The Worst That Could Happen

A Middle Grade Novel by Tara Hornsby Ages 9–12 · 98 pages · Ebook · Paperback · Kindle Unlimited

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She got out of it. That was the mistake.

Nell Prosser has a plan for everything.

She knows where the exits are in every room she walks into. She knows which machine takes the change, which bus goes the long way, and which seat is nearest the door. She knows exactly how to get out of anything she doesn't want to do — quietly, cleverly, and without anybody ever finding out why.

She has been doing it since she was nine years old, and she has never once been caught.

So when the whole of Year Six are sent to Bryncoed Activity Centre in Wales for four nights — climbing walls, raft-building, a night hike in the dark, and a forty-foot abseil tower on the last morning — Nell does what she does best. She doesn't argue. She doesn't cry. She engineers her way out of it so smoothly that her own mother thinks it was her idea.

No fuss. No questions. Nobody suspects a thing.

It is the best piece of work she has ever done.

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Then she works out what she's given away.

Because those four nights aren't just a school trip. They're the last thing her class will ever do together before three different secondary schools split them up in September. Her best friend Bea is already making plans with somebody else. And the seat Nell would have sat in — the one Bea saved for her, the one nearest the door, the one she didn't even know Bea had been saving — is empty.

Now Nell has to destroy her own alibi, lie in the opposite direction, and get herself back on that coach. Which means arriving at Bryncoed having chosen to be there. No one made her go. She can't blame her mum, or her teacher, or bad luck.

And when she gets there, there's no phone, no bedroom, no door to close — and a notebook full of every secret she has is missing somewhere in the building.

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What this book is about

On the surface, it's about a school residential trip in Wales. Underneath, it's about what it costs to be invisible — and what happens when the person you've been hiding from turns out to have known all along.

Nell's anxiety is never named on the page. No adult explains it. No breathing exercise fixes it. The word appears at most twice in the entire novel, both times from adults, both times slightly wrong. Instead, the book shows what it feels like from inside: the counting, the planning, the eleven-minute thing on a hillside that twenty-seven people witness in the dark.

The climax is not the abseil tower. The climax is a conversation in a bunk room at eleven at night between two eleven-year-olds, and it is the truest thing in the book.

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Who it's for

This is a novel for children aged 9–12 who:

• Have ever counted the doors in a room and hoped nobody noticed
• Know what it's like to have a best friend drift toward somebody easier
• Have been the child who is fine, always fine, definitely fine
• Want a book where the scary thing doesn't go away — but somebody sees it and stays

It is also, quietly, a book for the parents of those children.

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What readers are saying

Review quotes will be added here once advance readers have responded. If you've read it and it meant something, a short review on Amazon helps other families find Nell's story.

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The details

• Title: The Worst That Could Happen
• Author: Tara Hornsby
• Genre: Middle grade contemporary fiction
• Age range: 9–12
• Pages: 98
• Formats: Ebook, paperback, Kindle Unlimited
• Setting: Contemporary UK — a small Shropshire town and a Welsh activity centre
• Themes: Anxiety, friendship, growing up, family, the Year 6 residential
• Content notes: Panic attack depicted on the page (no graphic detail, no clinical language). No violence, no bullying, no peril. One very honest conversation about being tired of carrying somebody else's secret.
• Comp titles: The Goldfish Boy by Lisa Thompson, A Kind of Spark by Elle McNicoll, Can You See Me? by Libby Scott, Guts by Raina Telgemeier

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Buy the book

Available now on Amazon in ebook, paperback and Kindle Unlimited.

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About the author

Tara Hornsby writes stories about ordinary children in difficult weeks. The Worst That Could Happen is her first novel for young readers.

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If this book moved you or your child, a short review on Amazon helps other families find Nell's story. Even one sentence makes a difference. Thank you for reading.