Hidden Talents

“Dad didn’t say a word when he handed me over to the driver. He just gave me that where-have-I-failed? look. I didn’t say anything, either. I just gave him my how-would-I-know? look. He couldn’t wait to get out of there.”

In this one passage, the narrator makes clear that he has a bad relationship with his parents, he’s cynical about everyone, and he makes fun of everything to hide from the pain in his life. He also reveals an intelligence that’s impatient with the slower minds around him.

“If someone hated you, did it really matter why? I didn’t know. Maybe it mattered.”

Martin’s dorm mate Cheater, an Asian American, believes Chinese are hated because they’re smart. In a building full of delinquents who, once they hate you, don’t much care why, Martin must take care with his sarcasm, lest he makes enemies who can hurt him. He’s smart enough to realize that hate isn’t limited to school kids and that Cheater’s problem extends well beyond Edgeview’s walls.

“At least I wasn’t the center of attention. In this class, there was no center of attention. I was just one bubble in a glass of cola, clinging to the side while a giant soda straw of a teacher tried to stir things around and suck us up.”

Martin dreads his first day of classes at Edgeview. He tries to be inconspicuous, but it doesn’t quite work. Standing out at this school is hard when the other students have such weird hang-ups, but Martin’s sarcastic wit sets him apart. In math class, he amuses himself by turning the whole thing into a metaphor in which the students are fizz in a drink and are in constant danger from the teacher-as-straw.