History Literature / HiddenTalents

* ElectricTorture: Principle Davis uses this on Martin as part of his BehavioralConditioning. He shows him a series of images of people and makes him comment on each one. If he says something mean, he gets an electric shock.

* UmpteenthCustomer: When Principle Davis asks Martin why he's at Edgeview, one of Martin's snarky responses is "I'm the tenth caller?"

* AllChinesePeopleKnowKungFu: When they first meet, Cheater calls out Martin for assuming that he knows karate because he's Chinese. However, he's later shown to enjoy pretending to karate-chop Flinch, complete with FunnyBruceLeeNoises.

* InsultBackfire:
** Torchie is told that his report was "almost intelligible". He takes it as a compliment.
** Lucky asks Cheater whether he'd like to be called crazy. Cheater says that he prefers the term "insane".

* InsultBackfire: Torchie is told that his report was "almost intelligible". He takes it as a compliment.

* SmartPeopleWearGlasses: Cheater invokes this by wearing PurelyAestheticGlasses to make himself look more intelligent.

* BerserkButton:
** Please don't laugh at Bloodbath, and don't call him by his first name, Lester.
** [[spoiler: Martin can find out what a person is most ashamed of/takes as the greatest insult. Before he realized this, he was using it unwittingly to make just about all of his teachers and other adults hate him.]]

* EmbarrassingNickname: Several kids have one. Patrick Pardeau is known by his initials "Peepee" while Waylon Grestman is called Hindenburg due to him being a {{Gasshole}}. Trash also counts, his name refers to how he "trashes" things, but it also alludes to what everyone thinks of him.

* HowDoIShotWeb: Torchie and Trash initially have trouble activating their powers on command rather than just at random. The others don't have this problem so much as their powers are more automatic by nature.
* IJustWantToBeNormal: Cheater's reaction when he finally accepts his telepathy is "I don't want to be different". Torchie acts similarly when Martin tries to convince him of his pyrokinesis, accusing Martin of calling him a freak.
* IJustWantToBeSpecial: Martin has this reaction when he finds out that he's the only one out of his friends who doesn't have a psychic power. [[spoiler:When he finally learns about his power, he flips right around to IJustWantToBeNormal instead.]]

* ArtisticLicenseStatistics: Bloodbath cheats in the mind-reading experiment and gets 25/25 on four of his six tests. Mr Briggs tells him that his perfect scores made his cheating too obvious, and to make it less obvious he should have purposefully gotten some of the answers wrong. However, this makes no sense. If Bloodbath had gotten just a few answers wrong it would have still been clear that his scores were unnaturally high, and if he got enough guesses wrong for his results to be in line with the average there wouldn't be any point to his cheating. Bloodbath's real problem is that he couldn't cheat on the two tests where he wasn't being tested by one of his friends, so there was an obvious discrepancy in his results.

