The Mighty Quinn (9 page)

Neally saw the gray clouds forming in Mickey's eyes, and she turned to Quinn. “Maybe Mickey could ...”

“No way!” Quinn urgently whispered.

Neally silently mouthed
Sorry
to Quinn and then spoke aloud. “As I was going to say, maybe Mickey could show me your pets
after
we stop off at my house?”

“Whoopee!” Mickey raised her arms above her head and pirouetted on one foot, spinning around and around until she staggered backwards, bumping into Sam.

“Perhaps the ballet is not your calling, Mistress Mickey.” Sam gently lowered the still-reeling Mickey to the ground.

“My brain is all whirly inside.” Mickey tapped her fingers against her temple. “I don't know how dancers can do that without barfing all over their pretty pink tutus.”

“YOU'VE DONE YOUR LIMIT,” Kelsey yelled to the two sixth graders on the tetherball court. “YOU'RE PLAYING EASIES. LET SOMEONE ELSE HAVE A TURN.”

Neally hit the side of her head as if she were trying to dislodge a pebble from her ear.

“She's not really yelling,” Sam assured Neally.

“She's not?”

“For anyone else it would be yelling,” Sam said. “But for Kelsey, it's just her voice. It's not like she's mad at anything.”

“So, does she whisper when she's mad?” Neally asked.

“HOWDY, NEIGHBOR.” Kelsey King's mother strutted briskly toward the tetherball line. She waved to Neally in passing and slapped her daughter on the back. “I DROPPED OFF A NOTE AT THE OFFICE,” Mrs. King bellowed to Kelsey. “I'M TEACHING A CLASS THIS AFTERNOON, WHICH MEANS YOU'LL BE IN AFTERCARE UNTIL FIVE AND THEN YOUR DAD WILL PICK YOU UP.”

“Howdy, neighbor?” Quinn asked Neally. “Does she know you?”

“Our house is across from Kelsey's,” Neally explained.

Mickey gazed up in awe at Kelsey's mother and began counting. “One, two, three, four ...”

“Don't point!” Quinn grabbed his sister's finger.

“SEE YA, BABE!” Mrs. King saluted her daughter and marched toward the parking lot.

“You made me lose track!” Mickey whined to Quinn.

“I got up to seven on the left side,” Neally said. “You were counting her earrings, right?”

Mickey nodded. “Some of them were so teensy.”

“THOSE ARE CALLED POSTS.” Kelsey posed triumphantly on the court, holding the tetherball against her hip. “SHE WEARS THE POSTS ON THE LEFT EAR, AND THE HOOPS ON THE RIGHT EAR.”

“What does your mom teach?” Neally asked.

“GYMNASTICS. SHE WAS ON THE AMERICAN OLYMPIC SQUAD.”

“Why does she wear so many earrings?” Mickey asked.

“WHY NOT?”

Quinn frowned at his sister, but Mickey continued. “Does anyone ever tease her about it?”

“WHAT DO YOU THINK?!” Kelsey cocked her arm back and slammed the tetherball against the pole. “WHICH ONE OF YOU IS GOING TO BE THE FIRST TO DIE?”

“I bet I can make it all the way home without tripping.” Neally turned around and walked backwards, facing Sam and Quinn. “Wasn't it cool, at lunch? Like mother, like daughter.”

Sam swung his book pack over his head. “YOU MUST MEAN THE DEMURE MRS. KING AND HER MILD-MANNERED OFFSPRING.”

“I didn't know you lived so close to school,” Quinn said. “And right across from Kelsey's house; that must be interesting.”

“My parents toured the neighborhood and introduced themselves after we moved in,” Neally said. “They heard dogs barking, and it got louder when they went from house to house. But none of our other neighbors have
dogs. Guess where the dogs were? Mom came back in a really funny mood. She said even the pets have to yell to be heard in the King household.”

“You could do a comic strip about them,” Quinn suggested to Sam.

“Shouting dogs, ah, yes,” Sam mused. “Getting their mouths right would be tricky.”

“Dad said it was good to learn that Kelsey was an only child,” Neally said. “He'd assumed the reason she was so loud was that she was the middle child of seven kids and had to holler in order to be heard. He said it was refreshing to have his stereotype busted.”

“What's a stereotype?” Quinn asked.

