Excerpt from Saving Montgomery Sole by Mariko Tamaki, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Thomas snorted. "You and Naoki and your crystals and your dreams."

"How was your date?" I said.

"My date with The Butcher?" I could tell he was painting his nails because I was clearly on speakerphone and he was taking little pauses of concentration. "He's an urban poet. An urban poet and … a butcher."

"Surprise, surprise."

Thomas says his dating life doesn't define him. It's all just fodder for his creative sensibility, he says. Sometimes it feels like his dates are characters from a movie.

"What happened to the Yoga Master?" I asked.

"Not so masterful."

"Butchers are probably cooler," I added.

"Oh, let me tell you," Thomas cackled, bumping the phone, "the kids in Aunty are all over the butchers. And the butches! These girls think it's quite the thing."

I flipped over on the bed so I could put my face on the pillow, mashing the phone against my ear. I released my ponytail and was blanketed in hair.

"Did you really think the remote viewing was 3.5?" I asked.

"Is 3.5 bad? Maybe on a game show," Thomas said. "I would say I'm not clear on why you would need to remote view anything now that we have smart phones."

"Well," I said, "it would be cool, though. To have that kind of skill in your back pocket. Just in case."

Thomas paused. "Just in case what?"

"I don't know." I rolled onto my back and stared at the chalk spirals Momma Jo had helped Naoki and me draw on my ceiling a few months ago.

"In case we need to start a psychedelic war?" Thomas asked. "Is that what we're doing next week?"

"I'm not planning anything. I'm just saying. It would be cool. To be able to see."

To actually see, I thought, and to know. Just because remote viewing was a 3.5 didn't mean a 5.0 wasn't out there, somewhere.

I sat up. "I should go," I said. "I haven't even done my English homework yet."

"Good night, Montgomery Sole."

"Good night, Thomas."

I turned on some Echo & the Bunnymen because the guy has this great voice and they have this song "The Killing Moon" that I really like. I grabbed my school copy of The Outsiders and flopped back onto my bed.

That night, somewhere, someone, hypothetically, in Manchester, or Pocatello, or even next door, was boxing up my Eye of Know, sealing it in brown paper and tape.

Right before I fell asleep, I pulled out my phone and opened my app.

Excerpted from Saving Montgomery Sole by Mariko Tamaki. Copyright © 2016 by Mariko Tamaki. Excerpted by permission of Roaring Brook Press. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.