Hidden Talents

As part of a class exercise, Torchie pens a note about why he likes who he is: He has lots of friends. Sometimes he loses friends because their stuff gets burnt, but he “never done nothing they say I did” (91). His note paper is slightly burnt.

Lucky knows about a manhole cover in the back of the play yard. Under it is a tunnel that comes out beyond the fence. Friday evening, Torchie and Martin stuff their beds with clothes to make it look like they’re sleeping. They meet Lucky, Cheater, and Flinch in Lucky’s room. From there, they all climb down a rope ladder to the ground.

The boys get to the manhole, but Torchie has forgotten his flashlight, so they make their way down the tunnel in the pitch dark. Martin doesn’t like this: “It made me feel I no longer existed except as a bundle of thoughts” (94).

From the bottom of the tunnel, they walk into the town of Edgeview and head for the arcade. Martin has no money for video games, but Lucky has quarters and gives him some. As they reach the town center, local kids stare at them, cross the street, or run away. The town is small, so the alternative-school kids stand out. Cheater says the townsfolk call them “Alters.” The locals think all Alters are dangerous.

Martin and his friends are pretty good at video games, but Flinch stands out. The scores he racks up are “incredibly high.” With a shock, Martin realizes Flinch is doing something beyond mere excellence.

The arcade closes at midnight, and the kids return to the school and climb back up to Lucky’s room. Martin notices the closet is crammed full of stuff. Lucky says he didn’t steal any of it, but he tells Martin to take anything. Martin reaches up blindly and pulls out a girl’s hair clip. Flinch kids him about it; Martin says he’ll give it to his sister.

Saturday, Martin quietly studies Flinch but can’t prove much. Sunday, he visits the school library and searches for information on unexplained phenomena. The search itself is fun and shows him how to get the proof he needs.

Teri sends Martin another letter. She reports that their dad, who normally yells at Martin, is now yelling at their mom, who retaliates by burning dinner. Teri decides she needs to learn how to cook.

At dinner, Martin spills his milk carton toward Flinch, who leaps out of the way before the carton even begins to tilt. Later, when the guys gather in his room, Martin explains that the real reason Flinch, Cheater, and Torchie are at the school is because “you all have psychic abilities” (107).

They stare at him disbelievingly. Martin thinks of a number—85—and asks Cheater to guess it, but Cheater won’t play. Martin tells Flinch that he jumped before the spilled milk carton tipped over. He’s jumpy because he sees things before they happen. He tells Torchie that he does start fires but with his mind, and he doesn’t realize it. He asks Torchie to use his mind to set a piece of paper on fire that Martin holds; Torchie concentrates, but nothing happens.

The guys decide Martin has lost his mind. Cheater looks at his watch and says it’s getting late: “It’s almost eighty-five” (110).

Martin says Cheater said “eight-five,” the number Martin was holding in his mind. Cheater insists he said, “eight thirty-five” (111). Martin decides that a deck of cards will prove everything: Cheater can guess what’s on the card Martin holds, Flinch can guess the next card, and Torchie can set the deck on fire.

Cheater and Martin aren’t interested and get up to leave. Cheater reaches for the door, and Flinch jumps back. Cheater yanks angrily at the knob, and the door flies open; it would have hit Flinch. Martin says, “See!” but Flinch says Martin isn’t funny anymore. They leave.

Martin insists to Torchie that he’s right and that all three kids are innocents with powers. Torchie says can’t believe it. Frustrated, Martin says Torchie is too stupid to appreciate him. Torchie glares and says he’s as smart as he needs to be.

Feeling bad about his words, Martin apologizes. Torchie says it’s ok, but Martin knows he just ruined his friendships. He goes for a walk. The other dorm room doors are all closed. He feels he has nowhere to go and no one who cares: “It felt almost like being at home” (114).

