The Mighty Quinn (21 page)

Neally helped herself to a hunk of pineapple from the platter of fruits and cheeses her father set on the kitchen table. She handed a slice of cantaloupe to Quinn, who stood in the doorway to the living room, observing his sister. Mickey sat on Neally's living room floor, crumpling newspapers into small round wads. Yin and Yang eyed Mickey intently but did not budge from their newsprint nest as the paper balls sailed past their heads.

“Your sister is nothing if not persistent,” Mr. Standers said.

“If that means she forgot that I promised to help her bury a dead mouse, then I like her being persistent,” Quinn said.

“I think it actually means ‘stubborn.'” Neally licked her fingers. “Yummers, this is
so
positively tropical! Tell me again why we can't grow just one little pineapple plant?”

“Again, because we are
so
not living in a tropical zone.” Mr. Standers mimicked his daughter. “Lucky for us, your mom's boss vacations in Hawaii every year and brings back a crate of fruit for all of her mainland minions.” He bent forward and stretched his fingers toward his toes, and although he groaned with the effort, Quinn saw that Mr. Standers' fingers easily reached the floor.

“I pulled a muscle yesterday. I sure could use some help in the garden.”

Quinn and Neally followed Mr. Standers out to the backyard, past the raised planting beds in the southwest corner, to a shed that was attached to the back of the garage. The shed had glass panels on its roof and sides, was as wide as an adult, and stood just a few inches taller than Neally. Quinn had never seen a greenhouse that small. Green
shack
would be a more accurate description.

Mr. Standers opened the shack's door. On the floor was a box of gardening tools, and trays of seedlings were stacked on the shelves. “They're coming along just fine.” He ran his fingers through his beard. “It's been a mild winter, but we could still get some frost. It's too early to take them out. We'll just give them a bigger nursery.”

“My mom grows vegetables in her garden,” Quinn said. “She gets tomato plants from the store, and string beans and zucchini, but not until the summer.”

Mr. Standers nodded. “We'll sow beans, squash,
lettuce, and other greens directly in the soil when it's warmer.”

“Are these the jalapeños?” Neally fingered the delicate, shiny-leafed plants that sprouted in cups made from cardboard egg cartons.

“Those are red bell peppers.” Mr. Standers pointed to another egg carton on a higher shelf. “Jalapeños are up here.”

“We start them from seeds in the winter,” Neally said to Quinn.

“I figure if I grew tomatoes and peppers in Washington I can grow 'em in Oregon,” Mr. Standers said. “But alas, no pineapple for my pining Polynesian princess.”

Neally ducked when her father tried to ruffle her hair. “Dad, what about this weekend? Is it a food prep or park patrol Sunday? Or is it a service Saturday instead?”

“We'll do it Sunday this week. You see, Quinn,” Mr. Standers said, “Neally thought you might like to help at one of our service days.”

“It's every weekend, on either a Saturday or Sunday morning,” Neally said. “Two times a month we go to the County Food Bank to pack bag lunches.”

“I could do that,” Quinn said. “What are they for?”

“They're for the downtown shelter, for homeless families.”

“That's cool. You do this every weekend?”

“Every other weekend. On the alternate weekends we pick up trash.” Mr. Standers gave Neally a knowing look. “That must be why you got your particular assignment at the Noble Woods. Mrs. L'Sotho sensed that you were an experienced Garbage Retrieval Engineer.”

“Yes, Dad, that's
exactly
why.”

“We try to go to different parks every other weekend,” Mr. Standers said. “It's a fun way to get to know them all.”

“Hillsboro has so many parks, and it's not even half as big a city as Spokane,” Neally said. “My favorite park is the one by Gales Creek.”

“I know that place!” Quinn said. “I saw a beaver there, and an actual beaver dam.”

“But we don't go to have fun. We go there,” Neally cleared her throat and used her serious voice, “to do good things for all humankind.” She put her hand to her mouth as if to tell a secret, but did not whisper. “Good things, schmood things: I refuse to pick up dog poop, no matter
what.” She leaned closer to Quinn and whispered for real. “Speaking of dog poop, have you ever seen Mr. Barker's hair?”

Quinn clapped his hand over his mouth, a second too late to stifle his guffaw. Mr. Standers looked quizzically at Neally and Quinn.

“Young lady, would you care to share that with the entire class?” Quinn intoned.

“We know you don't want us to talk mean about certain people, Dad. And we're not, we're just trying to figure things out.”

“Certain people?”

“Do you know Mr. Barker, Matt's father?” Quinn asked.

“Ms. Blakeman has given me some background info. And I've done my own research about the families of the kids in class,” Mr. Standers added, a little too quickly, Quinn thought.

“But you don't actually know him, do you, Dad?”

“No. I've seen him many times, but have never met him.”

“Same here. This morning I got to see him up close, when he brought Matt to school. He came to class to give a note to Ms. Blakeman, and ...” Neally wiped her hand across the top of her head. “I got a good look at his hair. Absolutely mesmerizing; it was
National Geographic: Wild Apes of Sumatra
hair.”

