The Mighty Quinn (3 page)

“Eating inside's not so bad. You can push your desk together with three others in your row.” Quinn turned to face Neally. “Sometimes you get a buddy lunch. That's when you can pick anyone in class, no matter where you both sit, and you get to eat by the teacher's ...”

Quinn's throat felt ripply, like the time when he had laryngitis and missed two days of school. He wasn't used to anyone looking at him so intently. Usually when someone stared at him it was because he had food stuck in his teeth or because they were mad at him. Neally stared at Quinn as if he were about to say something incredible, but Quinn couldn't tell if she expected him to say something incredibly interesting
or incredibly stupid. Her eyes were deep and serious, and the strangest color of brown—no, they were green! They were a green so dark, it couldn't be a natural, eye-color green. It was a green from another era, or another galaxy; it was
cosmos green
.

“Buddy lunch, uh, you eat by the teacher's desk,” Quinn heard himself saying. “It's a privilege. You can earn it by ...”

“Move along, milkies.” Matt stumbled out the cafeteria door, pretending he was about to spill his tray.

“Ay, hey!” Arturo Delgado turned around, dipped his head three times and cupped his hand, motioning to Quinn. “Going now.”

Quinn saw that he had lagged several feet behind Arturo, who hesitated in front of the entrance to the cafeteria, waiting for the rest of the class to catch up. Quinn also saw that a straw had rolled off of Matt's tray. He bent over and picked up the straw from the footprint-streaked, speckled tile floor, mumbling to himself about how once again Matt had somehow managed to sneak to the front of the line without getting caught.

“My straw—oh, stop, you
thief
!” Matt's yell was shrill, like a cartoon damsel in distress. He lunged toward Quinn, but Neally quickly stepped between the two boys, whisked the straw from Quinn's grasp, and twirled it above her head as if the straw was a Fourth of July sparkler.

Matt shoved his lunch tray toward Neally. “You're welcome,” Neally said. She held the straw loosely, dangling it between her thumb and forefinger as if to drop it on his tray. Matt jerked the tray back, and the straw remained in her hand. Neally arched her feet, standing tip-toed, which made her a good six inches taller than Matt. She looked down at Matt, her galaxy-green eyes boring into his.

She's expecting something
, Quinn thought. It looked like there would be a stare-down. How was a new girl to know that in all of infinity, Matt Barker had never lost a stare-down?

“
Ándele
!” Arturo nervously whispered to Quinn. “C'mon!”

“You dropped something,” Neally said to Matt.

“No kidding,” Matt sneered.

Neally slowly and methodically blinked her eyes and tapped the straw against her palm.

“MOVE IT UP!” Kelsey boomed from the end of the line.

“Thank you, ma'am,” Matt finally said to Neally.

Neally dropped the straw on Matt's tray. “You're welcome.” Her voice was warm, but there was no smile in her eyes, and her fiery green irises seemed to turn a bitter, deep blue as she watched Matt saunter away. Quinn watched Neally as she stared at Matt's retreating form, and he felt as if Ms. Blakeman's frog clicker
had snapped between his ears. There was something familiar and unsettling about Neally's expression, something that reminded him of a shimmering green python, the kind of snake that was on the cover of his sister's favorite picture book. Neally had eyes that saw inside you, even when they seemed to look right past you.

That's it! She knows
.

Quinn's face felt hot, and he knew that anyone who looked at him would see him blushing.

The mud-matted, thick green blades jutted defiantly skyward, as if taunting the school district's groundskeeper,
I dare you to cut me down
. Turner Creek Elementary School's field was in need of a good mowing, Quinn thought, as he stood at the edge of the playground blacktop. He considered running a lap or two around the field, but didn't want to attract attention by sprinting solo. When they were heading to recess, Tay, Sam, and Quinn had all agreed to organize a game of tag, but as soon as they got outside, Tay said he wanted to go rescue the swing set from the second graders, and Sam had followed Tay.

Quinn couldn't decide which he liked least—the swings, or Tay's recently acquired interest in the swings. Quinn had known Taylor Denton III since
kindergarten. It used to be that Tay was always up for playing tag, but now he just wanted to play that stupid game where you try to swing higher than anyone else, high enough that the swing chain loses tension at the top of your arc and jerks you back on the downswing, high enough to attract the attention of Ms. Barnes, who blows her whistle and yells, “It's dangerous to swing that high. You're setting a bad example for the younger kids, and if you fall and break your neck, your parents will sue the school!” at which point you slow down and sing that stupid song:

The worms go in, the worms go out

in your stomach and out your snout

they eat your guts with sauerkraut
.

