The Quirks, Welcome to Normal (8 page)

Molly wanted to go back over by Amelia and Izzy and Stella. She pulled at Penelope’s arm to get her to join them, but Pen just sat by herself on the outside of everything.
“Go,” she told Molly. “Don’t worry about me.” When Penelope began to scrawl out her haiku on the hard concrete, Molly shrugged and walked away. When she looked back,
she only barely registered that the outline of Penelope’s body had grown fuzzy. If you weren’t looking for her, you might not even notice that she was there at all.

Molly was so focused on trying to make friends that she didn’t realize that her sister was busily trying to disappear altogether.

W
h
i
l
e
t
h
e
girls worked on settling in at school, Grandpa
Quill and Finn tried to find the rhythm of their new lifestyle. But after only a few weeks, Finn got twitchy, and his boredom led to trouble.

His pranks were harmless at first. Finn would sneak around the house, tricking family members to make himself laugh. His favorite thing was creeping up on Penelope to drop something slippery or
wet into her hair. He also loved hiding strange things in people’s food—rose petals, extra salt, chopped-up crayons, toy cars—just for a laugh.

He wrapped the ham from his lunchtime sandwiches around the white picket fence in front of their house, until the whole yard stunk of ham and pickles and the fence was tinted pink.

Another day, Finn ventured out of the house and stuffed the Normal Night challenge suggestion box full of silly ideas that he’d asked Grandpa Quill to write out for him on Crazy Ed’s
napkins. Molly spotted him, arm deep in the box, out of the bus window on their way home from school.

With Finn, some days were better than others. But on the Quirks’ fourth Saturday in Normal, things got a little . . . hairy.

“There’s been a small accident.” Finn stood at the bottom of the stairs, with Grandpa’s electric razor in his hand, the cord dangling uselessly behind him like a
tail.

Bree Quirk was at work, and Molly and Penelope had been put in charge of their brother for a bit. But “a bit” usually ended up being a bit too long when Finn was around.

“I don’t think I want to know what happened,” Penelope said, lifting her eyebrows and looking up from her book.

Suddenly, there was a bellowing howl from the girls’ bedroom. All three kids stormed up the stairs, pushing open the squeaky door to look inside. Penelope’s monster, Niblet, usually
slept the day away under Pen’s bed. But at half past four in the afternoon, he was wide awake and perched on the lower bunk. He had his big arms wrapped around himself, and his head was
tucked up against his chest. He was wailing, making the thin walls of the house shake and shudder. Surely one of the neighbors would hear all the racket and come to check on them.

“Finn!” Penelope cried, staring at a nearly naked Niblet.

“I think he looks good,” Finn said proudly.

All three Quirk kids gawked at the formerly furry monster, who was now covered in a sparse coat of feathers. Dull brown feathers were interspersed with poufy pink and gold ones. There were a few
colored cotton balls of different sizes surrounding Niblet’s belly button. His body was pocked with nicks from the razor, and glops of white glue were still oozing on his skin. “I
shaved him,” Finn said, stating the obvious. “But it didn’t look cute—his skin has all kinds of funny bumps on it.” Finn shuddered. “And Niblet looked cold
without all his fur, so I tried to fix it.”

“With feathers?” Penelope gasped, rubbing her monster’s raw and hairless back. “You glued
feathers
to his body?”

“I found a dead birdy on the deck,” Finn explained. “Remember when Gramps taught us how to pluck a chicken? That time we lived in Pennsylvania?” Molly just stared at him.
Finn shrugged. “I pulled the feathers off the birdy, but there weren’t enough to cover Niblet’s whole body. Good news, though! I found more in the art box. When the glue dries,
this guy’s gonna look be-
yoo
-tee-ful.”

“Ewwww!” Molly and Pen cried together.

Niblet sniffled. Then he laid his big, lumpy head on Penelope’s shoulder. The girls had always thought of Niblet as a pet, almost like a giant puppy, which was maybe why he’d stuck
around so long.

“How did you shave him?” Pen asked. She stared around, trying to figure out where Finn was standing in the room. After a moment, she spotted the razor dangling in midair.

“With Grandpa’s razor. Duh,” Finn said, rolling his eyes. Molly had noticed that Finn had picked up a bit of an attitude since they’d moved to Normal. Perhaps he’d
been watching too many daytime dramas on television. “Gramps told me this razor makes his cheeks feel like a baby’s butt when he shaves—but that’s not what Niblet’s
skin felt like when I shaved him. It was more like a slice of fatty ham. Yicky.”

“Was he asleep when you shaved him?” Molly wondered aloud. Niblet was sensitive about stuff like how he looked. For a monster, he was awfully vain. But he could sleep through
anything.

Finn eye-rolled again. “Yeah. If he’d been awake, I don’t think he would have been happy about what I was doing. Don’cha think?”

Molly and Pen spent the rest of the night comforting their monster and trying to unstick the feathers on his body. The glue was really on there. Eventually, the only thing that worked was a
long, hot soak in the tub.

Without fur to keep him cozy, Niblet shivered and quivered. The next day, Penelope kept trying to sneak him out onto the deck to lie in the sun and warm up. But each time their nosy neighbor,
Mrs. DeVille, was out in her yard, Molly had to push Niblet back inside. Bree brought him a space heater she found in the back room at Crazy Ed’s, and they wrapped their monster up in extra
blankets. He seemed to like the bonus love, but Finn was irritated that Niblet got all the attention when
he
was the one who needed to be entertained.