“It's a kind of music system.”

“Miz Neally Ray Standwell the First cracks a good one.” Sam stopped at the corner and jingled a key that hung from a strap around his neck. “This is my street,” he said to Neally. “I have to write my spelling list so my sister can check it, then I'll be over. Oh, and do my piano practice, but that's just twenty minutes. You're on Greenwood, across from Kelsey's?”

“Yes, the yellow house. See ya later, Sam.”

Neally and Quinn continued down the street. “No homework!” Neally hugged her book pack to her chest. “I finished it during reading groups. I'm sorry for inviting your sister without checking with you first. She really wanted to come over, and I didn't want to leave her out.”

“It's okay.”

“I like Mickey. It must be entertaining to have a funny sister, even if she tags along.”

“How come you don't have a brother or sister?” Quinn regretted the question as soon as it left his mouth, but Neally didn't act as if she'd been offended.

“I don't know. How come you don't take swimming lessons?”

“I used to. The lessons got boring after a while, for me, anyway, but Mickey loves them. She wants to be in the city swim club. Any kid can join, but you have to try out. Mickey tried out last year.” Quinn kicked at a pile of leaves on the sidewalk and grinned with the memory. “She was the youngest kid to try out for the butterfly, which is the most difficult stroke. Mom and Dad and I went to see her. It was so funny; you should have seen it. It took her two minutes—two whole minutes!—to cross the pool after everyone else had finished the race. She just went up and down in the water, staying in the same place, doing that dolphin kick and the big arm circles.
I thought she was drowning at first, but every time her head came up for air she had this big smile on her face. All the adults, even my parents, were trying so hard not to laugh.”

“And she still likes to swim?”

“She loves to swim. She's lousy at it, but she loves it, which I don't get. The kid who finished first in the butterfly told her she swam like a spastic snail. She told him she was going to practice all year until her snail legs were strong enough to kick his butt.”

“I
knew
there was a reason I liked her. Right face, march!” Neally turned the corner to Greenwood Circle. “I can't wait to find out what my dad thinks about our class. Maybe he'll let you get a preview of your math grade. I wonder how he liked the ESL kids. I wonder why Lily is in ESL. What do you know about her?”

“Not much. I know she doesn't really understand how to play tag. She and her parents moved from Africa, last summer, I think. She's kind of shy—she'll talk a little bit on the playground, mostly with Janos and Arturo, but she almost never speaks in class, even when she's called on during the oral quizzes and you can tell that she knows the answer. But you know what? I love the way she talks.”

“I know
exactly
what you mean.” Neally ran her fingers over a withered rose bush branch that snaked over a split-rail fence at the front lawn of the
King's house. “Her words are fine, I mean, she uses them correctly, even though sometimes it's hard to understand her. When she talks it sounds like she's singing, even if she's just asking for the bathroom pass. I wonder what country she came from. We could look it up, and—uh oh!” A sharp, raucous yowling started up from the direction of the King's house. “Kelsey's Killer Coyotes sound the alarm,” Neally said. “It must be time to cross the street.”

Although Neally had considerately suggested that they save some food for Sam, Quinn was having second thoughts. He had just eaten the best muffin in his life, possibly the best muffin on the planet. He took a sip of milk and eyed the chocolate chip banana muffin Mr. Standers had set aside for Sam.

“Seconds, Quinn?” Mr. Standers held out a plate of still-steaming, fragrant muffins.

“Sure, thanks.”

“You're welcome. I'm glad you like them.”

“These are ...” Quinn licked chocolate off his finger. “These are the muffins of infinity.”

“Infinity?” Neally said. “I don't think you're using that correctly. We could look it up.”

“I love that word,” Quinn said.

“I'm sure infinity means something that never ends, so you wouldn't use it for a ...”

Neally's father shook his head.

“Sorry.” Neally looked down at her plate, trying to hide her guilty smile.

“Muffins were my culinary adventure project last winter,” Mr. Standers said. “My New Year's resolution was to make a different batch every week. Neally started calling me the Muffin Man.”

“My mom refuses to make New Year's resolutions,” Quinn said. “Dad says that's because the one time she made a resolution she later changed her mind, but she'd already told people what she was going to do and so of course they bugged her about it. I don't know why someone would promise to give up something they love that isn't bad for them, like chocolate.”