The Mighty Quinn (11 page)

“The Hamster Patch Quilt,” Neally murmured. She ran her hand over the small pink patch. “It's even cooler this way than if it was whole and perfect, because now there's a story about it.”

“I know.” Quinn grinned so hard his face ached. “I
love
that story.”

“It's a fantabulous quilt,” Neally said. “It's a quilt ... for all infinity.”

Quinn's eyes widened.

“Infinity
is
a great word.” Neally smiled saucily. “But if your grandma made the quilt for you, why is it in Mickey's room?”

“Grandma made quilts for all her grandkids, but she died before Mickey was born.”

“So you gave your quilt to Mickey? That was nice of you.”

“Well, it's pink.”

“Well, duh. Do you like it?”

“Sure. It's a great quilt.”

“It's just a color, you know,” Neally said. “I don't care for pink, either—I'm more into dark colors, like green and purple. But it's not like colors can zap your chromosomes. I don't understand why some boys act like they're afraid of pink.”

“I'm not afraid of pink. If I was, I'd be afraid of Alice's eyes.” Quinn pointed at the rat cage.

“Yes!” Neally reached for the cage door. “I can hold her, right?”

“Sure. She won't bite.”

“My mom hates rats,” Neally said gleefully. “She says their tails look like freeze-dried snakes. Hey Alice, your whiskers tickle my hands!” Alice crawled up Neally's arm and perched on her shoulder. “Yin and Yang would really go for her. For a midnight snack, I mean. I'm sorry my dad wouldn't let me wake them when we were at my place. Afternoon is their nap time.”

“That's okay. They were awesome just to look at.” Quinn let Alice sniff his finger. “Siamese are the best cats.”

“They're not pure Siamese, which is a good thing, because they don't have those creepy meows that sound like someone's pinching a howler monkey,” Neally said. “Mom says they've got just enough Siamese in them to make them too smart for their own good. They can open drawers, and even the front door screen. Sometimes Yin drags the newspaper to the back porch in the morning, and then Yang shreds it.”

“If you want a pet to fetch the paper, you need a dog.” Quinn put Alice back in her cage.

“Who wants to teach anything to fetch?” Neally asked.

Quinn turned his attention to the hamster cage. “I wish we had a dog. I'd like a big one, an Irish setter or an Alaskan husky, not a little yippy dog.” He stuck his finger through the bars and spun the wheel. “Have you ever had a dog?”

“We had a chocolate Lab puppy. He was cute, but dumb as a box of crayons. He'd get loose and run out into the street and chase passing cars.” The muscles in Neally's face curved as if she was telling a joke, but her voice was small and serious. “Then, one day, he caught one.”

“Oh.”

“I think Dad would like for us to have another dog. He loves all kinds of animals. But Mom doesn't care for dogs. They grovel, you know.”

“Grovel?”

“It's like begging. Dogs do whatever you want, because they want you to be nice to them. It's so ...
desperate
. Kind of like Tay. Mom says she doesn't respect people who grovel, so why would she want that in an animal? Hey, is Mickey outside with your mom?”

“Probably.” Quinn looked out the window, and indeed, Mickey and his mother were weeding the ground by the azalea plants. “What do you mean, ‘like Tay?' About the groveling stuff.”

“Sorry.” Neally sounded anything but sorry. “I've noticed how Tay acts tough with you and Sam, then he's all loose and wiggly when Matt is around. It's obvious he wants Matt to like him.”

“So?” Quinn turned from the window. “Let's go downstairs.”

“So ...” Neally paused. “I guess it
would
make anyone's
life easier, to have Matt like them.”

“Tay's having a sleepover at his house on Friday. Sam's going too.” Quinn stopped at the top of the stairway, and Neally almost bumped into his back. “Last year Sam's dad said that Tay was a ‘fair-weather friend.' Sam's dad likes the weather, but I don't think that was a compliment.”

“Will Matt be at the sleepover?”

“Tay had to invite Matt. His parents made him invite his entire Scout troop.” Quinn lowered his eyes, as if speaking to his shoes. “I'm invited, but I don't know if I'll go. I've never done a sleepover all the way. I tried a few times at Sam's, but I had to call my dad to come get me. I can't sleep at sleepovers. There's too much noise, and ...”

And Quinn missed sleeping in his own bed, but he wasn't going to tell Neally that. He missed the way his blankets smelled, like the flowers his mother planted by the back fence. He missed the sound of the hamster wheel spinning in Mickey's room. He missed knowing his parents were down the hall and would wake up if the house caught on fire. He even missed his sister's snoring—a wheezy, chuckling sound, as if she were giggling in her sleep.

“Sleepovers are
over
, all right,” Neally declared. “Over-rated, if you ask me. I'll show you a yoga breathing trick my dad taught me. I use it whenever I
need to calm down or have trouble sleeping. Did I tell you the idea my dad has for the community service project?”

“Only about ten times while your dad was bagging the leftover muffins for us.”

“We'll get to spend a day outside, digging in the mud. I'll wait until Sam gets here to tell the details—oh, hold on, idea alert! Let's put the muffins out with glasses of milk and act like we don't know where they came from. We'll tell Mickey that the muffin fairy visited your house.”

“Pa, did Ma tell you what happened?” Mickey waved her fork as if it were a magic wand. “We got visited by the muffin fairy!”