“I’m so bored!” Finn whined. Niblet scowled at him from his comfort taco—the Quirk term for a cozy blanket wrap—on the couch. “Can’t I please just
do
something? Something out
there
?” He pointed outside, and Molly shook her head. When their mom had left for her shift at Crazy Ed’s that morning, Bree told the girls
that under no circumstances was Finn to roam the neighborhood. No one trusted him at
all
after what he’d done to Niblet.

Molly caught Finn making a face. He grinned at her. “Please?” he begged. “I found a kid down the street who talks to me.”

Molly and Penelope glanced at each other. “Talks to you?” Penelope asked.

“Sure.” Finn shrugged. “He thinks I’m his imaginary friend.”

“Not again.” Molly groaned. Finn had gotten the family into trouble in a few different towns when he made “friends” with neighborhood kids. The young ones would believe
just about anything Finn said—they couldn’t see him, so they thought they had made an imaginary friend. The problems started when his friends invited him over for dinner, and Finn piped
up in front of their parents. “No more being an imaginary friend,” Molly said firmly.

“I hate Normal,” Finn declared, then schlumped up the stairs. On each step, he shouted out an announcement. “Grandpa smells funny.”
Stomp.
“Mrs. Deville
tried to step on me yesterday.”
Stomp.
“I’m sick of being see-through.”
Stomp (creak)
. “I’m bored.”
Stomp.
“Bored.”
Stomp.
“Bored.”

Molly stepped out onto the front porch to get away from Niblet’s gurgling snores and Finn’s moaning. She flashed a tiny wave in the direction of her fairy grandmother, who
hadn’t come down from the uppermost branches of the willow tree since they’d arrived in Normal.

Grandma Quirk was as small as an Easter Peep, and usually kept to herself. Gran was allergic to indoors, so she’d lived most of her adult life inside a miniature house that the Quirks
relocated from town to town. When she wasn’t working in the garden—Gran
loved
flowers and herbs and was a potato-growing expert—she spent her days flitting about in the
backyard or alleyways. Her itty-bitty house had hung on the fire escape outside their New York apartment, had nestled atop the doghouse in their town house in New Jersey, and it was now perfectly
hidden under the drooping branches of the willow tree in Normal.

Gran was the reason they’d had to leave their last town—she’d been caught in the jaws of the mayor’s especially quick cat and dragged through downtown for everyone to
see. She’d been hiding out inside her house ever since, refusing to come down. In time, they knew she’d get comfortable again—especially since she wanted to plant her tulip bulbs
before the first frost.

When Molly waved, Gran pulled her head back inside her house to hide again. Molly leaned against the front railing and sighed. The rail squeaked under her weight. After a moment, Penelope joined
her. “It’s too bad Finn can’t go to school,” Pen muttered. “I’m a little worried he’s going to be even naughtier if he always has to stay home.” She
slipped her arms into a hooded sweatshirt and snuggled under a blanket on the swing at the far end of the porch. “I wish we could make him visible again. So he could be normal. Like
you.”

Molly shivered. Penelope scooted over so Molly could sit beside her under the blanket on the swing. Days had grown shorter, nights colder. Soon it would be winter. The Quirks had been warned
that it could snow as early as Halloween in Michigan, so they’d been trying to soak up every last bit of sunshine and warmth before the dark winter took hold. “He obviously can’t
come to school as he is, though,” Molly said with a shrug. “It’s hard enough keeping a lid on
your
magic—can you imagine how hard it would be if I had to deal with
an invisible brother, too?”

Penelope’s lip quivered. “I’m sorry we all make things so hard for you,” she said. “I’m
trying
to fit in at school—”

“You’re doing a great job!” Molly exclaimed. “I didn’t mean . . .” She broke off, realizing she’d probably hurt her sister’s feelings.
“We’re doing okay in Normal. Mostly.”

“I’m too weird for Normal,” Penelope replied softly.

Molly shook her head and tried to figure out what she could say that would make her sister feel better. Finally, she murmured, “Everyone thinks strange things in their own heads.”
Pen looked up, curious. Molly continued, “It’s just that your thoughts are sort of, well, on display for everyone else to see. You can’t exactly keep them
private
.”
This, Molly realized as she said it aloud, was the truth. “But your odd thoughts don’t make you
weird
. They just make things a little awkward sometimes. Really.”

Penelope shook her head and tucked herself farther under the blanket. Her voice was muffled when she said, “You’re just saying that.” They sat there quietly for a while. Then
Penelope whispered, “Eventually it’s going to be more than awkward. Soon I’ll mess up big-time. I always do.”

“You do not!” Molly argued.

“Do so,” Pen grumbled. “I’ve always ruined everything.”

“Well . . . ,” Molly said, unsure of what exactly she could say to that. In kindergarten, Pen had imagined that all the stuffed animals in their classroom could dance—and then
they did. In second grade, her mind had filled the gym with thousands of butterflies just so she wouldn’t have to do the rope climb. “Just keep doing what you’ve been doing to
hide your Quirk as much as you can, and we’ll be fine. So far, so good, right?”