Walking the hallway, Martin encounters Bloodbath and two of his gang. They say it’s a toll road. Martin says he doesn’t have anything. They grab him and empty his pockets of three quarters and a ticket from the arcade. Bloodbath demands to know what the ticket is for; Martin mustn’t tell them, so he says it’s a lucky ticket he’s had for years. They laugh, and Bloodbath says, “Doesn’t seem to be working very well” (117). They shove him; he falls; they walk away.

In math class, simmering about how his friends are ignoring him, Martin snaps at Mr. Parsons, who gives him detention. Martin says, “Aren’t you supposed to know how to deal with little snots like me? Can’t you handle me?” (120). For that, he gets a week’s detention.

In English, Ms. Nomad tells Martin his essay was very good, and she asks if he’d like to read it aloud. He says no, though it’s probably better than one of her “drippy” poems. She gets angry but does nothing. In gym class, Martin snarks at Mr. Acropolis, who slams him against a wall, making him dizzy for the rest of the class. It’s possible Bloodbath also hits him, but he doesn’t quite remember.

His friends’ table is full at lunch, so he sits with Trash, who says hi and nothing else. At one point, his fork suddenly clangs off the floor.

Martin angers every teacher in his afternoon classes. He really gets into it with Mr. Langhorn, who writes a note and has another student take it to the office.

He shows up for detention, but Principal Davis appears and tells Martin to follow him.

The viewpoint shifts to a memo about corporal punishment from the principal. In conformance with state law, he allows striking students but only with an open hand, not against breakable parts like the nose, and never suddenly in anger but as a formal punishment. Paddles are permitted.

Principal Davis takes Martin to a room with a chair, a slide projector, and a screen. Davis attaches a leather strap to his wrist; bare metal is on the inside; a wire extends from the strap to somewhere. The principal explains that he’ll show pictures, and Martin must say something nice about each.

For the first few dozen pictures—a fat man, a baby, an old man, a teacher, and so forth—Martin does fine. He notices that every few pictures, it’s an image of a teacher. On the next one, as an experiment, Martin says, “Wow. What a dork” (126) and gets a shock from the strap. After that, he gives nice answers.

After the session, Davis says the staff held Martin’s review early, and he’s to stay at Edgeview. Disheartened, he stumbles back to his room; Torchie and Cheater promptly leave. That night, he dreams he’s being dragged to the electric chair for murder.

The next day, Martin gets the slide-show treatment again but passes nicely. He eats lunch with Trash. The day after, he eats again with Trash, and they talk a little bit. At one point, Trash reaches for his fork, but it flies away from him.

As part of a class exercise, Lucky writes, “Hey. What’s not to like? I’m a fun guy. And I’m very generous to my friends. So they like me, too” (129).

When Martin sees the fork fly, he jumps up and shouts, “Telekinesis!” Trash asks what he means, but Martin—remembering how badly his explanation turned with his friends—sits and says, “Nothing.” After lunch, he starts jotting down everything he’s seen that might point to strange powers. Maybe Lucky, for example, has a gift for finding things.

He wishes there was a way he could prove to them that they have powers. He mutters, “One experiment,” and Mr. Briggs overhears him, says experiment is his favorite word, and invites Martin to let him know if he gets any results. Martin glowers, angry at Briggs, assuming the science teacher has it out for him like all the others but is just playing nice.

In science class, Mr. Briggs talks about how important experiments are. He asks if anyone has a suggestion for an experiment. Flinch quips, “Nuclear bombs,” and everyone laughs; Mr. Briggs says that, unfortunately, the school is out of uranium. Another student asks, “How about mind reading?” (133)

As part of a class exercise, Cheater writes: “Hey. What’s not to like? I’m a fun guy. And I’m very generous to my friends. So they like me, too” (129).

The kid who asks about mind-reading is Cheater. Mr. Briggs likes the idea and writes it on the board. He asks the students to think for a few days about experiments they’d like to try. After class, Martin confronts Cheater, who says he brought up mind-reading to prove Martin wrong. Martin accuses him of being afraid; he denies it but runs off.