Mr. Standers chuckled. “I'm going to regret this, I know.”

“Then it came to me, Dad, and now I understand: if he didn't slick his hair so tight, he'd be nicer. It pulls on his brain,
that's
why he's so mean.”

“How do you know he's mean? I thought you'd never met him.”

Neally raised her chin defiantly. “I've met his son.”

Quinn came to Neally's defense. “You
would
think a pastor would raise his kid to be nice.”

To Quinn's surprise, Mr. Standers did not contradict his daughter. “Reverend Barker keeps Matt on a short leash, from what your teacher tells me.” Mr. Standers picked up a gardening trowel. “All that energy Matt has ... just think, if it were put to good use.” He picked at a clump of mud stuck to the trowel. “I looked up their church on the web. The information is quite specific.”

“Matt's church has a website? No way,” Neally sniffed.

“Yes way,” her father insisted.

“I didn't know computers were mentioned in their holy book,” Neally said.

“Matt's dad has a special edition,” Quinn said. “One with computers in it, and cars, and ...”

“And sports,” Neally added. “You can find out what teams God wants you to root for. ‘Thy ducks, they ruleth, and thy beavers drooleth.'” Neally was silenced
by the look her father gave her, but Quinn howled with laughter.

“Their website goes into great detail about the church's beliefs.” Mr. Standers looked down at the grass. “I was curious, so I drove by the church the other day. It's a shabby building, no bigger than your classroom, behind the QuickMart on Lincoln Avenue. Broken roof gutters and a sagging, rotting wooden entry ramp.”

Mr. Standers' voice was low and cheerless. When he looked up, Quinn knew he was telling them something confidential, even if he did not swear them to secrecy. “There's an old saying: ‘To understand all is to forgive all.' Let's try to keep that in mind.”

Neally and Quinn donned gardening gloves and moved the seedling trays to a bench in the garage. The junior gardeners followed Mr. Standers' instructions while he went inside the house to check on Mickey. Quinn transferred buckets of compost from the compost pile into a large basin. Neally added scoops of moist, dark dirt from a barrel under the workbench, plus a smelly, murky brown liquid from a green bottle on the shelf. They used their hands to work the mixture together into what Neally said was her dad's world famous potting soil.

“Guess you two didn't get your fill of playing in the dirt today.” Mr. Standers leaned against the garage's side doorway.

“We Trash Patrollers didn't get to play in the dirt,” Quinn said.

“The Trail Fixers were the ones who got their hands dirty,” Neally said. “Where's Mickey?”

“Can you believe she'd pass up a chance to play with fish emulsion?” Mr. Standers inhaled deeply. “Ah, the sweet smell of success.”

“Fish emulsion?” Quinn warily eyed the green bottle.

Mr. Standers nodded. “It's my secret sauce.”

“It's the best plant food, and it's totally organic, right, Dad? I looked it up. It's ground up fish guts. Maybe if you tell Mickey that ...”

“No, Mickey's on a mission. She's got Yin fetching newspaper balls, but Yang's still playing hard to get. Okay, once more.” Mr. Standers bent forward at the waist and grabbed his ankles. “I might have to skip the run tomorrow if these old muscles don't get any looser.”

“Quinn runs well, and very fast.” Neally removed her gloves and picked up fistfuls of the potting soil with her bare hands. “Did you know that?” She didn't wait for her father's reply. “Neither did I, until I watched him this afternoon, after the field trip. I knew he was good at tag and other running games, but I hadn't really paid attention before. And it wasn't just fast, it was steady.” Neally turned to Quinn. “It looked like you could have run for infinity. When I caught up to you, you weren't even breathing hard.”

Quinn tried to hide his grin. He was embarrassed by the praise, but he wasn't going to protest. It had felt so good to run; he
had
felt as if he could run forever.

“There's lots of running in soccer. Do they have mixed teams here, both boys and girls? I was on a team in Spokane.”

“But you're not now, are you?” Quinn knew what Neally was getting at. “I played soccer in second grade, and Sam and Tay and I did a basketball camp. I like to play at school, or in the summer when you can get a game going with friends whenever you feel like it. But if you join a team you have to go to practice and go to games all the time.”

“I totally agree,” Neally chimed in. “If you want to play some basketball or soccer, then just get a game going. But do you have to do it
every
Wednesday after school and
every
Saturday at ten-thirty? That's as bad as having to go to work every day, like an adult.”

“Heaven forbid,” Mr. Standers said.

“Kids today are overscheduled; I've heard Mom say so,” Neally said. “Like Kelsey—we live on the same street and I never see her. You'd know if she was home.” Neally put her hands over her ears. “If she's not at soccer practice then she's at Girl Scouts, horseback riding lessons, or gymnastics.”

“I don't like sports enough to want to be on a team. Also, it makes people weird.”

“How so?” Mr. Standers asked Quinn.

“All they care about is winning. I used to go to see Tay's games, and everyone seems like they're having fun, but then someone always gets mad and starts yelling.”