True Talents (Talents, 2) - Softcover

Lubar, David

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0765379155 ISBN 13: 9780765379153

Publisher: Tor Teen, 2015

Synopsis

True Talents is the second suspenseful and hilarious novel for teens by acclaimed author, David Lubar about Martin Anderson and his exceptional friends. The supernatural duology begins with the wildly popular Hidden Talents.

It's been over a year since fourteen-year-old Eddie "Trash" Thalmeyer and his friends from Edgeview Alternative School found out about their hidden talents. Trash can move things with his mind, Torchie is a firestarter, Cheater reads minds, Lucky finds lost objects, Flinch can predict the future, and Martin can see into people's souls. Now back home with their families, all the boys want to do is get back to their normal lives, start attending high school, and keep in touch with their friends from Edgeview.

When Trash tests his power in a bank and accidentally steals a fistful of cash, he is kidnapped by the ruthless leader of a shadowy company whose purpose is to gather information about psychic phenomena―and who is willing to do anything to get it. Torchie, Cheater, Lucky, Flinch, and Martin join forces to rescue their friend using their hidden talents, and discover their true talents in the process.
True Talents is an American Library Association YALSA Quick Picks for Reluctant Young Readers selection.

About this title

About the Author:

DAVID LUBAR created a sensation with his debut novel, Hidden Talents, an ALA Best Book for Young Adults. He is also the author of Flip and Extremities, an ALA Quick Pick for Reluctant Young Readers, as well as the popular Weenies short-story collections, and the Nathan Abercrombie, Accidental Zombie series, which has been optioned for TV. He lives in Nazareth, Pennsylvania.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:

