The Quirks, Welcome to Normal (5 page)

Penelope started to cry, and the submarine sunk back down into the toilet bowl again, before eventually disappearing. “Maybe I should have just stayed home with Finn,” she whispered
through slurpy tears. “I can’t do this. I’m ruining everything for you.” All of the toilets began to flush repeatedly—Molly guessed this was Penelope’s
mind’s way of covering up the sound of her blubbery tears.

“You’re not ruining anything,” Molly insisted loudly. She had to shout over the sound of the flushing. Molly wrapped her long arms around her sister. She hated seeing Penelope
cry—it felt a little like looking in the mirror at herself crying. “It’ll be fine this time, Pen. I promise.”

Molly knew she couldn’t
really
promise, but sometimes a little lie was her only option. As Penelope blubbered beside her, Molly tapped her toe on the tiles in their stall. She
wished she could make her family fit in to a place as well as the graying bathroom tiles did—in a perfect line, arranged just so. She always thought if she could just shuffle a few clunky
pieces into position, everything would work out spiffy-dandy-nice. But the jigsaw puzzle pieces of her family were just a little too oddly shaped for order.

“Yoo-hoo,” a male voice called from the door of the girls’ bathroom. All the toilets completed one loud and final flush at the exact same moment before finally sitting quiet
again. “Anybody home?”

Molly and Penelope both bristled. Pen was still crying, and Molly didn’t know if her sister (or, more importantly, her sister’s imagination) had calmed down enough for company. Molly
peeked out through a sliver of a crack in the toilet stall but couldn’t see anyone. She could see the empty sinks and the hand dryers and the teal tiles that lined the walls of the bathroom,
but it looked like the girls were still alone—and Penelope’s magic hadn’t crept out of their stall quite yet.

“I’m missing two fourth graders,” the voice continued patiently. “I usually don’t lose a student until at least the second week of school.”

“It must be Mr. Intihar!” Penelope whispered. “What should we do?”

“You should come on out,” their teacher’s voice answered. He whistled a few bars from an old song Molly recognized—it was something their mom sang along with on her iPod.
“The mouse is gone, so there’s no need for you to be scared, girls.”

“He thinks we’re scared,” Penelope whispered urgently to her sister. “Do you think I can keep hiding? Will they notice if I just don’t go back?”

“Probably not,” Mr. Intihar whispered back. “Though I’m not as foolish as the other students may have led you to believe. Actually, I know there are
two
Quirk
girls, and they
both
seem to have gone missing.”

“Can he hear me?” Pen said quietly.

Molly rolled her eyes. It was obvious their teacher could hear everything Pen said. Sometimes her sister could be as scatterbrained as their mom. Molly slid the lock to open the door of the
bathroom stall. She peeked around the corner.

She could see the tip of a shoe holding open the bathroom door, but that was all. Molly walked slowly toward the door, realizing it did seem pitiful that she and Pen had gone into hiding when
the mouse had turned up in their classroom. If only their teacher knew the truth—that Penelope was the reason that mouse was there at all.

When Molly pulled open the bathroom door all the way, she found herself face-to-face with the tallest man she had ever seen. He had legs the length of a giraffe’s, and a torso that
stretched almost to the top of the bathroom door. His head was small in comparison to his body, but the smile on his face was gargantuan.

The shock of yellow hair sprouting from his head reminded Molly of the silky hairs on an unopened ear of corn. It went this way and that, and seemed totally out of control. She wanted to call
him Mr. Corn, but stopped herself just in time. “Hello there,” the mile-high man said in a friendly voice. “I’m Mr. Intihar.” He bowed. “A pleasure to meet you,
Miss Quirk.”

Instantly, Molly forgot about her family’s magic and her nerves about the first day of school. She beamed right back at Mr. Intihar and gave him a quick nod. “I’m Molly
Quirk,” she said. “And I like math.” She couldn’t explain why that had come out of her mouth, but for some reason it had. Mr. Intihar laughed the biggest, roundest, most
joyful laugh she had ever heard.

“Welcome to Normal, math-loving Molly,” he said kindly. “So this must be Penelope.” Pen had snuck out of the stall and was crouched behind Molly. Penelope was half an
inch shorter than her sister, and took full advantage of that shrimpiness to hide behind her twin whenever she could.

“Hullo,” Pen said nervously. Her eyes were squinted into little slits and her hands were balled into fists at her sides. Molly could see that her sister was fighting to keep her mind
still, but to an outsider it looked like Penelope was frightfully unfriendly.

“Well, ladies, I’m ready to get fourth grade under way. Are you okay with that?” Mr. Intihar ran his long fingers through his fluffy shock of hair and lifted his eyebrows.
“Shall we begin?”

“
S
o
w
e
f
o
l
lowed our teacher into room six, and
Penelope went all squinty eyed. Like this.” Molly made a ridiculous squished face and grinned at Grandpa Quill across the worn wooden tabletop at Crazy Ed’s family restaurant.
“The whole class was sitting still and quiet, staring at us, but instead of freaking out, Penelope just stormed into the room and sat down. No magic! It was incredible. After the first five
minutes, all the animal stickers stayed on their proper desks, even.”