“The muffin fairy?” Mr. Andrews asked.

“Uh, Mickey? Pa? Ma?” Quinn looked across the table and tapped his fork against the side of his head.

“We've been reading
Little House on the Prairie
,” Ms. Lee explained. She passed a platter of potato pancakes to her husband. “Try one topped with applesauce. I think it's even better than with sour cream.”

Mickey's eyes widened. “'Scuse me.” She dashed into the kitchen and returned to the table, clutching a vial of green food coloring. “We do the funnest art projects at school. Watch.” She reached for the bowl. “I can turn applesauce into diarrhea.”

“
Mic-key
!” Jim Andrews whisked the vial from his daughter's hand.

“Gross!” Quinn dropped his fork. “That's potty talk. She has to leave the table, right?”

“Diarrhea is not potty,” Mickey huffed. “It's more like ...”

“Time out!” Marion Lee lowered her head to the table. “Someone, anyone, start a new subject,
please
.”

Mr. Andrews took the food coloring and the applesauce to the kitchen counter. He returned to the table with a bowl of sour cream. “Who here knows of any school subjects suitable for dinner conversation?”

“I got one.” Quinn's knees pumped enthusiastically under the table. “Mr. Standers has an idea for our class service project.”

“Mr. Standers, he's Neally's father.” Ms. Lee raised her head from the table. “Neally came over this afternoon,” she said to her husband. “She, and then Sam, and then the muffin fairy.”

“The muffin fairy?” Mr. Andrews looked confused.

“Ya shoulda had a muffin, Pa.” Mickey clasped her hands together. “It was taste bud rodeo!”

“The class project is going to be awesome,” Quinn said. “Neally told Sam and me ...”

“And me!” Mickey said.

“You were just at the table, Neally was talking to me and Sam. And you have to promise,” Quinn jabbed his finger at Mickey, “not to copy our idea. Your class has to do your own project.” Quinn looked at his parents. “You know the Noble Woods?”

“I love that park.” Ms. Lee patted her husband's knee. “We haven't been there in months.”

“I'm still wondering about muffins and fairies,” Mr. Andrews said. “Where did ...”

“Actually, Mom, it's a nature preserve,” Quinn said, “which is different than a park. Mr. Standers got the idea from when he and Neally went to OMSA and saw the Northwest Habitats exhibit. Our class will do trail work and habitat restoration, which means cleaning up ...” Quinn bit his lip, trying to remember what Neally had said. “Where there's been damage by human activity.”

“That certainly sounds worthwhile,” Ms. Lee said.

“The project judges go for stuff like that—worthwhile stuff. And Ms. Blakeman loves the idea. Neally's dad checked out the city's website. Habitat restoration is a regular city works project, but it was cancelled this year 'cause there's not enough money. We'll do it and save the taxpayers' money! I just know we're going to win first prize. Not that that's why we're doing it,” Quinn quickly added.

“I got lost in the woods back there,” Mr. Andrews said. “What's OMSA?”

“It's that museum in Portland,” Ms. Lee said. “Oregon Museum of Science and something.”

“And Arts,” Quinn said. “Neally's family just moved here, and they're members already.”

“Didn't your class have a field trip to OMSA?” Ms. Lee asked.

“That was last year, and we didn't stay very long. We only had enough time to see the human development exhibit. The childbirth part was boring or yucky, I couldn't decide which one.”

“Yucky gets my vote,” Ms. Lee said.

“Neally says the chemistry lab is ultra cool. It has information on DNA and chromosomes. She used that word twice today, and you don't usually hear it even once a day.”

“She said ultra cool two times?” Mickey said.

“No,
chromosomes
. But, we were arguing about colors.” Quinn frowned. “I don't think she knew what she was talking about.”

“Then ask her,” Ms. Lee suggested.

“She'd probably act like she does know, even if she doesn't. She'd say she looked it up. She always says that.”

“She is a clever one,” Ms. Lee said. “What are Neally's parents like? I know her father can bake a mean muffin.”

“Now we're getting somewhere,” Mr. Andrews muttered.

Mickey wiggled in her seat. “Her dad is the muffin fairy?”

“I don't know her mom yet,” Quinn said. “She's a nurse. I saw her once, at school. She looked nice. Neally's dad, well, I think he's a lot like Neally. Or maybe Neally's like him. That's why she's ... ah, foof! It's hard to explain.”

“Quinn went to Neally's after school,” Ms. Lee said to her husband. “What is Neally's home like?” she asked Quinn.

“The walls in their house are covered with books.” Quinn arranged the potato pancakes on his plate, leaning them against one another as if he were making a teepee. “There's a bookcase against every wall. Every room is like a different library. Neally and her dad played this game with me, to see if I could figure out the subjects, and I could, mostly. The living room has travel books on one side and also some biographies. On the other side are books on religion and ... the subject that's about thinking about the meaning of life.”

“Philosophy?” Quinn's mother offered.

“Yeah, philosophy. And in the kitchen, well, that was easy. Books on cooking and eating. You know, food stuff.”

“Who needs books on eating?” Mickey asked. “Everyone knows how to eat.”

“In the hall there's dictionaries and maps on one side, foreign languages on the other ...”

“Ah, the reference section,” Mr. Andrews said.

“... and history. And a whole bookcase for Neally's mom's medical books. There's even books in the garage, about gardening and plants. Their house is kinda small ...”