One teenage boy’s life is about to be turned upside-down and inside-out.
UPSIDE-DOWN because Manny Garcia and his new friend, Ellen Rosen, have just realized they are falling in love.
INSIDE-OUT because Manny will soon encounter Samuel T. Hermano, both a wizard and a rabbi sent to him by secret allies who have been preparing this special boy for his future role on the world stage.
Lt. Col. Emanuel Gomez Garcia is destined to be the first Aquarian Commander.
In the year 2032, he will be elected 49th President of the United States in a third party landslide. No American president within the past century will have amassed so much political power in so short a time.
Throughout his term in office and for the rest of his life, President Garcia often paid tribute to his longtime mentor– his wizard and rabbi– the Rev. Samuel T. Hermano. The Old Man was long recognized as the mastermind behind Lt. Col Garcia’s military and political career. Mr. Hermano passed away, ironically, on the very first day of the new Garcia Administration.
Manny often claimed that the momentum for his success began even before he had met Mr. Hermano as a teenager. If it wasn’t for his fifth grade teacher, he would never have qualified for the city-wide Talented and Gifted program that brought Ellen Rosen all the way from Forest Park to Manny’s neighborhood in the inner city.
But this book is more about Manny Garcia in the 9th grade.
He is going to Chestnut Jr. High School on the north end of Springfield, Massachusetts. Earlier that week, the New York Mets beat the Boston Red Sox in the 1986 World Series. The Internet is only just beginning, and the iPhone won’t be out for another 20 years yet.
Garcia has accepted a challenge to break into Chestnut’s forbidden third floor tower.
K. Schumer
When he finally succeeds in getting to the top, the boy discovers that a mysterious padlock has become unhinged. Then a door creaks open. He steps across the threshold into a makeshift room that stinks of cigarette smoke. Yet, Emanuel Gomez Garcia has now taken his first step as the Warrior and World Changer he is destined to become. But Mr. Hermano’s long- term training program for Manny is unexpectedly cut short. A menace has appeared from out of no where. The wizard has just begun to teach his pupil the techniques for traveling outside his physical body when Manny learns that his precious twelve year old friend, Rojo, has been taken hostage by an insane voodoo drug dealer who has recently set up her operations in Springfield.
Manny is compelled into immediate action.
But Hermano fears that Queenie LaRouge has discovered who Manny Gomez Garcia really is, and that she has set a trap for him with Rojo as the lure. Manny’s secret allies have now been forced to reveal themselves much sooner than they could ever have anticipated, into circumstances they never could have known existed.
