Reynolds Stuntboy, In Between Time

1. Auflage 2024
ISBN: 978-1-915820-22-8
Verlag: Knights Of
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, Band 2, 272 Seiten

Reihe: Stuntboy

Stuntboy is BACK... Or front. Depends on if his super friends (Zola and Herbert the Worst Who Is Now Herbert the Okay) are running faster than him... into the EMPTY apartment they've found. Could this be the perfect home base from where three superheroes can save the iguanas, trick the bullies, and not have to deal with the FRETS?

A New York Times bestselling author, Jason Reynolds is the winner of more than 30 US and international awards, including the Edgar Award and LA Times Book Prize, Newbery Award, Printz Award, Walter Dean Myers Award and the 2021 CILIP Carnegie Medal.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Reynolds, Jason

Leseproben

Stuntboy. He’s the best superhero most people have never heard of. But you’ve heard of him because, well, you’re smart, and trustworthy, and keep your eyes on all the secret superheroes, which happens to be your secret superpower but, hey, this story ain’t about you.

This story’s about Stuntboy.

And also, it’s about what you know about Stuntboy. Like how he loves television and drawing (way more than books). Or how he lives on the fourth floor in Skylight Gardens, the big castle with the glassiest glass and the brickiest bricks on Earth.

At least he used to. I mean, he still lives in the castle but now he lives on the fifth floor.

And the third floor.

And now you’re thinking two things: How does he have two apartments in the castle? His superpower must be being in two places at once. Well, he wishes. But no. Your second thought is, Or he must be rich! Yeah, that’s what Portico thought too. At first. He thought Skylight Gardens was going to be renamed “The Portico Palace.” Or, “The Reeves Resort.” But, turns out, that’s not true either. The real reason he now lives in two apartments is because his parents … um … his parents, they, uh … they …

(JUST SAY IT ALREADY!)

Portico’s parents became X’s. Yeah … hard. And hard to pronounce. I mean, because it’s basically just made of two’s, an X should make the sound of I. But big. A big loud I. But maybe because the two I’s cross, they jumble up the sound and that makes everything hard. So now X sounds like … ecks, or just ks, or shhh, or, zz. It’s the only real mixed-up letter, and mixed-up letters sometimes do mixed-up things. Like …

… like, break up. And become two separate I’s again. Which caused Portico to break down. And cry his eyes out.

It had only been about six days since the big split, and on the seventh day, Portico was supposed to spend the night at his father’s apartment. Apartment 3C.

For the first time.

This should’ve been great news. But to Portico, spending the night at his father’s place meant accepting the fact that his father’s place was … real, which meant his mother and father’s breakup was … real, which meant the upside-downing of his family was … real, and that was … real hard. Normally, he would’ve been excited to spend the weekend doing father-son things, but he’d never had to do that without the day ending with his parents doing mum-dad things. Now his mum and dad were busy doing we don’t like each other things, which to Portico was just a whole bunch of this don’t make sense things, which made his body do bumble jumble rumble things.

IN CASE YOU FORGOT

Frets (FRETS!) are when Portico’s insides became a jigsaw puzzle put together all wrong. And tonight, the night before his first weekend with his dad, the frets had decided to keep him awake. Puzzling. His inside-things running around each floor of his body. His Grunge Sponge and his Gas Tank were having a dance contest like the one he and Zola had at Zola’s birthday party a few weeks before. His Squigglies and Beaner Cleaner were bouncing off the walls acting out their favorite TV shows. (Had they ever heard of Super Space Warriors? Of course they had! They literally live inside Portico!)

Anyway, the point is, once Portico finally fell asleep, the frets showed up there, too. In his dreams.

In this dream, Portico was on the fourth floor outside his old apartment, but strangely, the door was bolted shut. That didn’t stop him from trying to open it. As he yanked and yanked on the door, he heard his father calling him.

“Portico!” His father’s voice echoed throughout the building.

Portico ran to the stairwell to get a better listen.

“Portico! Portico!” His father’s voice was now louder.

Portico started down the stairs, but after he jumped down one flight (which should’ve landed him on the third floor) he realized something was wrong. Because instead, he was on the fifth floor.

Weird, he thought. But the weirdness of it all didn’t stop him from trying to find his father – because that would be weird – so he trotted down the next staircase.

To his surprise (a second surprise!) he was now on the sixth floor. Confused and frustrated, Portico stormed down flight after flight after flight – more flights than actually exist in Skylight Gardens – but the numbers kept going up, until finally he heard his mother’s voice.

“Portico!” she cried out from below him.

Portico turned around and headed back up the steps – flight after flight – but this time, though he was going up, the floor numbers were going down. And up and up he went. And down and down the numbers went.

Up was down.

Down was up.

And no one was anywhere to be found.

“Portico!” his mother called, again.

“Up, Portico! Up!”

DAD-UARY

Portico’s mother was shaking him awake. Portico opened his eyes even though it felt like he’d just closed them. His mother kissed him on the forehead.

“Wake up, baby,” she said. “Time for me to go.”

“Where you going?” Portico gurgled.

“I told you last night. Mrs. Brawner invited me to a meditation retreat. I figured it might be nice for me to try something new.”

“Oh, that’s good,” Portico replied, only half awake. If he had been more awake, maybe he would’ve said that all anyone in their family seemed to be doing were new things. Mum lived in a new place, which meant Portico lived in a new place. Dad lived in a new place, which meant, after tonight, Portico lived in a(nother) new place. And Gran Gran lived with Dad, so she was also in a new place. And the cat, A New Name Every Day … well, the cat pretty much did whatever it wanted. “You want some advice?”

“I’d love some, especially from you,” his mother said, her face somewhere between rested and wrestling, which is how it’s looked since the big split.

Portico sat up, because you can’t give advice lying down.

“Okay. So, when it comes to meditation’ing, all you have to remember is to make yourself a pretzel and take a bunch of deep breaths through your toes.” Portico’s mother pretended to write this down with an invisible pen on an invisible piece of paper.

“Pretzel … toes … got it. Anything else?”

“Well, you might wanna focus more on your thumb toes because your pinky toes have corns, and corn and pretzels don’t really go that good together,” Portico advised.

“Wow … okay. I’ll be sure to keep that in mind. You just make sure to go down to your father’s apartment. And when you get there, promise me there will be no pretzels involved. No twists, no knots, and no salt between you two, understand?”

Portico had no idea what his mother was talking about. “Not really?”

“I just mean, promise me you’ll try to enjoy yourself.”

That seemed like a strange thing to promise because Portico’s father was always enjoyable. Enjoyable could’ve been his father’s first name. It wasn’t. It was Marvin, which might mean enjoyable in another language. Like an alien language. But that would make Portico’s father part alien. Which would make Portico part alien. Which would explain why Portico has eleven toes.

Just kidding.

He has twelve, like everyone else.

Just...