Penelope beamed at her twin, clearly still proud of herself for holding tight to her imagination throughout almost the whole first day of school. Grandpa whooped and gave Pen a high five across
the table.

The Quirk family was crammed into a curved booth, back in the darkest corner of Crazy Ed’s. While they waited for Bree to finish her shift, Molly was sharing the highlights of their good
day with her grandfather and Finn. But Finn was hardly listening—he was busy plotting a way to get dessert before his meal. They almost never got dessert at home, so restaurants gave Finn an
exciting chance to practice his sneaking.

The whole Quirk family loved to eat out. Of course, they weren’t made of money, so it was a rare treat. But when Bree started her job as a waitress at Crazy Ed’s just on the
outskirts of Normal, the Quirks fell into some luck.

Crazy Ed’s was run by a woman named Martha Chalupsky. Martha had a faint mustache, cried when she laughed, and wore enormous striped pants—but she was far from crazy. In fact, Martha
was one of the kindest people the Quirks had ever come across. She believed that her waitstaff and cooks were part of her family. Martha insisted that each member of her restaurant
“family” bring their own family in to eat at the restaurant once a week. “On Auntie Martha,” she would say with a wink. Thanks to Martha, the Quirks got to enjoy their first
free meal at Crazy Ed’s on the evening of the first day of school.

“Today was almost perfect,” Molly said finally, relaxing back into the booth. After the mouse problem, there had only been one more tiny incident in the afternoon. During recess,
Molly had slipped and told Penelope that she thought Mr. Intihar’s hair looked like the tufty bits of fluff on a corncob. When the students returned to their classroom from recess, Mr.
Intihar’s sweater had little kernels of corn stuck to it. Their teacher had stared at his sweater for a long moment before brushing the corn into the metal wastebasket beside his desk. The
kernels pinged as they hit the bottom of the bin.

“Yep,” Pen agreed. “Almost perfect.”

Just as she was about to ask Finn what he’d done all day, Molly spotted her brother zipping away out of the corner of her eye. “Mom! Heads-up,” she shouted.

Penelope and Grandpa poked their heads around the edge of the booth and watched as Bree stopped in her tracks. She had been hastily carrying a tray full of dessert to one of her
tables—banana cream pie, ice cream sundaes, a pile of freshly fried doughnuts, and chocolate cake. A group of eager-looking women were watching her, their mouths watering.

Moments after Molly shouted, careful observers would have noticed one of the doughnuts slide quietly off the edge of Bree’s tray. But Molly was the only one who could see Finn standing,
clear as day, on one of the stools at the coffee counter. His arm was outstretched, and he had grabbed hold of the doughnut.

Finn jumped nimbly off the stool and crouched under the counter where no one could smell him or hear him or bump against him. He wiggled his little fingers and popped the doughnut straight into
his mouth. Molly could see that his face was covered in chocolate and ketchup and probably little bits of his lunch, as well. There was a tiny piece of ham taped to his knee—he had drawn a
smiley face on the lunch meat and turned it into a homemade sticker.

“He got me,” Bree said, shrugging. “Little bugger.” She knew what had happened—she had probably even seen the doughnut slide off the plate, in fact—but played
it cool. Then she turned to one of the other waitresses at Crazy Ed’s and smiled her winning smile. “Hand me another doughnut, sugar, and don’t ask any questions.”

“I couldn’t stop him in time,” Molly said, putting her head in her hands. No one had noticed the floating doughnut, but Molly was upset with herself anyway. She should have
been keeping a closer eye on Finn.

“You tried, doll,” Bree said, swooping down to plant a quick kiss on the top of Molly’s head. “I’ll get you an extra-big slice of pie for that save. If you
hadn’t yelled something, I bet that little stinker would have tipped the whole tray.”

“Maybe,” Molly agreed, flushing with pride.

“Now, my girls.” Bree focused her attention on Molly and Penelope. Her blue eyes were wide and friendly and loving, and both girls beamed back at her. “I can’t wait to
hear all about your day. I’m just about done with my shift, and then I want the full scoop, sweethearts,” she said. “From beginning to end. I’ll punch out and grab my tips,
and then we can celebrate a successful first day at Normal Elementary School.” She ran her hand through her hair, leaving a streak of sugar along one temple.

“I’m in—especially if this means we get to eat soon,” Grandpa Quill said. He grunted, then squirted a bit of ketchup on his finger and licked it clean. He caught Molly
watching him. “What? I’m starving.”

“Me, too!” Pen agreed, rubbing her stomach. “I could eat a whole chicken myself.”

It was when Grandpa slurped up a second finger full of ketchup that everything about the Quirks’ good day suddenly went very, very wrong.

First, Molly noticed that Finn had made his way to the glass case full of cakes and pies, where he was happily hiding in plain sight. Molly began to slip out of their booth, just as Grandpa
swallowed down his snack. She started toward her brother, ready to pull him away from the sweets.

At exactly that moment, Grandpa Quill got the hiccups.

Hiccup!

Now, hiccups might not be a big beef for the rest of the world. They are unpleasant, but just a minor inconvenience. But when Quilliam Quirk got the hiccups, time started skipping forward and
back without any mind for reason. He lost all control of his Quirk.