Quinny & Hopper (3 page)

Six

I watch Quinny walk away from my house. The back of her head, I notice, is much quieter than the front.

I watch the back of her head until she’s gone. Then I pull down my window shade and get back to work on my foot model. I finish connecting the five metatarsals to the fourteen phalanges, which are the toe bones. These are tiny. These are tricky. (And they’re more important than they look. Without all your toes, you would lose your balance when you walked.)

After a while, I go back to my window. I move the shade an inch and peek out.

Quinny’s still gone. I’m glad about that. But I’m also sad she’s not here anymore.

“Hopper?”

It’s Mom. She touches my shoulder.

“You hungry?”

I shake my head.

“T
revor and Ty are playing downstairs.”

That’s a hint that the punishment is over and I’m allowed to leave my room, too. But I can hear what my brothers are doing downstairs. They are playing that video game where you explode the bad guy’s head into drippy brain soup. This does not put them in a calm mood.

“I think I should stay in here and keep thinking about how to use better manners.”

Mom doesn’t fall for this.

She sits with me. “How are you doing on that foot?”

I show her what I’ve done so far. She tries to seem interested.

Then I say, “Quinny had big feet.”

“Did she?”

She did. And big eyes. Big hair. And that big mouth, full of words.

Suddenly, I feel strange.

“Hopper, what’s wrong?” Mom asks.

Something. But I don’t know how to say it in sentences.

“
We
ll, guess what, sweetie? Grandpa Gooley called to say he’s going for a late swim tonight. Why don’t you join him?”

Grandpa Gooley comes over, and we ride our bikes to the town pool. Just the two of us.

The only other person in the pool is my neighbor Mrs. Porridge. She’s got on a swim cap that looks like bright parrot feathers, and she’s doing the sidestroke. I wave. She waves back. The good thing about Mrs. Porridge is, she doesn’t expect me to act louder than I really am.

I like the pool at night, when it’s not crowded. I like swimming long and fast, which is called “swimming laps.” Tonight I can swim laps without Trevor pulling my foot or Ty kicking my head.

I dive in. I hold my breath and swim underwater almost the whole way to the other end of the pool. Underwater is my second-favorite place in the world. When I’m swimming, I forget about stuff that’s bugging me.

But when I’m done swimming, I remember it again.

“Hopper, is everything okay?” asks Grandpa Gooley as we dry ourselves off.

I don’t know. So I don’t answer. I’m glad it’s getting dark out so he can’t see my face, which feels hot all of a sudden.

“Yo
u’re all tuckered out, aren’t you?” he says. “Let’s get you to bed.”

Grandpa Gooley and I ride our bikes home. As we pull into my driveway, I look over at Mr. McSoren’s old house, which is now Quinny’s new house. Some of the lights are on. Some of the windows are open. People are talking and laughing in there. Someone’s playing the accordion.

I look the other way. I try to listen the other way, too.

At bedtime, I brush my teeth. I floss my teeth. I think about Quinny’s teeth. They were the happiest teeth I’ve ever seen.

But I wish she didn’t have so many words in her mouth.

I wish she didn’t shout all those words right up my nose.

I wish I had another chance to be her friend.

Seven

Pizza, if you’re lucky enough to get some, is usually the best part of the day. But when Daddy opens up the box he just brought home from Whisper Valley Pizzeria, I gasp in disgust.

“Oh no! Can’t this town do anything right?”

“Quinny, what’s wrong?
Yo
u love pizza.”

“Not when it’s cut up into a tic-tac-toe grid.”

Square pizza = school cafeteria pizza. Real pizza comes in triangles. At least it did in New
Yo
rk City, where I wish we still lived.

I make a ferocious face at that yucky square pizza.

“Quinny, calm your engine down and eat your dinner,” says Mom.

Instead, I rev my engine up and zoom away from the table and upstairs to my new room. Everything here is different. Everything here is awful. I hate Mom’s new job for making us move to Whisper Valley. I hate this too-big house in this too-small town. I hate the clean sidewalks and the empty playground and the square pizza. I hate that two-headed bully monster Trevor/Ty and un-fun, un-friendly Hopper, who was rude to my interesting hair and wouldn’t even let me in his room.

I just…hate.

Daddy comes upstairs. “I’m not hungry, so don’t bother trying to feed me!” I inform him.

“Got it,” he says. “Boy, it’s been a crazy day, hasn’t it?”

Daddy unpacks my suitcase and finds my pj’s and sheets.
We
make up my bed together.

“I’ll never find a friend here,” I tell him.

“Never is a long time, Quinny.”

“Exactly! That’s why I’m sad. Why did we have to move here in the first place?”

“Honey, we talked about this. Mom got that great job offer. And we wanted a house, a yard, a slower pace of life for our family.
We
wanted some peace and quiet—”

“T
hen we shouldn’t have brought Cleo and Piper with us.”

“Good point.” Daddy smiles. “But I think we’re stuck with them.”

