFTY-FOUR
- PART FOUR
- FIFTY-FIVE
- FIFTY-SIX
- FIFTY-SEVEN
- FIFTY-EIGHT
- FIFTY-NINE
- SIXTY
- SIXTY-ONE
- SIXTY-TWO
- SIXTY-THREE
- SIXTY-FOUR
- SIXTY-FIVE
- SIXTY-SIX
- SIXTY-SEVEN
- SIXTY-EIGHT
- SIXTY-NINE
- SEVENTY
- SEVENTY-ONE
- SEVENTY-TWO
- SEVENTY-THREE
- EPILOGUE
- Discover more books and sign up to the Robert Muchamore mailing list at muchamore.com
- Have you read KILLER T?
- 1 SLASHED RUBBER
- 2 NOT HARRY POTTER
Cover
Title Page
Dear Reader …
Dear Reader,
In 2012 I was forty years old. I was an author who had topped bestseller lists in six countries, I’d just moved into my dream house and achieved most of my life goals but felt so miserable that I tried to kill myself.
I wound up spending three months in a psychiatric hospital. I met my characters Georgia and Julius there, or at least troubled but brilliant teenagers who were very much like them.
In group therapy I listened to their stories of adult betrayal, crippling academic expectations and, above all else, the way these young adults wanted to be good people but didn’t know how.
When I left hospital I wanted to write about my experience and the people I’d met, but it took me five years to figure out how to find a way. The result is Arctic Zoo, a book about two teens who meet in a mental health unit and want to make a difference in a world where there are a lot more questions than answers.
I hope you enjoy reading it!
Robert Muchamore
Also by Robert Muchamore
ALSO BY ROBERT MUCHAMORE
KILLER T
CHERUB
HENDERSON’S BOYS
ROCK WAR
ROBIN HOOD – COMING IN 2020
PART ONE
Walter J Freeman Adolescent Mental Health Unit – East Grinstead, UK
Georgia Pack tilted on the back legs of a plastic stacking chair, curling socked toes into the therapy room’s grungy turquoise carpet. Her eyes scanned the ceiling tiles as she tuned out, letting Henry’s voice merge with the rattling air con.
Georgia was fifteen and she’d been on the unit long enough to know things. Like the knack for opening the jammed dryer in the laundry room and that Monday night’s Quorn Bolognese was best avoided. On weekdays, patients who weren’t psychotic or sedated had group therapy. Georgia shared the circle of chairs with four fellow teens and a slight Indian therapist named Tanvi.
Henry dominated the therapy session. Seventeen and pretty. Floppy hair, stout legs. Canterbury training pants tucked into striped rugby socks. His posh accent and machine-gun laugh were everywhere on the unit, carrying up stairwells and booming in the dining room. Georgia even heard blasts of Henry from the smokers’ patio if she opened the window in her room to shift the unit’s hot, dead air.
At thirteen, Ross was the youngest patient in the unit. He sat fidgeting with a stick of lip balm and nodding approval at every word out of Henry’s mouth. Laura was a shy new arrival, with elastic bandage up the arm she’d gouged when she tried to kill herself three nights earlier. The last patient in the group was Georgia’s friend Alex. Broad-shouldered, with the number nine peeling off the back of an old Newcastle United shirt.