The reason the tone of the story is more serious is also likely because Trash has replaced Martin as the central character. It makes sense that Trash would make his writing more dramatic and less witty than Martin.
Bowdler is likened to a rabid dog when Trash looks into his eyes. He also vehemently tracks the boys down relentlessly; not unlike a dog. And like a rabid dog, he lashes out and panics when he’s cornered.
Fridge Horror
Bowdler, at one point, theorizes what he’s going to do with the boys once he’s captured them, up to and including using torture to force their powers to become stronger. While, thankfully, he’s stopped before that happens, it’s horrifying to imagine him kidnapping some poor kids and molding them into Super Soldiers.
Even worse, he points out that Lucky’s power is comparatively worse than the other boys’. He could either find some other purpose for him, or, alternatively...
Trash very nearly kills a man when he’s scared he’s going to get caught stealing. Thankfully, Thurston can heal, but Trash spends almost all of the book feeling guilty for what he did. If Thurston didn’t have his healing powers, Trash would have had to live with having killed someone.
After arguing with his parents, Martin runs away and hitches a ride with two older guys. Now, nothing bad happens, since Martin can read souls and can tell the two guys are decent people, however, given how toxic his home life had always been, it would have only been a matter of time before he tried running away. What if Martin had been a regular, non-psychic kid, and those two guys had been more sinister than they seemed?
Cheater has tried using his mind-reading to cheat at gambling, but he gets found out by the other players and they beat him up so badly that he ends up in the hospital. Let's hope that he doesn't try to cheat again, or at least gets good enough to cover his tracks, because he could otherwise piss off the wrong person and end up killed.