“Plus did you know that those giant bully twins next door are going to kill me? That’s not very peaceful. Let’s move back home before that happens, okay?”

“Honey, this
is
our home now. And nobody is going to kill you, I promise.”

I can hear Mom playing the accordion in another room. Sometimes that’s the only thing that gets Cleo to sleep.

“Let’s give this place a chance.” Daddy keeps talking. “It’s the middle of July. I bet lots of families are away on summer vacation now. When school starts, you’ll meet plenty of kids.”

School? School won’t start until September. That’s practically forever from now.

Daddy kisses me good night. “Get some rest and you’ll feel better in the morning.”

I doubt it.

I lie there in bed and wait for Piper to barge into my room because she’s scared of sleeping by herself. But she doesn’t. I wait some more, in the quiet, empty dark. I’m not a big old babypants who needs to snuggle with anyone, that’s for sure.

I close my eyes. My body is tired, but my head feels too thinky to sleep. I think about that stylish killer zebra-chicken named Freya I didn’t get to pet, plus that boy named Hopper I didn’t get to be friends with. I think about Hopper’s crinkly forehead and his careful, quiet mouth and his soft, scruffy hair. I think about his looking-looking eyes, and how my heart did a little hop when he looked at me, and then a little flop when he slam-bam shut his door in my face. Making friends was a lot easier back in the city. Back home, there were so many kids to choose from. There were loud places to go and busy things to do, and I always ran into someone friendly.

Then I remember something. There is a train station in this too-small, too-quiet town.
We
drove by it today, and it isn’t too far from my barn-house. In fact, I could probably walk there if I put my shoes on. So I make a decision: I’m moving back home, to my old building in New
Yo
rk City. It’s the only place I will ever be happy.

I get up and dig around moving box #67 and pull out my puppy bank. I’m sure I have enough money in here for a train ticket. (Almost sure.) I’m sure Paco, the doorman in my old building, will let me sleep in the bike room. (Almost sure.) I’ll sneak a slice or two from the pizza boxes that get delivered to the building every day. I’ll read newspapers or magazines from the recycling instead of going to school. Sure, my parents might be a little sad at first, but they’ll still have Piper and Cleo to keep them busy, and they can visit me anytime they’re in the city.

I unzip my suitcase and stuff back in the clothes that Daddy just unpacked.

Then I pop open my puppy bank’s belly button and pour out my money.

Eight

At bedtime, I read to myself (chapters four and five of
The Bat-Poet
).

Then I read to Mom (
Goodnight Moon
, still her secret favorite).

Then it’s time for one last hug.

She’s about to turn off the light when I ask her, “Mom, what do you call those holes in Quinny’s cheeks?”

“Holes?”

“When she smiled, there was a tiny hole here, and here.” I point to the sides of my mouth.

Mom smiles.
“Yo
u mean her dimples. They’re part of what makes Quinny unique, aren’t they?”

They are. I can’t believe there’s a body part I forgot about. Dimples.

Then Mom suggests we invite Quinny over to play again. Just me and her this time. Kind of like a fresh start.

I think about Mom’s idea. But three questions happen inside my head.

What if Quinny says no?

What if Quinny says yes?

What if Trevor and Ty tease me again about playing with a girl?

Mom must be a mind reader, because the next thing she says to me is: “Hopper, the most interesting boys play with both boys and girls. And besides, you are practically an expert at ignoring Trevor and Ty when they tease.”

She’s right about that. I feel a little better.

“Can we call her right now?” I ask.

“It’s late,” says Mom. “Let’s wait until morning. Quinny isn’t going anywhere.”

But morning is eight hours away. That’s a long time to let a person think I’m not nice. I didn’t even say bye to Quinny. She has no idea how much I like her teeth.

I go to bed. But not to sleep.

And then I find an idea of my own. A big one.

I go over to my desk. I get out my set of charcoal pencils, the kind that real artists use.

I get out my sketch pad.

Sometimes it’s easier to draw how you feel than to say how you feel.

Nine

I stuff my pockets full of money and my suitcase full of clothes and my sneakers full of feet and my head full of courage. I’m going to need all the courage I can get because it’s dark outside. I look out my window again—very, very, extra-very dark. The streetlamps in Whisper Valley don’t work too well, I guess.

I wonder what nature is like at night. I hope that killer chicken doesn’t attack kids. A lump bumps up in my throat, but I swallow it. I will be fine once I get to the train station. It’s still there, I hope. Train stations don’t just disappear in the middle of the night. Not unless the whole town is haunted or something.

I take one last look around my new room. I guess I’ll never find out what that ceiling tastes like. I pull my heavy suitcase toward the door. But all of a sudden I stop. Because I notice a glow coming from outside my window. I notice a
tap tap tap
coming from outside my window.

It’s coming from Hopper’s house.

I drop my suitcase and rush over to my window. And I stare out at something incredible, something amazing—something very, very, extra-very shocking.

I stare out the window at myself.