Hidden Talents

Edgeview Alternative, another motif, is a last chance dumping ground for disruptive boys who are kicked out of their regular schools. It’s underfunded and disheveled; its textbooks are old and held together by tape; cafeteria food is barely edible; the staff includes teachers who can’t find work in regular schools; and teenage bullies control the dorm hallways. Into this dreary, fearful place goes Martin, who manages to discover good friends and caring teachers among the riffraff and the overwhelmed instructors. Edgeview faces disbandment for its poor results; it represents the low quality of facilities for troubled youth in much of the US. It’s also an object lesson in how people can turn around a bad situation and get value from it.

Martin’s friends have superpowers that function as motifs in the story. These are psychic in nature: Each kid has a way of interacting with the physical world without touching things. Martin tells Trash he has telekinesis—the ability to move objects with his mind—but he and the other boys with powers at first are afraid of their almost-magical abilities, and they reject the idea. Later, though, they realize their powers aren’t signs of insanity but unusual talent. They begin to call themselves the “Psi Five,” psi meaning psychic abilities. These powers anchor the plot’s action sequences, but they also symbolize skills or traits that anyone might possess that could get them into trouble, abilities that might therefore be ignored, denied, or suppressed.