“It’s a freedom, not knowing your parents. I tell you, not being loved, it’s the best thing that can happen to you.”
“If you didn’t grow up being fostered then you don’t know this, but they’re the kindest, sweetest folks you’re going to meet. I’ve got no horror stories from that.
It’s a cage, though, the snug nest, with no freedom coming, just a bigger pen in the same zoo. It’ll turn your brains to mush that life and you’ve got to get out. You just gotta.
That’s why I ran – from the foster home and schooling, all of that. I met a gang, the Runaways, led by Jonjo the outlaw, a crazy man leading everyone astray. Came time to escape London before things got too fierce. That was Jonjo’s doing and how I ended up on the moors, living wild, and how I met Clare too. But that’s telling things too soon.
This is my tale. I’ll set it out the way I want and you can take it how you like, but don’t judge me, or anything I’ve done even when you’ve heard the truth of it, about the gun and the grave, the hooch and the hunting, about Shanks and Eyebrows and all the rest, you still won’t have the right. If you can’t see that then you’ve learnt nothing yet, for all the time you spent in school.
All the same, make up your own mind, that’s the only thing that works.
As for me, here’s my story. The name’s wild, Hugo Wilde.”
A boy, a girl, a desolate moor. And a world that won’t leave them be.
Man against nature – a boy and a girl against the world
Hugo is fourteen, fed up with foster homes, sick of school and bored of the adult world. He longs to run free, to find adventure and live his own life.
So he climbs out the bathroom window – and runs, taking nothing but the clothes he’s wearing, a book he hasn’t read yet and barely enough cash to get to the heart of the city. But he can’t live wild in London – not with gang wars tearing the place apart, police looking for runaways, and the adult world closing in at every turn.
To find his freedom, Hugo keeps running, facing up to dangers, traps and tragedies – and learning along the way what it takes to live free.
A tale of adventure, survival, coming of age and young love told by a young man with an open heart, a tough attitude and a resolute will.
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