Quinn had been bored with that game since third grade, and he thought that Tay's newfound interest had more to do with annoying the younger kids than with using the swings. Tay wants to get to the swings before the second graders do, Quinn told Sam, because he likes to watch them make their pathetic lost puppy faces and beg for a turn. Sam agreed with Quinn, but lately it seemed to Quinn that whenever Tay wanted to go on the swings—whenever Tay wanted to do anything—Sam went along with Tay.

Arturo Delgado, Janos Petrov, and Lily L'Sotho stood at the far end of the blacktop with their hands in their coat pockets, bouncing up and down on their toes. The
three friends and ESL study-group mates moved as if they were one entity, and gazed longingly out at the field, wondering how muddy their shoes might get if they chanced running on the grass. Quinn scanned the school yard. Everyone else was either playing tetherball or four square or some other group game. He reminded himself that first-rate English speaking skills were not necessary for tag. Perhaps if he got something started, others would join in. Quinn jogged onto the field and sure enough, Arturo ran to join him, followed by Lily and Janos.

“FREEZE TAG!” Kelsey King jumped off the top of the play structure slide and ran toward the field, followed by four younger students. “DON'T START WITHOUT ME!”

“We'll be a team.” Quinn pointed to Arturo, Lily, and Janos. “The four of us, okay?”

“YOU'RE IT!” Kelsey flew past Quinn and whacked her hand against his shoulder. The students who followed Kelsey shrieked with joy, and scattered across the field like a pack of squirrels let loose on a peanut farm.

Lily clapped her hands and ran aimlessly in a figure eight, looking for someone to tag.

“No,
I'm
it!” Quinn called to Lily. “You're supposed to round up the others for
me
to tag!”

Janos stood as if frozen to the spot, his thick, straw-yellow,
bowl-over-the-head-cut bangs almost obscuring his eyes. He stretched his arms out like a scarecrow and turned slowly in a circle, his gap-toothed grin splitting his face from ear to ear.

“This is great,” Quinn muttered, as one of Kelsey's squirrels hopped in front of Quinn, wiggled her hands by her ears and made a
nyah-nyah
face. “C'mon, Arturo,” Quinn yelled to his teammate, “chase ‘em toward me.”

SSSSSSSSSSSSSQQQQQQ
QQQQQQQQQQQQQQUUUU
UUUUUUUURRRRRRK!

Ms. Barnes' whistle sliced through the chilly noon air.

“No running on ...”

“IT'S THE
FIELD
!” Kelsey sprinted to the edge of the grass. She shook her fists and stomped her feet, spattering mud on her jeans. “WE CAN RUN ON THE FIELD!”

“Not after three days of rain!” Ms. Barnes yelled back. “All of you, here, now.” The tag players reluctantly shuffled toward the blacktop. “You're ruining the track marks.” Ms. Barnes pointed her whistle toward the line of flattened mud and grass that formed an oval inside the borders of the field. “The sixth graders have to do timed laps next week for their P.E. grade.”

“But next week is winter break,” Quinn protested.

“The next week of
school
.” Ms. Barnes spoke slowly, as if she were trying to explain cursive writing to an orangutan. “The school can't afford to pay the groundskeeper to come back during vacation and redo the lines.”

Ms. Barnes craned her neck toward the sounds of a
Did too! Did not!
argument, her eyes gleaming with anticipation as she stuck the tip of her whistle in her mouth. She marched toward the tetherball courts, her brawny arms swinging and her purple plastic clogs squeaking with every step. Kelsey stuck her tongue out at Ms. Barnes' back, and she and her squirrels scampered toward the play structure, walking as fast as they could without breaking into a run.

“
Gracias
, Quinn.” Arturo tugged at the spiky, coal-black, close-cropped hair behind his ear and smiled shyly. “I like tag.” Arturo headed for the gym, with Lily and Janos right behind him, as usual.

I bet they even go to the bathroom together
, Quinn thought.
Well, maybe not Lily
.

I hope it rains the first week of winter break, and then during the second week I'll come here with twenty other kids and we'll run on the field
every day.

Quinn pushed teriyaki chicken and sesame noodles around his plate with his fork while his sister Mickey entertained their parents with the day's events in Ms. Reese's second-grade class.

“
Three
kids had their names written on the chalkboard. That's the most ever!” Mickey exclaimed. She dropped her fork on her plate, pushed her chin-length hair behind her ears and wriggled her stubby fingers in front of her mouth. “Ms. Reese says when there's only two days left 'til vacation everyone gets anty.”

“Antsy,” Quinn groused. “No one gets anty, they get antsy.”

“You sound thoughtful.” Jim Andrews grinned across the table at his son. “Did anything interesting happen at school today?”