Excerpt from Life Happens Next
Here’s how I spin things in my head—some cool things about being me:
1. I get a hot bath every day of my life and never have to lift a finger. The warm water gets squeezed over my body from the big sponge in my mom’s gentle, loving hands. And this bath is by far the most enjoyable physical sensation I ever feel.
2. I have a perfect auditory memory, remembering everything I ever hear, which is totally cool. This ability has turned our TVs (and we have four of them!) into the greatest learning devices in the universe. I mean, who needs real life when you’ve got 110 cable stations? And I remember every show, from Cesar Millan’s The Dog Whisperer to Little League baseball to the love life of squids to “The bark beetle lays its eggs” to everything in between. In other words, I’m damned smart!
3. Although I can’t tell anybody what kind of music I’d like to listen to, I love almost all the music that’s played around here (rap/hip-hop, R&B, Bach and Mozart, geezer R&R) so whatever’s on pretty much always makes me happy.
4. My brother, Paul, King Jock, Straight-A Student, Tough Guy Supreme, slips me bites of his deluxe bacon double cheeseburgers every chance he gets. Somehow Paul knows that I, too, think God invented this food to make up for the fact that all of us have to die someday.
5. My sister, Cindy, is a saint. She taught me to read by playing school with me when I was little, and to this day she never treats me bad—plus she has great taste in best friends, wink-wink-hubba-hubba!
6. Although Mom has a master’s degree in English and could be a college teacher or have some other higher-paying job, she works from home so she can take care of me. If Cindy is a saint, think about what that makes my mom.
7. I’ll never have to get a lousy part-time job like carrying people’s groceries to their cars in a supermarket parking lot or cleaning out toilets and mopping floors in some crummy restaurant.
8. In fact, I’ll never have to get any job, which I figure is a good thing since work is a four-letter word …
9.... so I’ll never have anybody bossing me around—I know this is partly a bad thing as I’ll never get to boss anybody else either, but I don’t think I’d like doing that anyway.
10. I have a kickass name. Shawn McDaniel is really cool sounding when compared to a name like Elmer Ulysses Fudpucker or Isaac P. Freeley.
11. I’m living in the most interesting time in all of history: medical science–wise, it is a miracle that a guy like me, with my so-called handicaps, could still even be alive.
Okay, let’s make this 12 items:
12. I am in love with Ally Williamson, the girl of my dreams, and while I’d love to find some way to make her fall in love with me too, at least I get to imagine that she’s mine all mine.
Ah, what the heck, just for good luck let’s make it 13. I didn’t even mention my dream life yet. Did I say dream life? Hey, Ally, here I come!
PRAISE
“Trueman paints a vivid story of three desperate teens that recalls Robert Cormier, with its dark, disturbing theme and a narrative that shifts from one plot thread to another in rapid-fire succession. Fans of Cormier will likely enjoy this psychological and gripping tale.”—Publishers Weekly
“A quick and riveting read. Will give readers a memorable if perturbing insight into mental illness.”—KLIATT
“The events unfold with an edge of danger that provides riveting suspense … a plot line that grabs and doesn’t let go.”—Kirkus Reviews
“… Trueman sometimes captures moments of heartbreaking truth, and his swift, suspenseful plot will have particular appeal to reluctant readers.”—ALA Booklist
OTHER WORKS
ALSO BY TERRY TRUEMAN
STUCK IN NEUTRAL
CRUISE CONTROL
COPYRIGHT
Inside Out
Copyright © 2003 by Terry Trueman
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Trueman, Terry.
Inside out / Terry Trueman—1st ed.
p. cm.
Summary: A sixteen-year-old with schizophrenia is caught up in the events surrounding an attempted robbery by two other teens who eventually hold him hostage.
ISBN 0-06-623962-1 — ISBN 0-06-623963-X (lib. bdg.).
ISBN 0-06-447376-7 (pbk.)
EPub Edition © JUNE 2012 ISBN 9780062216977
[1. Schizophrenia—Fiction. 2. Mentally ill—Fiction. 3. Juvenile delinquency—Fiction. 4. Suicide—Fiction. 5. Hostages—Fiction.]
I. Title.
PZ7.T7813 2003
2002151604
[Fic]—dc21
CIP
AC
First paperback edition, 2003
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Inside Out Page 8
