Extra Normal - Hardcover

Marshall, Kate Alice

 
9780593526453: Extra Normal
Hardcover
ISBN 10: 0593526457 ISBN 13: 9780593526453
Verlag: Viking Books for Young Readers, 2023

Inhaltsangabe

It's hard to fight the supernatural when you're naturally "un-super." This chilling middle grade is perfect for fans of Stranger Things and Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark...even if they don't have any special powers.

Charlie Greer is nothing special—at least not compared to her adopted siblings. Her younger sister is a ghost. Her brother Mateo is a werewolf. Gideon is the product of seriously sketchy experiments that gave him telekinetic powers. Even her parents work for the Division of Extranormal Investigations tracking down all things supernatural, alien, and otherwise unusual.

Charlie's mom says her superpower is maturity—which doesn't really count. But what Charlie lacks in powers she makes up for by keeping the household running. Now, with her parents off on their first vacation in years, it’s up to her to take care of her siblings and make sure nothing disrupts the trip.

But then the new neighbors arrive. The Weavers are a nice, normal couple. Too nice and too normal. And for some reason, they don't seem to want Charlie to see inside their house. She’s certain they’re hiding something. Charlie has to uncover what's going on with the Weavers and stop their plans—without letting Mom and Dad find out anything is wrong.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Kate Alice Marshall writes books for all ages, from middle grade to adult. Her YA novels include I Am Still Alive, Rules for Vanishing, Our Last Echoes, and These Fleeting Shadows. She is also the author of the middle grade novels Thirteens, Brackenbeast, and Glassheart. She lives in the Pacific Northwest with her family.

Visit her online at katemarshallbooks.com and follow her on Twitter @kmarshallarts.

