Eliza wasn’t at the bus stop that morning. The bus drove right on past and all Eliza’s friends peered out to see where she’d gone. It was a mystery. A scandal. Eliza’s disappearance was the hottest trending topic online. People knew something was up, but what?

Nobody knew she was with me, Montgomery Ferguson, the lowest of the low. So it was that I first got to hang out with Eliza Robertson, the hottest girl in school with a heart of sheer contempt.

I couldn’t have been happier.

On his fifteenth birthday, Monty is at rock bottom. Ignored by his parents, bullied at school, and with a brain that’s prone to going walkabout, he’s all by himself. Until he meets the black dog for the first time.

It’s just like any other dog, except that only Monty can see it. And it talks. And Monty’s not sure whether it’s a friend - or a foe. But the black dog gets him talking to pretty, popular Eliza Robertson for the first time. It takes him to places he’s never been. And eventually it will take him, and the people around him, to the very edge.

The Hounded is a book about depression and working out who you really are, from one of Australia’s most prolific children’s television writers.