Chapter One:  TRYING HARD TO FOCUS The gorilla who clung to the ceiling was wearing a Princeton t-shirt. It must have been an XXXXL. Exxxxelll. Exxxxelllent. That was funny. I laughed. He didn’t seem to mind. He just kept playing with his cigarette lighter, sparking tiny fireworks through the air. His glasses had thick, black frames. They made him look smart. Laughing made my head spin, so I closed my eyes. He was gone when I woke up. The walls were still rippling. They always rippled. Sometimes, they hummed movie music. They’d been painted by Vincent Van Gogh. A fuzzy man wearing a vanilla coat came in through the door and gave me a sandwich. Grilled cheese. Gorrrilllad cheese. The dark and light-brown patterns looked like George Washington. The father of our country winked at me. George Winkington. Everyone knows he washed down the cherry cheese. The cheese was sort of tangy. Tangy? That’s a taste. I rubbed my tongue across my front teeth and tried to remember the last time I’d tasted something. I knew I’d had other meals. I could remember the clack of a plastic knife and fork against a tray. But I couldn’t remember any tastes or smells. It was all cardboard. I stared at my right hand. My fingers grew longer. I stared harder. They snapped back. But the crumbs on my fingertips kept singing. It was a nice song about fractions. I finished my sandwich and took another nap. The walls didn’t ripple at all when I woke. Picasso had snuck in and painted over Van Gogh’s work. Vincent would be furious about that. Picasso better keep an eye on his ears.
I sat up to look around. My body got there first, so I waited for my head to catch up. There was nothing much to see in the room. A wooden chair. Walls made of cinder blocks. An open door to a bathroom. A small table. No gorilla. Too bad. He was funny. I didn’t have any idea where I was. Or why. My brain started to spin, so I flopped back down. My pillow smelled like sweat. I heard footsteps, followed by the swoosh of a bolt sliding free. I wasn’t in any shape to deal with people. As the door opened, I shut my eyes and slumped deeper into the mattress. A hand touched my shoulder, and then shook it. “Come on, Eddie. It’s time to play our game.” Game? What was he talking about? I tried to think. It was like jogging under water. Or under syrup. Eddie. That was me. Eddie Thalmayer. I knew who I was. But I had no idea who this guy was or why he wanted to play a game. I wasn’t going to do anything for him until I figured out what was happening. He shook my shoulder again. “Eddie . . . wake up. We have to move the marbles.” Vague images drifted through my mind. Marbles rolling across a table or floating above it. And, sometimes, wires stuck to my head. It wasn’t a fun game. The fingers tightened for a moment. My mind thought my shoulder should hurt, but my shoulder didn’t seem to agree. The guy let go, and I heard him walk toward the door. “Those idiots must have overmedicated him again.” Overmedicated? Maybe I’d gotten sick or been in some kind of accident. But this didn’t smell or feel like a hospital room. After the guy left, I opened my eyes and studied the wall next to the bed. A half-dozen large, black ants, as big as robins, swarmed over it. They were transparent. Except for their hula skirts. I blinked hard and the ants faded. I blinked again and they vanished. I ran my tongue against my teeth and found a couple of crumbs. They were silent. Overmedicated? I’d been given something that turned my brain to fuzzy mush. Why? So I could play a game with marbles? No. There had to be more to it than just that. I dug through the mist, searching for something solid. The answer jolted my numb body and sluggish brain. I knew why I’d been drugged and locked up. It was payback. I was here because I’d killed that man. CONVERSATION BETWEEN PAMELA  AND CORBIN THALMAYER DURING  A CAB RIDE TO PHILADELPHIA INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT IN LATE MAY PAMELA THALMAYER: I can’t stop thinking about it. CORBIN THALMAYER: It’s hard. But sooner or later, you’re going to have to let go. PAMELA THALMAYER: It’s my fault. I know it is. If only we’d paid more attention to Eddie. If only I’d been a better mother. We should never have let them send him to that school. That’s where he learned to be a criminal. CORBIN THALMAYER: It’s not your fault. And it’s not my fault. I thought the school was good for him. He seemed so much better when he came home. At least, at first. There’s no way we could have known what was going on in his mind. PAMELA THALMAYER: A mother should know. How could my son be capable of doing such an awful thing? How? CORBIN THALMAYER: I don’t know. I guess we’ll never know. THE GLASS MARBLE GAME The memory of the murder was so brutal, I pushed it away. It couldn’t be real. It had to be like the gorilla. Or the ants. But the gorilla and the ants happened here, in this room of rippling walls. The other thing—that awful, bloody moment—that was before. I searched my memories to see what else was before. It was like star-gazing on a cloudy night. I caught small glimmers. Flickering patches of light. I felt that if I could just clear my mind, the patches would grow together and make sense. I wanted to plunge my head into an ice-cold stream and shock away the fog. As I lay there staring at the ceiling, the door flew open. “Good. You’re awake.”He caught me by surprise. I started to look at him. But something in my gut warned me I shouldn’t act alert. He thought I was overmedicated. But maybe I was undermedicated. My senses seemed clearer than before. I could feel an ache in my shoulder now—an ache that he’d caused. I turned my head toward him and then past the spot where he stood. Slowly, I let my eyes drift back, as if I was having trouble finding him. Keeping my eyelids half shut, I scanned him for clues. His clothes didn’t tell me anything. White shirt. Blue tie. Dark blue jacket with gold buttons. Gray pants held up by a thin black belt. Polished black shoes. One of his shoes smiled at me, but I was beginning to learn what to ignore. Shoes couldn’t smile.His hair was cut very short. His face had the sort of lines that came from a lifetime of scowling, but he was still a couple of years away from looking old. As my gaze flicked past his eyes, my stomach tightened like someone had jabbed me with a needle and injected poison into my gut. A memory hit me. Years ago. There’d been a rabid dog in the street near the elementary school. The cops had shot it. All the kids went to see. They wouldn’t let us get too close, but I saw his eyes. Dead, mad eyes. I’d had nightmares about those eyes for weeks afterward. That’s what I was seeing now. 

About this edition

• Publisher: Tor Teen
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 0765379155
• ISBN 13: 9780765379153
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 288