The Quirks, Welcome to Normal (16 page)

Molly and Penelope were both stuck, as was Raade Gears, from their class, and his younger sister. A few people who were nearby came over to try to help, but they were pulled toward the ball of
gum as if by a magnetic, gummy force. Soon, dozens of people were stuck.

“This is a disaster!” Molly hissed. “Pen, you’ve got to calm down. Think of something else. Anything else!”

Grandpa sidled up behind the girls. “Do you mind if I help?” he asked Molly.

“Please, Gramps,” Molly whispered, realizing her grandfather was the only person who could fix the pickle they were in. “We need you.”

“So you’re saying you
do
want me to use my Quirk?” Grandpa asked with a smirk. “Huh . . . I thought magic was off-limits tonight?”

Molly
had
said that, but now she realized that a little magic might be necessary. “Go ahead,” she said with a weak smile.

Grandpa Quill grinned, twisted the ends of his mustache, and patted Molly on the back.

Post Office Lady looked at the Quirks, her eyes bulging out beneath her giant glasses. She pulled her eyebrows together, opened her mouth wide, and cried, “Did I hear you say magic?! What
magic?”

J
u
s
t
a
s
e
v
eryone in Normal turned to stare, Molly felt
time shifting and twisting and wiggling backward. Nanoseconds later, they were back where they had been a few minutes before, listening to Mayor Normal give her speech—again. Just before she
spit her second piece of gum into her fist, Molly grabbed her sister’s hand and began to sing a song. She also pressed her hand over her sister’s eyes to crowd out her vision. Molly
sang loudly enough that Penelope was completely distracted, and also loudly enough that everyone around them turned to shush her.

This time, the mayor finished her speech—“. . . I have faith that we can build the largest ball of ABC gum ever!”—without any trouble. Then she walked over to the golden
platter and dropped her gum on the pile without further incident.

Molly waved gratefully at her grandfather. He was back up onstage with the band, happily playing the accordion. She hoped they wouldn’t need to use his Quirk again.

The next half hour or so went along smoothly. Molly and Penelope trailed after their friends as they played games. Finn and Bree disappeared into the crowd with Mr. Intihar and Charlie. And
Grandpa went wild onstage with the band.

After a while, Mayor Normal stepped back up onstage to make another announcement. “Good folks of Normal! I hope everyone’s having a great time,” she called out, waving.
“I’m afraid we’ve run into a slight problem.” She cleared her throat as a curious murmur rose from the crowd. Molly and Penelope exchanged nervous glances.

“This is a bit of a . . . ah . . . shall we say
sticky
situation?” Mayor Normal laughed, but it was more of an uncomfortable chuckle than a pleased sort of sound.
“It’s rather embarrassing, actually. The thing is, we seem to be running out of gum.”

Everyone spoke in hushed tones at once—almost as if they’d practiced it. “What are they going to do?” Penelope asked.

“I don’t know.” Molly shrugged. “Get more?”

“The trouble is,” Mayor Normal continued, her microphone squeaking, “we’ve bought up the entire county. Every last piece of gum within forty miles was dedicated to
tonight’s goal. And we seem to have chewed our way through it.” She shuffled her feet nervously. “We have a few pieces left in the gumball machine—but unless there’s
some sort of miracle, it looks like we may not achieve our goal this year, folks. The record might go unbroken.”

The people of Normal sighed in unison.

Suddenly, Molly had an idea. She tugged Penelope into a darkened, empty space behind the fresh veggie stand and looked her sister right in the eyes. “You can fix this,” she told
Penelope. “You’re going to be the hero of Normal Night.”

“No, I’m not,” Penelope replied glumly. We’re trying to fit in, not stick out. We need to act
less
like ourselves, right?”

Molly smiled, hearing her own words repeated back. Sometimes she and Penelope were so in sync, but still so different. It was as though they were meant to be one girl, but that one girl had
split in their mother’s womb and come out as two instead. Penelope had gotten the family’s Quirkiness. And Molly got . . .
what
?

Then it hit her. Molly suddenly knew what that
what
was. Though there wasn’t anything spectacular or exciting or flashy about her, she suddenly realized she did have a place in
her family. An important place. It was just that her “Quirk”—if you could even call it that—was a different kind of magic.

“Pen?” Molly said quietly, watching as her sister chewed her lip and tried to keep herself from crying. Molly took a deep breath and soldiered on. “Your mind has the power to
make things happen. You know that. Now, tonight, you need to stop worrying about what might go wrong because of your imagination and focus on the good things you can do. Can you do that?”