%% To put on characters page:
%% * AbusiveParents: Martin's dad, although he tends to lean toward verbal abuse and not physical. Martin’s mother seems to mean well, but seems cowed by her husband.
%% * AllOfTheOtherReindeer: The entire school considers Trash to be weird, leaving him alone and friendless. [[JustifiedTrope To be fair to them, they have a point]]. From their point of view, Trash violently throws random objects at them with no provocation, so it's not hard to see why they wouldn't want to spend time with him.
%% * AsianAndNerdy: Played straight with Cheater, a small Asian boy who knows random trivia off the top of his head. It’s even discussed when he first meets Martin.
%% ** It's also deconstructed to an extent. Cheater feels a constant pressure to prove his intelligence, possibly because of his race, and he even wears PurelyAestheticGlasses to try and make himself look smarter.
%% * CodeName: All of the boys except Martin have nicknames that conform to what they were sent to Edgeview for (and incidentally refer to their powers:
%% ** Eddie Thalmeyer is called Trash because he trashes things [[spoiler:with his [[MindOverMatter telekinesis]].]]
%% ** Willis Dobbs is called Flinch because he's constantly jumpy [[spoiler:due to his [[SpiderSense precognition]].]]
%% ** Dennis Woo is called Cheater because he's [[spoiler:accidentally, with his {{Telepathy}}]] copying other kids' answers.
%% ** Philip Grieg is called Torchie. He starts fires [[spoiler:[[PlayingWithFire with his mind]].]]
%% ** Dominic Calabrizi is called Lucky sarcastically because no one believes that he "finds" things that other people have recently lost and assume he stole them. His friends call him Lucky [[IronicNickname ironically]], [[TheWoobie because he's really, really not]].
%% * CoolTeacher: Mr. Briggs plays this straight, being a patient guy who seems to only want to help his students. He’s the only teacher to not hold much of a grudge for Martin after dealing with him.
%% * ElementalHair: The redheaded Torchie.
%% * DeadpanSnarker: Martin. He’s incredibly sarcastic to other students and teachers alike. [[spoiler: interestingly, this seems to be an involuntary byproduct of his ability to recognize what people’s [[BerserkButton Berserk Buttons]] are.]]
%% * TheEmpath: [[spoiler: Martin, of sorts; he can instantly detect the {{Berserk Button}}s of any person he meets...as well as the best way to stroke their egos]]
%% * ExpelledFromEveryOtherSchool: Edgeview Alternative is the DustbinSchool for students ([[spoiler:and teachers]]) that no other school will take. The protagonist Martin is transferred there at the beginning of the book after one too many verbal altercations with teachers, but comes to bond with other students who [[spoiler:got booted out of the conventional school system due to their [[PowerIncontinence unrealized]] PsychicPowers]].
%% * FieryRedhead: Inverted with Torchie. He’s a redhead, but is also TheHeart for his group of friends.
%% * IJustWantToHaveFriends: Trash is lonely and miserable due to his PowerIncontinence driving people away from him. Once he's accepted into Martin's friendship group he becomes a lot happier.
%% * JerkWithAHeartOfGold: Martin is very rude to the people he dislikes, such as his teachers and other authority figures. However, he's a good guy inside, and obviously cares about and protects his friends. Mr Briggs even says that he can sense something good inside Martin, despite Martin's hostility towards him.
%% * KindnessButton:
%% ** Lucky becomes more friendly towards Martin after he saves Cheater from being beaten up.
%% ** Torchie makes up with Martin after Martin gifts him a harmonica, since Torchie's always wanted one.
%% * LimitedSocialCircle: Nobody in the main group is ever seen having any friends outside of that group, not even the more outgoing people like Flinch and Torchie who you'd expect to have other friends.
%% * LonersAreFreaks: Trash, at the beginning of the novel, was ostracized by everyone, for [[spoiler:apparently]] violently throwing things.
%% * MeaningfulName: Everybody except Martin. See CodeName above.
%% * MindOverMatter: [[spoiler: Trash, and it's awesome]].
%% * NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast: The school bully, [[spoiler:Lester]] Bloodbath.
%% * NeverMyFault: Martin's dad blames all of Martin's problems on him. He never considers that he's being verbally abusive towards Martin, and that he might have turned out better if his dad gave him more support.
%% * PlayingWithFire:[[spoiler: Torchie]].
%% * PowerIncontinence: [[spoiler: All the main characters. The result of which has, unknowingly, been the reason why they were sent to Edgeview. Everyone except [[BlessedWithSuck Lucky]] develops better control by the end of Book 1.]]
%% * PsychicPowers: All the boys except Martin have these. [[spoiler: Eventually, Martin turns out to have this in some form as well...]]
%% * PurelyAestheticGlasses: Cheater wears these to make himself look smarter.
%% * {{Seers}}: Flinch has a variant of this where he sees that something is going to happen a few seconds before it actually happens. This gives him extra time to react, but also makes him seem jumpy and disruptive in school.
%% * SideKick: Lip, to Bloodbath.
%% * SpiderSense: [[spoiler: Flinch, as he has the ability to “see” some short time into the future. He uses it for dodgeball and, in True Talents, for (surprisingly enough) a job as a comedian.]]
%% * TheTeamNormal: Martin, who sometimes feels left out because of this. He makes up for it by helping the others with their powers and [[spoiler: eventually discovering his own, which he'd been unknowingly using throughout the whole story.]]
%% * {{Telepathy}}: [[spoiler: Cheater]]
%% * ThoughtControlledPower: Torchie and Trash's powers both fall into this. The other guys' powers are receptive rather than projective, so being thought-controlled is the standard and they don't count.
%% * UnhappyMedium: The main characters are at Edgeview because of their PowerIncontinence causing them problems at school, leading to them being expelled on multiple occasions. They all learn to deal with their powers better by the end of the book and start to turn their lives back around.

