SUMMARY
Ezekiel Bliss has a “micropower” (as opposed to a superpower) for finding lost things. When he was little, he was accused (by the police, his classmates, his neighbors, and almost everyone else) of stealing the things that he found since there seemed to be no other logical explanation for how he could have found those items and known who they belonged to. Ezekiel faced even more hardships due to the fact that his mom got killed by a reckless driver and his father has a low-paying job (as the butcher in a grocery store).
Now in 9th grade, he is used to walking to school and back in his “shunning bubble”. Even though he now suppresses the urge to return the lost items he finds, people are still too scared that he’s going to steal something of theirs.
One day, 10th grader Beth decides to join him on his walks to school and back so that his shunning bubble could offer her protection from bullies. She’s a “proportionate dwarf” who has also skipped a couple grades, so she gets picked on a lot for being small.
At first, Ezekiel was annoyed by having someone tag along on his walks, but he soon becomes happy to finally have a friend other than his dad. Beth encourages Ezekiel to start using his gift again, and she accompanies him for moral support to the weekly “Group for Rare and Useless Talents” (GRUT) meetings that are conducted by a college scientist. Turns out there are other people Ezekiel’s age with micropowers, such as:
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The ability to emit a smell from your body that neutralizes surrounding odors (whether it’s a stinky bathroom, a gas leak, or freshly-baked cookies)
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The ability to know the locations of surrounding spiders
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The ability to make people widely yawn
Meanwhile, an undercover FBI agent (Shank) asks Ezekiel for help with tracking down a missing girl (Renee) who he believes was kidnapped by the same group of men who kidnapped other girls. At first, Ezekiel refuses to help (due to his prior harassment from police, which he imagines to be even worse when the accusations would be of him helping kidnappers), but he eventually agrees as an opportunity for him to challenge his powers (since until then, he’s only returned lost things, not lost people).
Ezekiel tries holding the hands of Renee’s parents (who are “lost” to Renee), but Ezekiel doesn’t get any readings from that. After all, Ezekiel’s parents have a bit of a shaky marriage due to the fact that they argue with each other a lot instead of having friendly bickers, like Ezekiel’s parents used to. So Renee lost a united couple for parents long before she got kidnapped.
“You and Mom looked at the world through the same set of binoculars …// Whereas they looked at each other with a microscope” (105).
Ezekiel is able to track down Renee by holding her beloved Build-a-Bear teddy bear. He even knew that the people holding her hostage were calling her Karen (and not Renee). But this happy ending is diminished when it’s discovered that Beth is missing. Here’s what happened:
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Renee’s parents had trouble getting pregnant, so they hired a surrogate mother. With Renee’s dad’s sperm and the surrogate mother’s egg, Renee was conceived.
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After Renee was born and given away, the surrogate mother (who is the biological mother) missed her and longed for being able to be reunited with her.
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The surrogate mother crossed paths with the kidnapping gang and told them that she knew of a girl who often played alone with teddy bears for hours in the screened-in patio. In return, the surrogate mother demanded to have a couple weeks alone with her (in a cave) before the kidnappers did what they wanted.
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When the couple weeks were up, the surrogate mother plotted to run away with Renee to live happily ever after forever, and also pleaded for them to take a different child instead. The kidnappers got impatient and killed the surrogate mother.
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As a replacement for Renee, the kidnappers took Beth while she was walking alone one day (as she was hiding the fact that her own mother was dead due to the fact that she didn’t want to go to foster care, and therefore couldn’t drive anywhere). From behind, Beth looks as though she could be 6 or 7 years old.
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Ezekiel was able to track down Beth (in a fire tower) by thinking of himself as the “lost possession” that Beth treasured most and needed returning.
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TAKEAWAYS
Have a glass-half-full perspective.
Ezekiel’s dad stopped going to Church regularly after his wife died. However, he later realized that even though it was a tragedy that she died, it could’ve been worse.
“I spent a long time being enraged with God for not saving your mother. But then I realized that it was my whole family there on the sidewalk, my wife and my only child. I thought about what had been saved for me instead of what had been taken” (133).
………………
Things can happen for a reason.
Beth was lonely since her father had abandoned her awhile ago and her mother was dead.
When Ezekiel’s dad learned of this situation, he offered to adopt her, but Child Services had reservations about her being brought up by a single dad who makes little income and a teenage boy who’s twice Beth’s height.
It seemed as though Beth was destined for foster care, but because of how everything worked out, Renee’s family ended up offering to adopt her. After all, they had wanted more children but biologically weren’t able to. Now Renee has a sister who she can trade clothes with and talk through shared trauma with.
“The past is like gum stuck to the bottom of your shoe. When bad stuff first happens, it’s like when the gum is sticking to everything -- the road, the sidewalk. And you can’t wear that shoe into the house because it will get all involved in the carpet and the bathroom rug, but when you try to rub it off in the grass, it won’t come off. So you just have to live with it. You walk along, your foot trying to stick with every step, but gradually as the gum gets dirtier and dries out more and more, it loses its stickiness. And, eventually, without ever actually removing it, you forget the gum is there. Except maybe on a hot day the gum gets soft and a little sticky again, and you think, Oh, yeah, gum on my shoe” (277).