Leven Thumps and the Eyes of the Want

Plot summary

Foo—the place between the possible and the impossible—is a realm inside the minds of each of us that allows mankind the power to hope and imagine and fly. The powerfully gifted Leven Thumps, once an ordinary fourteen-year-old boy from Oklahoma, has been retrieved from Reality and sent to stop those in Foo who are nurturing dark dreams and plan to invade and rule Reality. Hold on to your popcorn! In book three, the war to unite Foo and Reality has begun. Not only must Leven race across Foo to stop the Secret about how sycophants die. He must stop it before the deadly truth is revealed, he must travel to the island of Lith, the home of the Want—the manic dreammaster who can give Leven the gifts he needs against a foreboding army of rants and other Foo being.

Our hero, Leven, starts his journey in a hotel with Geth, Clover, and Winter. Later in the night, The Whispered Secret speaks to Leven. The secret it holds is the Secret of the Sycophants, explaining how Sycophants die. The secret blackmails Leven with the life of Clover (the secret will kill Clover if Leven refuses to unlock it). Leven unlocks it, but then sees the secret sell himself to a man, who buries it. Soon, the sycophant population on Sycophant Run hears through the Lore Coil that the sycophant secret has been revealed.

Meanwhile, Tim Tuttle meets Dennis and Ezra. Dennis is already being controlled by Sabine, and gives Tim a wristband which poisons Tim with the influence of Sabine. At this point in time, Dennis is leading the gang (instead of Ezra). The trio carjacks a van and then starts driving across the U.S. to get to the Atlantic Ocean. Dennis, Tim, and Ezra start building the gateway. When Dennis is gone, Tim remembers a secret: he hates Dennis. With this knowledge, he believes that he has the power to fight off the influence of Sabine.

When Leven and Clover get separated from Winter and Geth, their onick takes them to Lith, the island where The Want resides. Once the duo gets to Lith, they meet The Want. He looks like a human with a long, red beard. Leven starts feeling powerful emotions, because The Want sees every dream that comes in and out of Foo. The Want takes Leven to a room known as The Den of the Dead, where Antsel comes alive and gets the scoop on how things are in Foo. Leven then learns more about his past and sees his mother. Leven is then taken up to a high tower where The Want wants to have a chat him. The Want says that tonight he’ll ask Leven to do a great task for him. Leven will have to listen to his voice, and do what it instructs.

Winter and Geth’s onick flies them to a random place, where they are captured by an old defendant of Foo, named Azure, who has turned to Sabine’s side. Azure takes them the Hall of the Council of Wonder, the meeting place of the defendants of Foo where he tortures Geth by reading the names of the previous defendants who have died. Azure also says that he has tricked The Want into releasing The Dearth, the evil soil under Foo that has been controlling Sabine, into coming to Foo where it will mesh Foo and reality if it gets above ground. Azure then takes all of them to Lith, where he imprisons Geth, Winter, and two of his other servants in one cell. On the way, Azure tells Geth and Winter that he is destroying them and Leven in exchange for the location and instructions to open the second gateway to Foo. Once Winter and Geth are in the cell, Lith starts sinking, but, with the assistance of Clover, they find a way out.

Meanwhile, Tim Tuttle falls off a tree and becomes unconscious. Dennis and Ezra leave him because Ezra gets a sense that there’s another gateway, so Dennis follows him. Tim has a sudden revelation and remembers the gateway. He dives in the Konigsee and gets to Foo.

Leven is alone in a building on The Want’s instructions. Leven listens to The Want’s voice saying “come.” What The Want is doing is transferring his powers to Leven. Leven then hears the instructions telling him to thrust a sword into the darkness. Leven does, and realizes he killed The Want. While The Want is dying, he reveals that he is really the third Want, and Leven’s grandfather, Hector Thumps. He also tells him that he was sick of being the Want, and had planned for a long time to have Leven "accidentally" kill him. The Want also reveals that Leven is now The Want because he transferred the powers to him. Before Hector dies, he wishes Leven luck in saving Foo.

Soon, Leven reunites with Geth, Winter, and Clover, and Geth says that Leven being The Want will give them an advantage in saving Foo. They then continue on their journey to save Foo.

Leven Thumps

Leven is fourteen and is the grandson of Hector Thumps, the builder of the gateway. Lev originally knows nothing of Foo or of his heritage. He eventually discovers he is an offing who can see and manipulate the future. He is most experienced with manipulating the weather (control the wind, make it rain). Lev's brown eyes burn gold whenever his gift kicks in. Leven is also an unnatural offing in the way that he can manipulate the future over great distances. He also knows the secret of how to kill a sycophants.In the fourth book, feelings between him and Winter are made known.

Winter Frore

Winter is thirteen, with white-blond hair and deep evergreen eyes. Her pale skin and willowy clothes give her the appearance of a neglected girl. Like Sabine, she is a nit and has the ability to freeze and thaw out whatever she wishes. She was swept away to Foo, but her thoughts and memories of her previous life are gone. Winter struggles just to figure out what her purpose is. In book two, her gift is forcefully taken away from her by a machine that she "created" in her past life. She also has a burning love for Leven.

Geth

The heir to the throne of the land of Foo, and one of the Lithens, the people who were chosen by fate to be on Foo first. He was turned into a Fantrum seed by Sabine, and grew until Terry Graph (Leven's Uncle) chopped him down for destroying his house. Geth then became a toothpick who helped Leven on his quest to stop the war of merging Reality and Foo. In Leven Thumps and the Whispered Secret Geth was returned to his old self in the turrets, and The City of Geth was restored. Because he is a Lithen, he is never afraid and always trusts in fate. He is also incredibly optimistic, though that is probably more because when he was a tree and dropped into a processor at the Tactum Company toothpick section, a part of him was shaved off and placed in a different toothpick. The part chopped off was all his anger and confusion, leaving a happy, carefree Lithen as Geth. Geth has long, dark blonde hair and bright blue eyes. He's very old, but still looks very young. His height is originally tall, but it fluctuates during the books due to part of him being missing. In this book he shrinks. He is told to always wear a look of wonder and amazement on his face.

Clover Ernest

He is a wise-cracking sycophant from Foo, sent by the nit Antsel to look after Leven, who becomes his burn. Anstel is also Clovers previous burn. He constantly tries to find a nickname for Leven (many of which include Chief and Big Man), as Winter calls Leven Lev. Clover is extremely loyal but often tricks Leven into trying various candies which causes Leven to turn into or become or forget certain things.(i.e. Leven turns to goo, or Leven forgets what he is doing.) Clover has the power to turn invisible with his cloak, and as a sycophant there is only one way that he can die, but only the sycophants and Leven know what that is. Clovers bite puts people to sleep and makes them love sycophants for a few hours when they wake up.

Ezra

Ezra is Geth's other half. When Geth was turned into a toothpick, the bad was cut out of him and made into a toothpick that then became Ezra. Ezra is rude and is a devil toothpick that only knows hate. in the second book, Ezra is picked up by a man named Dennis who is or was a janitor for a high dollar business.

Dennis

Dennis is an emotionally troubled man that stumbles upon a mass of tiny evil, this evil happens to be Ezra, the toothpick. He was not loved as a child and is not appreciated for his hard work at his job. During a flight to Germany, the evil Sabine is captured by Ezra as hazen maul the plane bringing it to a halt above an interstate. Slowly Sabine starts to take over Dennis leaving him an even emptier shell of a man than he was before. Dennis lacks the ability to dream.

Awards

Leven Thumps and the Gateway to Foo won the Benjamin Franklin award from the Independent Book Publishers Association in 2006.