* AbusiveParents: Martin's dad, although he tends to lean toward verbal abuse and not physical. Martin’s mother seems to mean well, but seems cowed by her husband.

* AllOfTheOtherReindeer: The entire school considers Trash to be weird, leaving him alone and friendless. [[JustifiedTrope To be fair to them, they have a point]]. From their point of view, Trash violently throws random objects at them with no provocation, so it's not hard to see why they wouldn't want to spend time with him.

* AsianAndNerdy: Played straight with Cheater, a small Asian boy who knows random trivia off the top of his head. It’s even discussed when he first meets Martin.
** It's also deconstructed to an extent. Cheater feels a constant pressure to prove his intelligence, possibly because of his race, and he even wears PurelyAestheticGlasses to try and make himself look smarter.

-->'''Martin''': I got on the wrong bus? I won a contest? I wrote the winning essay? I'm the [[UmpteenthCustomer tenth caller]]? I got the highest score in [[Series/{{Jeopardy}} Final Jeopardy]]?"

* BlessedWithSuck: All the main characters have psychic powers but also PowerIncontinence, which gets them into a lot of trouble at school and is the reason they've end up at Edgeview in the first place.
%% [[spoiler: Lucky, because of how his powers work. He hears voices from lost items, and the longer he leaves them, the louder they call out to him. Out of all the boys, he’s the only one who can’t truly enjoy or embrace his powers.]]

* CodeName: All of the boys except Martin have nicknames that conform to what they were sent to Edgeview for (and incidentally refer to their powers:
** Eddie Thalmeyer is called Trash because he trashes things [[spoiler:with his [[MindOverMatter telekinesis]].]]
** Willis Dobbs is called Flinch because he's constantly jumpy [[spoiler:due to his [[SpiderSense precognition]].]]
** Dennis Woo is called Cheater because he's [[spoiler:accidentally, with his {{Telepathy}}]] copying other kids' answers.
** Philip Grieg is called Torchie. He starts fires [[spoiler:[[PlayingWithFire with his mind]].]]
** Dominic Calabrizi is called Lucky sarcastically because no one believes that he "finds" things that other people have recently lost and assume he stole them. His friends call him Lucky [[IronicNickname ironically]], [[TheWoobie because he's really, really not]].

* CoolTeacher: Mr. Briggs plays this straight, being a patient guy who seems to only want to help his students. He’s the only teacher to not hold much of a grudge for Martin after dealing with him.

* DeadpanSnarker: Martin. He’s incredibly sarcastic to other students and teachers alike. [[spoiler: interestingly, this seems to be an involuntary byproduct of his ability to recognize what people’s [[BerserkButton Berserk Buttons]] are.]]

* ElementalHair: The redheaded Torchie.

* TheEmpath: [[spoiler: Martin, of sorts; he can instantly detect the {{Berserk Button}}s of any person he meets...as well as the best way to stroke their egos]]

* ExpelledFromEveryOtherSchool: Edgeview Alternative is the DustbinSchool for students ([[spoiler:and teachers]]) that no other school will take. The protagonist Martin is transferred there at the beginning of the book after one too many verbal altercations with teachers, but comes to bond with other students who [[spoiler:got booted out of the conventional school system due to their [[PowerIncontinence unrealized]] PsychicPowers]].

* FieryRedhead: Inverted with Torchie. He’s a redhead, but is also TheHeart for his group of friends.

* IJustWantToHaveFriends: Trash is lonely and miserable due to his PowerIncontinence driving people away from him. Once he's accepted into Martin's friendship group he becomes a lot happier.

* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: Martin is very rude to the people he dislikes, such as his teachers and other authority figures. However, he's a good guy inside, and obviously cares about and protects his friends. Mr Briggs even says that he can sense something good inside Martin, despite Martin's hostility towards him.
* KindnessButton:
** Lucky becomes more friendly towards Martin after he saves Cheater from being beaten up.
** Torchie makes up with Martin after Martin gifts him a harmonica, since Torchie's always wanted one.
** Martin eventually discovers that [[spoiler:he has the power to detect people's {{Kindness Button}}s as well as their {{Berserk Button}}s.]] He uses this to find out that one of the inspectors is proud of her eyes and wants kids, so her two buttons are complimenting her eyes and implying that she'd be a good mother.

* LimitedSocialCircle: Nobody in the main group is ever seen having any friends outside of that group, not even the more outgoing people like Flinch and Torchie who you'd expect to have other friends.
* LonersAreFreaks: Trash, at the beginning of the novel, was ostracized by everyone, for [[spoiler:apparently]] violently throwing things.

* MeaningfulName: Everybody except Martin. See CodeName above.

* MindOverMatter: [[spoiler: Trash, and it's awesome]].

* NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast: The school bully, [[spoiler:Lester]] Bloodbath.

* NeverMyFault: Martin's dad blames all of Martin's problems on him. He never considers that he's being verbally abusive towards Martin, and that he might have turned out better if his dad gave him more support.

* PlayingWithFire:[[spoiler: Torchie]].
* PowerIncontinence: [[spoiler: All the main characters. The result of which has, unknowingly, been the reason why they were sent to Edgeview. Everyone except [[BlessedWithSuck Lucky]] develops better control by the end of Book 1.]]

* PsychicPowers: All the boys except Martin have these. [[spoiler: Eventually, Martin turns out to have this in some form as well...]]

* PurelyAestheticGlasses: Cheater wears these to make himself look smarter.

* {{Seers}}: Flinch has a variant of this where he sees that something is going to happen a few seconds before it actually happens. This gives him extra time to react, but also makes him seem jumpy and disruptive in school.
* SideKick: Lip, to Bloodbath.

* SomethingPerson: Rottenman, the villain in Cheater's "Magnus Cranium" story.
* SpiderSense: [[spoiler: Flinch, as he has the ability to “see” some short time into the future. He uses it for dodgeball and, in True Talents, for (surprisingly enough) a job as a comedian.]]

* TheTeamNormal: Martin, who sometimes feels left out because of this. He makes up for it by helping the others with their powers and [[spoiler: eventually discovering his own, which he'd been unknowingly using throughout the whole story.]]
* {{Telepathy}}: [[spoiler: Cheater]]

* ThoughtControlledPower: Torchie and Trash's powers both fall into this. The other guys' powers are receptive rather than projective, so being thought-controlled is the standard and they don't count.

* UnhappyMedium: The main characters are at Edgeview because of their PowerIncontinence causing them problems at school, leading to them being expelled on multiple occasions. They all learn to deal with their powers better by the end of the book and start to turn their lives back around.

* FiveManBand: The main characters [[PlayedWith Zigzag this]], so there are no exact matches:
** Martin acts as TheLeader taking charge of the group and acting as their coach in [[spoiler: honing their powers.]] He also can be considered a SixthRanger since he arrived at the school and joined later than everyone else.
** Torchie primarily serves as TheHeart for the group, being the emotional center, but his contrast to Martin as his first friend makes him TheLancer to an extent.
** Cheater, despite being AsianAndNerdy, is decidedly ''not'' TheSmartGuy, with most of the groups smarter decisions being relegated to someone else. Instead, he acts as TheLancer to Martin in the first half of the book, opposing Martin[[spoiler: when he claims they have PsychicPowers.]] He does have some moments as TheSmartGuy, though most of his insight is either accidental or inspires others to create a better formed plan.
** Flinch: Flinch acts as TheSmartGuy, being the first willing to hear Martin out about [[spoiler: their psychic powers, as well as being the one to find the most creative uses for his.]] As the first person to deny their powers, he takes the role of TheLancer when Torchie and Cheater are not present.
** Lucky: Despite being in the group before Martin, Lucky demonstrates stereotypical traits of a SixthRanger; he’s notably aloof, distances himself from the others, and is the odd one out [[spoiler: in regards to how his powers work.]] On the other hand, he’s physically imposing and the most prone to physically acting out, making him TheBigGuy.
** Trash: Trash is the actual SixthRanger in regards to his role in the story, but also acts as TheLancer in being directly contrasted to Martin in the story in terms of importance. He’s also TheBigGuy in terms of [[spoiler: how his powers work,]] since his causes the most physical damage.