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Chapter 1
Charlie Greer was nothing special.
Charlie had known from the time she could talk that the world was full of things wilder and stranger than most people could ever imagine. Her parents worked for the Division of Extranormal Research and Investigation, after all, dealing with all the strange and inexplicable things—extranormal things— in the world. That meant everything from ghosts and lake monstersto witches and weird science to mysterious disappearances.
Then there was Charlie’s mother. She could see what was hidden, know what was secret, even catch glimpses of things that hadn’t happened yet. You couldn’t have a mom like Leigh Greer without knowing there was more to the world than met the eye.
For a while when she was very young, Charlie had been convinced that she had inherited her mother’s gifts. She had run her fingers over the treasures in the local antique store, certain that shefelt something, a whisper of memory clinging to wood and tin. She had picked her dreams apart for meaning and tried to match them to the things that happened when she was awake. She was sure, oh so sure, that she was special, too.
“We’ll see when Grandpa Rupert visits,” her mother had told her, snuggled up in bed at night. “He can always tell.” And she tapped Charlie on the nose and smiled.
Then Grandpa Rupert arrived, tall and white-haired, smelling of licorice and wool. He’d looked down at her, suitcase in hand, and said, “So this is the girl. Entirely ordinary, then.”
And Charlie crumbled.
Mom never let on that she was disappointed, but Charlie saw her behind Grandpa and saw the way her smile faltered, just for a moment.
A few months later, Mom and Dad brought Matty home. Matty was special. So was Opal, who drifted in the door the next year, the light shining right through her. And Gideon, who arrived the year after, four years old and already making books fly off the shelves when he threw a tantrum.
“You and me, we don’t have any special powers,” her dad told her, sitting under the shade of the old oak tree in the backyard. “Heck, when I got assigned to the Division, I didn’t even believe in all this stuff. But in all the cases your mom and I have worked, we did it together. As partners. Not having powers doesn’t mean you can’t do amazing things.”
“I guess,” she’d said, digging a toe into the dirt. He put a hand on her knee.
“Listen. People like your mom and your brothers and your sister, they can do amazing things, but the world is a very dangerous place for them. It’s the job of people like you and me to look after them. And that’s pretty special, too.”
So Charlie worked hard to keep her family safe. She checked the fire extinguishers to make sure they were always full, in case Opal had a panic attack. She sat outside the basement door and read stories to Matty during the full moon while he barked and scratched at the walls. When all the spoons in the drawer were bent into pretzels, she sighed and got the plastic ones from the cupboard and didn’t give Gideon a hard time. And she told herself over and over again that she didn’t mind being normal.
Sometimes she almost believed it.
Something smashed against the wall outside Charlie’s bedroom as she pulled on her socks. The smack was followed by the distinctive sound of shattering glass, and then an angry growl. Charlie sighed as she pulled her red hair up into a sloppy ponytail. Hopping over her abandoned lacrosse stick and backpack, she hurried out into the hall. Her brother Gideon stood outside, hands balled into fists, glaring at her other brother, Mateo. A picture frame, glass broken, lay against the wall, answering the unspoken question of what had made the sound. Charlie glanced at the nail where it had been hung on the opposite wall.
“What now?” she asked, signing to Matty, who was Deaf, as she spoke.
Gideon did the same as he responded. “He needs to watch where he’s going,” he said angrily, his gestures erratic with emotion.
“You need to watch where you’re standing,” Matty signed back dismissively. Matty had light brown skin and brown eyes with big, full eyelashes. His mom had been from Brazil originally, but she died when he was really young—years before he got turned into a werewolf and came to live with the Greers. He was almost a whole year younger than Charlie, but he was already half an inch taller, with long, gangly limbs and tightly curled brown-black hair that added a couple of extra inches. That meant he towered over Gideon, who was eight years old and short for his age.
“How does that make any sense?” Gideon snapped, his sharp, angry signs matching his tone. Gideon was round faced, with straight, silky black hair and warm brown skin. Unlike Matty and Opal, he wasn’t technically an orphan, since he didn’t really have parents—just a bunch of DNA from lots of people that had been combined to make a baby with special powers. Right now, those powers were making the air around him waver like a heat mirage. Charlie stepped up quickly.
“If you two get in a fight and make Mom and Dad miss their flight—” she started warningly, fixing Matty with a look.
They sprang apart guiltily. “I didn’t do anything,” Gideon muttered, pushing his glasses up and looking sullen.
“Not my fault I can’t see him when he’s so short,” Mateo signed grumblingly, but Charlie put up a hand.
“You know how stressed Mom and Dad have been. This vacation has already been canceled three times because of us.”
“Because of Matty,” Gideon muttered.
“Because of us,” Charlie repeated. “We have to convince them that we are totally on top of things and nothing will go wrong if they leave us alone, or they will cancel at the last second again and they will keep on getting more and more stressed until they pop like stressed-out balloons. Which means that we need to keep it together for another . . .” She checked her watch. “Twelve minutes. Can you do that? For Mom and Dad?”
They glared at each other. Matty’s eyes flickered a brief, faint amber. Finally he signed a quick “fine” at her and turned on his heel, stomping down the stairs.
Gideon gave Charlie a plaintive look. “I didn’t do anything,” he said again.
She sighed and put a hand on his shoulder, giving it a squeeze. “You know how Matty gets this close to a full moon. Just hang in there.” He made a little noise of understanding. At that moment her mother’s voice called from downstairs.
“Charlie! Could you come here a minute?”
“I’ll take care of the glass,” Gideon said.
“You’re sure?” Charlie asked.
“It’s my fault it broke anyway. I lost control,” he said, head hanging.
“I’m the one who was supposed to make sure those were secured better,” Charlie pointed out, guilt twisting in her gut. Everything had to be earthquake-proof with a telekinetic eight-year-old in the house. She’d meant to get around to securing the pictures, she had, but there was always so much to do.
Charlie wasn’t sure if Mateo was actually grumpy because of the full moon or because of preteen hormones. He sure had seemed grumpy most of the time lately, and when losing his temper meant shape-shifting into a four-legged menace to society, moodiness was a serious issue. Of course, they had to keep the furniture nailed down in case Gideon got upset, and when Opal had nightmares, she almost burned the house down, so maybe Charlie shouldn’t...

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Verlag
Viking Books for Young Readers
Erscheinungsdatum
2023
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0593526457
ISBN 13 
9780593526453
Einband
Gebundene Ausgabe
Anzahl der Seiten
240
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
VTech Electronics Europe B.V
https://www.vtech-jouets.com/

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DC Weert
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