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findthatbookMy friend read this book when he was a kid, maybe 30-35 years ago (or so).
A boy (teenager or younger) is dared to do something--perhaps an act of vandalism--to an old "scary" house. The man living there catches him, and somehow gets him to come back the next day. The man gives the boy a box to take home. When he gets it home, he messes with it, and that leaves some kind of black ink-like substance on his hands/fingers. When he tries to get the stuff off, it just spreads to everything he touches. He's worried about getting in trouble when his parents get home, but when they do, they don't see the mess.
The kid goes back to the man and the man tells him that now his mind is open to some kind of mental training the man intends to put him through. The kid learns to open doors in people's minds. Behind the mind door of the school bully, he sees a dying baby (meaning something like that the bully's inner self was a dying baby.) Behind his dad's mind door, he sees a teenager that never grew up.
This is as much as my friend revealed about the book. I would love to find this for him and make a surprise gift of it, as it was an important book to him when he was a kid. Thank you muchly for your time!
A boy (teenager or younger) is dared to do something--perhaps an act of vandalism--to an old "scary" house. The man living there catches him, and somehow gets him to come back the next day. The man gives the boy a box to take home. When he gets it home, he messes with it, and that leaves some kind of black ink-like substance on his hands/fingers. When he tries to get the stuff off, it just spreads to everything he touches. He's worried about getting in trouble when his parents get home, but when they do, they don't see the mess.
The kid goes back to the man and the man tells him that now his mind is open to some kind of mental training the man intends to put him through. The kid learns to open doors in people's minds. Behind the mind door of the school bully, he sees a dying baby (meaning something like that the bully's inner self was a dying baby.) Behind his dad's mind door, he sees a teenager that never grew up.
This is as much as my friend revealed about the book. I would love to find this for him and make a surprise gift of it, as it was an important book to him when he was a kid. Thank you muchly for your time!