* SuckySchool: Edgeview Alternative School is underfunded and full of broken second-hand furniture and equipment. It's also got a few SadistTeachers and is terrorised by Bloodbath and his gang.

* Cheater is about to tell Martin that on Friday nights, they all [[spoiler:sneak out of school]] but Lucky interrupts him to say that they play checkers.
* [[ApologisesALot Trash]] begins to apologise for launching a pillow across the room, but remembers that he's just been told to stop apologising so much and [[DistinctionWithoutADifference changes it to "oops" instead]].

* MyGodYouAreSerious: Martin tells Trash that his friends want to meet him. Trash initially thinks that Martin is playing some kind of joke on him, but manages to convince him otherwise.

* WhatTheHellHero: Martin mentally tells himself off for abandoning Trash to go and sit with his friends, and calls himself "Martin the Rat".

* {{Foreshadowing}}: Lots of it.

** Lucky randomly shouts "Shut up!" for no reason in the middle of a lesson. Much later, he explains that [[spoiler:he can hear lost items calling to him inside his head, and the voices get louder unless he picks them up. It's likely that in the lesson he began to hear a voice, but he couldn't just leave the lesson to pick up the object and so the voice got louder, until he couldn't tolerate it any more.]]

* LastSecondWordSwap: Cheater is about to tell Martin that on Friday nights, they all [[spoiler:sneak out of school]] but Lucky interrupts him to say that they play checkers.

* VerbalBackspace: [[ApologisesALot Trash]] begins to apologise for launching a pillow across the room, but remembers that he's just been told to stop apologising so much and [[DistinctionWithoutADifference changes it to "oops" instead]].

** Please don't laugh at Bloodbath, and don't call him by his first name, [[spoiler: Lester]].

* ElectricTorture: Principle Davis tries to use BehavioralConditioning on Martin. He shows him a series of images of people and makes him comment on each one. If he says something mean, he gets an electric shock.

** When we first see Cheater he talks about how smart he is and comes up with a lot of random trivia facts, which shows him to be an InsufferableGenius who's desperate to prove his intelligence. However, he also delivers a magazine for Torchie and goes to save seats for his friends, establishing him as a good guy inside and Torchie's friend. He also struggles to understand Martin's sarcasm, which shows that for all his knowledge, there are some areas that he's not proficient in.
** Lucky is first shown as being distant and mistrustful of Martin, with him trying to cover up a secret that he doesn't think that Martin should know yet. He also tells off Cheater for calling Trash "wacko", showing that he's thoughtful and cares about other's feelings, and also specifically dislikes calling people crazy.

* BlatantLies: When Cheater is about to reveal what they do on Friday nights to Martin, Lucky quickly cuts him off to say that they play checkers. Martin isn't convinced.

* BlessedWithSuck: [[spoiler: Lucky, because of how his powers work. He hears voices from lost items, and the longer he leaves them, the louder they call out to him. Out of all the boys, he’s the only one who can’t truly enjoy or embrace his powers.]]

* SideKick: Lip, to Bloodbath.

* CassandraTruth: While the main characters don't cause problems intentionally, most of them are still to blame in a way. However, this isn't the case with Lucky. Nobody believes that he just finds all the random objects he collects and the reason he's at Edgeview is because he's been kicked out of other schools for stealing. However, he really does just find things, as his power lets him locate lost objects.

* HowDoIShotWeb: Torchie and Trash initially have trouble activating their powers on command rather than just at random. The others don't have this problem so much, as their powers are more automatic by nature.

* IllNeverTellYouWhatImTellingYou: Cheater reassures Torchie that he won't tell anyone about his special hiding place, right in front of everyone.