Whenever You Are

Two teens in juvenile detention may have found a way to free themselves — not just from their cells, but from the mistakes that got them locked up in the first place.

Clem is a would-be poet who has been in “training school” ever since he caused the accident that maimed the nice lady who says she only wants him to do something fine with his life. But how, when even his parents have given up on him?

Then Clem meets Finn, whose history is even more traumatic. Clem tries to help Finn adjust to prison, but when the boys are placed in solitary confinement, euphemistically called “administrative segregation,” Finn deteriorates, both physically and mentally. He’s ranting, saying he’s found a portal in his cell and a way to change their lives — past, present and future.

And then he disappears.

Clem is interrogated by prison officials, a social worker, a doctor and a mysterious man in a suit, who ask him about the days leading up to Finn’s disappearance. As he tells them the story, he puzzles over what really happened to Finn, and the unexpected clues he's left Clem to find a better future.

Key Text Features

afterword

author’s note

biographical note

dialogue

epigraph

poems

scientific nomenclature