Penelope looked at her sister like she was a little crazy. “I’ve never controlled my thoughts before. I’m only just starting to get the hang of
stopping
my
magic,” she said sadly. “And I can’t even do that right.”

“I think you do more right than you realize,” Molly said, blooming with confidence. “Remember the gumball machine at Crazy Ed’s? I have a feeling that wasn’t just
an accident. Maybe you made the gumballs run all over the place for a reason. If you hadn’t, we might never have figured out how to make Finn visible, right? I have a feeling that if you
decide that our town needs more gum, we can have more gum. Just close your eyes and picture what you want. You need to believe in yourself!”

Both girls stood in the quiet space between buildings, with Molly fixated on Penelope as Pen closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Suddenly, a spotted pony strolled up behind them and nudged
Molly in the rear end.

“Focus, Pen!”

Penelope looked at the pony wistfully, then closed her eyes again.

“You can do this, Penelope. This is our chance to save Normal Night. You can make more gum appear—enough that our town can still win this thing. I just know it. The Quirks can save
Normal Night!” Molly focused her energy on making her sister believe in herself. Even though Pen couldn’t always control her magic—and still hadn’t quite figured out how to
stop things from happening when her mind really, really wanted them to—maybe there was a reason. Maybe it was Molly’s job to make Penelope believe her magic was something special. To
make her believe in herself.

Molly Quirk had been working so hard to hide her family’s Quirks that she had never let herself consider just how useful their magic could be. In the five years since their dad had
disappeared, they had been focusing all their effort on trying to be just like everyone else—and failing miserably. Maybe it was time to look at things a little differently. Perhaps they
didn’t need to hide their magic . . . they just had to use it in a better way!

It was possible, even, that everyone would be better off if they played up their differences! She was going to help her family put their Quirks to good use, no matter what. Because of her
immunity, it was the one thing Molly knew she could do that no one else could.

“Focus, Pen,” she said again. “You’ve got to believe it’s what you really want.”

Penelope squeezed her eyes tight and let her mind meander through fields of gum—small balls, large balls, sticks, and squares. Pink, yellow, green, white, blue, and violet. She imagined
gum filling the gumball machine, stuffing the boxes around it, and flowing out of the rainspouts. She imagined enough gum to keep the whole town chewing for years.

Both girls startled at the sound of loud pops nearby, like hail hitting a tin roof—sudden, sharp, and continuous. “Do you think it worked?” Penelope asked.

Molly shrugged as the noise subsided. “Dunno. Let’s go check it out.”

They walked back out to the center square. It was total chaos. Everyone was looking around for the source of the popping sounds. Finn ran up to his sisters, his mouth stuffed with gum.
“You guys? I think you should come check out the dunk tank . . .”

Penelope and Molly ran after Finn. Mrs. Owens, the school media teacher, had closed down the dunk tank line nearly an hour earlier. She’d told everyone the tank was broken, but Molly and
Penelope knew that it wasn’t. It was just that Pen’s imagination had made the person sitting above the tank fall into the cold water on every single turn.

“Look!” Finn cried, standing on tiptoes to peek over the edge of the tank. Instead of an icy pool of water, the whole thing was filled with hundreds of gumballs!

The Quirk kids stared down into the tank. “I did it!” Penelope exclaimed.

“You did it,” Molly agreed, grinning. “The question is, how are we going to explain how all of this gum got here? It’s not like we can fool anyone that more gum was
hiding out in the dunk tank the whole time.”

Suddenly, a tiny voice piped up from deep inside the pit of gum. “Help!” the voice cried. “I’m stuck!”

“
I
s
t
h
at
t
he gum talking?” Penelope wondered
aloud.

Finn rolled his eyes. “That’s just Charlie—Mr. Intihar’s son.” He shrugged. “We were playing a game.”

“A game in the dunk tank?” Molly asked.

Finn grinned. “Yeah. Charlie sits on the seat. Then I push the button to make him fall. Splash!” He laughed hilariously. “We did it, like, a hundred times.”

“He let you dunk him a hundred times?” Penelope gasped.

“He didn’t
know
it was me,” Finn answered. “I popped my gum out when I pushed the button. I didn’t want him to see me. Charlie probably thinks the dunk
tank is magic or something!”

Molly and Penelope shared a glance. “Okay . . . ,” Molly said finally. “We need to get Charlie out of there, and we need to figure out some way to get this gum out of the dunk
tank and into the gumball machine without anyone seeing us.”

“Can’t we just have Mom tell everyone that the gum was hiding in here all along?” Finn suggested. “People always believe her, you know. She’s very smart.”