For the rest of the week, Martin watches the other kids, searching for unusual talents. Mostly he just sees bad behavior. Lucky keeps finding things, though. Friday, after Torchie returns from the boys’ regular excursion to the town arcade, Martin asks when they’re going to stop being mad at him. Torchie says they aren’t really mad, but they don’t like Martin talking about such things.

Martin decides it’s foolish to insist he’s right if that makes nobody want to be friends with him. He apologizes to Torchie, then offers him a gift as a peace offering.

A local citizen writes to The Edgeview Express, urging local residents to support state legislation to merge the alternative schools.

Martin’s gift to Torchie is a harmonica. Teri gave it to Martin as a birthday present, but he never used it. Torchie loves it and starts to play notes. He’s terrible at it, but he has great fun.

In science class, the students discuss ways to test mind reading. They decide to build decks of Zenner cards, which contain five sets each of five shapes—a square, a star, a plus sign, a minus sign, and wavy lines—and students are to guess which shape is on the card the tester holds. Mr. Briggs will bring card-making materials the next day. They’ll pair up, do the experiment, then change partners and do it again several times across a couple of class sessions until they have lots of data.

Cheater is excited about the project. Martin figures he’s antsy to prove he has no special powers.

On Tuesday, Mr. Briggs brings decks of playing cards, printed Zenner symbols, glue, and blunt scissors. The students cut and paste the symbols onto the cards until each pair of students had a deck with 25 Zenner cards. The testers will silently note hits and misses; the results will be entered into the class computer.

Martin and Lucky pair up, and each guess right five or six times, which is what most people get from random guessing. Only if someone gets 15 or 20 right is it possible they have some sort of psychic ability. On the third pair-up, Martin gets Cheater, who misses every single card. Martin feels disappointed, yet he’s also relieved. Maybe he just imagined the whole super-talents thing.

The next day, after more testing, Martin and his partners continue to get average results. The day after that, Mr. Briggs announces the results. A few boys got perfect scores, but all were tested by a kid named Squinty, who sees poorly and held the cards close to his eyes. Guessers could see the shape reflected in Squinty’s glasses.

Mr. Briggs notes that a perfect score should raise suspicions all by itself. He pulls up other perfect scores. One set is Bloodbath’s, who partnered entirely with his friends and cheated for the hell of it. Throwing out the perfect scores, the class averages a bit under five hits per test, roughly average for guessing.

After class, Martin realizes there was one other perfect score. After Briggs leaves, Martin returns to the computer and prints out the scores. One set shows Cheater’s results: He got zero correct with all six students who tested him.

That evening, when Martin’s friends meet in his room, they talk about the test. Casually, Martin asks if there’s a way to get a less-than-average score on purpose. They ponder this and agree it’s not possible. Martin says the only way is to know the right answer and not say it.

Flinch looks at the printout with all the zeroes. He agrees it’s impossible. They all look at Cheater. He tries to deny it; he even asks Torchie to support him, promising never to tell where Torchie’s secret hiding place is. Torchie gasps and says he was just thinking about the place where he hides his best comics.

Cheater fights back tears. He wants to be normal. Martin says he’s not crazy at all. Cheater says answers just come to him, but he can’t tell if it’s from his studies or someone else’s mind. Either way, he’s never trying to cheat. Flinch bursts out laughing because, after a lifetime of not cheating, Cheater tries to cheat on the Zenner test and is so bad at it that he gets caught. Even Cheater laughs at this.

Martin says Cheater isn’t the only one with powers. Torchie warns him not to start up again, but Martin says he doesn’t have to because Torchie is setting his chair on fire. Torchie says, “Youch!” and lifts his hand from his chair arm, which smolders.

Martin turns to Flinch, who sees where this conversation is headed and confesses his ability to see things before they happen. He thought everyone could do it, or maybe he was a freak. Martin says Lucky has some sort of ability to sense objects nearby. He adds that there’s one other person who, he’s sure, has an ability. He goes to Trash’s room and invites him to join them.

Meanwhile, Martin’s mother begins another letter that says how much the family misses him. She says, “Your father misses you too, of course” (158), but the letter ends there, and she never sends it.