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Informationen zum Autor Wesley King Klappentext A moving and coming of age middle-grade novel that tackles the timeless themes of family, friendship and belonging. Daniel's life revolves around hiding his OCD but when a mysterious note appears, he is suddenly swept up in a mystery that might just change everything. Ages: 8-12yrs OCDaniel CHAPTER 1 I first realized I was crazy on a Tuesday. I mean, I suspected it before, obviously, but I’d been hoping it was just a phase, like when I was three and I wanted to be a fire truck. But on that fateful October day she said hello after the last bell, and it was official—I was completely bonkers. Tuesdays are usually my favorite day of the week. It’s a weird day to like, but for me, a gangly, eccentric thirteen-year-old social oddity with only one real friend, it has some serious perks. For one thing, we don’t have football practice. Most kids probably like football practice, but when you’re the backup kicker, you mostly just sit there and watch bigger, stronger kids run into each other and incur lifelong brain trauma. I know they’re still studying that and all, but just talk to Dale Howard for a few minutes, and you can pretty much put a yellow warning label on the helmets. Sometimes I get the team Gatorade—actually, I carefully arrange the cups into perfect geometric patterns to simplify drinking and reduce potential spillage—but that’s the only fun part. Usually I just sit on the bench by myself and think about what would happen if aliens attacked the field and started laying radioactive eggs in the end zone. Or if flesh-eating monsters that only ate football players emerged from the ground and chased Coach Clemons. Or if we were attacked by an evil supervillain named Klarg who shot fire out of his eyeballs and was strangely vulnerable to orange Gatorade, which of course I had in huge supply. You get the idea. The result is always the same: I save the world and never have to go to football practice again. You might be asking why I go to football practice at all. The problem is that my dad; my older brother, Steve; and my best friend, Max, all love football and may stop talking to me altogether if I quit. I think I’m already pushing my luck with Max, so I just keep on playing. Or sitting on the bench, anyway. I do some other stuff at practice too, but those are harder to explain. Like count the players and tie my shoes a lot and rearrange the cups after they’re messed up. I think those are all fairly standard bored activities, at least for me. I do lots of things like that. Not really sure why. I spend most of my time hiding them from other people, so I can’t exactly ask what’s standard. By the way, my name is Daniel Leigh. That’s like “lee,” not “lay.” People get that wrong sometimes. I did say I was a thirteen-year-old social oddity, which is true. Actually I’m not sure what else to add. People say I’m smart, and I was in the Gifted Program when I was younger, until they got rid of it because it was a bit confusing to tell the other kids that some students were gifted and they weren’t. Also I think they realized that if they continued the Gifted Program, us “gifted kids” would be separated our whole lives, but that happened anyway, so big deal. I don’t even know what being “gifted” means. I remember things easily and read novels every night, but that doesn’t mean I’m smarter than Tom Dernt, who prefers to play football and is now superpopular. My teachers say I have a huge vocabulary and write way above my age level, but my brother told me to stop using fancy words or I’d never get a girlfriend. He has a girlfriend, so I have little choice but to heed his advice. I mean take his advice. I also like to write. In fact, I am writing a book right now, though I don’t tell anyone that—even my parents. I do...
