The Nine Lives of Alexander Baddenfield

Alexander Baddenfield is the last in a long line of lying, thieving scoundrels . The Baddenfields are cursed to die young in "particularly grisly and poetically justified ways" . Determined to avoid his family's fate, twelve-year-old Alexander has an astonishing idea: why not transplant the nine lives from his cat, Shaddenfrood, into himself ? Suddenly, Alexander has lives to spare, and he goes about using them up with reckless abandon—attempting the most outrageous feats he can imagine, from flying like Icarus to bullfighting . He is shadowed by his faithful, long-suffering servant, Winterbottom, who is as good as Alexander is bad . Only when his lives start running out, and he is left with only one just like everyone else, does he realize how reckless he has been.