No Right Turn (15 page)

Authors: Terry Trueman

Shawn McDaniel's body may not work the way most people's doâhe can't walk, talk, or even wave hello. But his brain works perfectly, even though his family and friends don't know it. Check out how he copes with his cerebral palsy in this excerpt from the sequel to
Stuck in Neutral
.

Excerpt from
Life Happens Next

H
ere's how I spin things in my headâsome cool
things about being me:

1. I get a hot bath every day of my life and never have to lift a finger. The warm water gets squeezed over my body from the big sponge in my mom's gentle, loving hands. And this bath is by far the most enjoyable physical sensation I ever feel.

2. I have a perfect auditory memory, remembering
everything
I
ever
hear, which is
totally
cool. This ability has turned our TVs (and we have four of them!) into the greatest learning devices in the universe. I mean, who needs real life when you've got 110 cable stations? And I remember
every
show, from Cesar Millan's
The Dog Whisperer
to Little League baseball to the love life of squids to “The bark beetle lays its eggs” to everything in between. In other words, I'm damned smart!

3. Although I can't tell anybody what kind of music I'd like to listen to, I love almost all the music that's played around here (rap/hip-hop, R&B, Bach and Mozart, geezer R&R) so whatever's on pretty much always makes me happy.

4. My brother, Paul, King Jock, Straight-A Student, Tough Guy Supreme, slips me bites of his deluxe bacon double cheeseburgers every chance he gets. Somehow Paul knows that I, too, think God invented this food to make up for the fact that all of us have to die someday.

5. My sister, Cindy, is a saint. She taught me to read by playing school with me when I was little, and to this day she never treats me badâplus she has
great
taste in best friends,
wink-wink-hubba-hubba!

6. Although Mom has a master's degree in English and could be a college teacher or have some other higher-paying job, she works from home so she can take care of me. If Cindy is a saint, think about what that makes my mom.

7. I'll never have to get a lousy part-time job like carrying people's groceries to their cars in a supermarket parking lot or cleaning out toilets and mopping floors in some crummy restaurant.

8. In fact, I'll never have to get
any
job, which I figure is a good thing since
work
is a four-letter word â¦

9.... so I'll never have anybody bossing me aroundâI know this is partly a bad thing as I'll never get to boss anybody else either, but I don't think I'd like doing that anyway.

10. I have a kickass name. Shawn McDaniel is really cool sounding when compared to a name like Elmer Ulysses Fudpucker or Isaac P. Freeley.

11. I'm living in the most interesting time in all of history: medical scienceâwise, it is a miracle that a guy like me, with my so-called handicaps, could still even be alive.

Okay, let's make this 12 items:

12. I am in love with Ally Williamson, the girl of my dreams, and while I'd love to find some way to make her fall in love with me too, at least I get to imagine that she's mine all mine.

Ah, what the heck, just for good luck let's make it 13. I didn't even mention my dream life yet. Did I say dream life? Hey, Ally, here I come!

OTHER WORKS

ALSO BY TERRY TRUEMAN

Inside Out
Cruise Control
Stuck in Neutral

CREDITS

Cover design by R. Hult

COPYRIGHT

No Right Turn

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www.harperchildrens.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Trueman, Terry.

No right turn / by Terry Trueman.â1st ed.

Â Â Â Â Â Â p. cm.

Summary: After three years of wanting only to be invisible, sixteen-year-old Jordan begins to recover from his father's suicide and start living again when a neighbor's vintage Corvette Stingray opens up new possibilities for him.

ISBN-10: 0-06-057491-7 (trade bdg.)

ISBN-13: 978-0-06-057491-8 (trade bdg.)

ISBN-10: 0-06-057492-5 (lib. bdg.)

ISBN-13: 978-0-06-057492-5 (lib. bdg.)

EPub Edition Â© June 2012 9780062216984

[1. Corvette automobileâFiction. 2. AutomobilesâFiction. 3. GriefâFiction. 4. SuicideâFiction. 5. Fathers and sonsâFiction. 6. Washington (State)âFiction.] I. Title.