The Mighty Quinn (5 page)

“Sure. We can get everyone to double up. If you don't have a partner in mind you can just choose the person standing next to you.”

“She's in the second grade, you know,” Josh said to Neally.

“Second grade?” Neally scrunched up her nose and thoughtfully stroked her chin. “Let me see, that's the grade between first and third, correct?”

Josh looked confused, as if he'd asked Neally her age and she'd replied, “Canada.”

Neally turned back to Mickey. “We haven't been formally introduced,” she said. “My name is ...”

“Neally Ray Standwell!” Mickey said. “I heard about you.”

Several kids standing in line turned to look at Quinn, who decided it would be a good time to retie his shoelaces.

“Neally Ray Standwell, you have the coolest name ever!” Mickey declared. “And that's ever in the history of all of the names of namehood.”

“Yeah, right,” Matt snorted. He'd moved up to first in line, but ignored the open spot on the court. “Neally Standwell—what kind of name is that?” He hunched his shoulders up around his ears, leaned forward so that his knuckles grazed the ground, furrowed his brow, and jutted his chin out, in a passable imitation of the caveman pictured on Ms. Blakeman's classroom anthropology chart. “Me Neally,” Matt grunted. “Me stand well. But me sit bad.”

Matt's cave man grumble devolved into a fit of high-pitched laughter, to which Josh and Tay eagerly contributed. Sam looked
embarrassed, and Quinn merely looked away, while Mickey looked as if someone had thrown mud on her birthday cake.

“Sit bad! Stand well, sit bad!” Josh doubled over and slapped his hands on his thighs. Although the look on Josh's face suggested laughter, the noises he produced were peculiar, clacking whinnies, as if he'd inhaled a Shetland pony.

“Anyone know the Heimlich maneuver?” Neally patted Josh's shoulder. “Don't worry, Josh, we'll go to the office and call 9-1-1. I'm certain the paramedics can get that wiener dog—or whatever is stuck in your throat—out of there in no time.”

Three kids on the four square court were waiting for a fourth. “Next in line, c'mon!” the server called out. “Hey, Matt, rotate in.”

“Your name is Matt?” Neally asked.

“Indeed,” Sam said, flourishing his hand. “You have the honor of speaking with the Right Master Matthew Mark Luke John Barker, son of the Right Reverend ...”

“Yeah,” Matt shot Sam a withering glance, “it's Matt.”

“Hey Mickey, I have a joke for you,” Neally said.

“Is it a knock-knock joke?” Mickey asked.

“Even better. What do you call a boy with no arms and legs who's sprawled on your front porch? Matt!”

Quinn couldn't decipher the expression on Matt's face. He was well-acquainted with Mad Matt, Cruel
Matt, and Smiley-Face-When-The-Adults-Are-Looking Matt, but he didn't recognize Embarrassed Matt.

Matt glared at Neally with a smoldering, silent gaze for a few seconds. Then he turned his back on her and joined the four square game.

“You're in trouble,” Mickey warned Neally. “He's mean.”

“So what?” Neally looked down the line, making eye contact with and dipping her chin in acknowledgement to each student who stood in line behind her. “So what, right?”

“So, this is what.” Quinn tapped his watch. “I don't think we'll get to play.”

Mickey grinned at Neally. “So what?”

“Sew buttons on your underwear, that's what!” Neally said.

Mickey giggled and tried to tickle Neally, who grabbed Mickey's hands and giggled, “Aha, gotcha!”

“Hey, who made your shirt?” Mickey pulled her hands out of Neally's grasp. “The tag is sewed backwards.”

Quinn looked at Neally's shirt and saw the outline of a clothing tag under the front collar.

“The tag is where it's supposed to be. I'm wearing my shirt backwards.”

“Oh, I've done that before, lots of times,” Mickey said. “You can fix it in the bathroom. I'll save your place in line.”

“No, thanks, it's intentional. Sometimes I wear my shirts this way.”

“Why would you wear your shirts that way?” Tay asked.

“Because I can.” Neally smiled a curious smile, chirped, “See ya around, cutie” to Mickey, and skipped toward the drinking fountain.

“I SHOULDA KNOWN THIS WOULD BE THE SLOWEST LINE!”

“Who's gonna double with Kelsey?” Tay groaned, not bothering to turn around to see who had joined the line.

“Matt and Josh are playing easies, so no one else can get in,” Quinn informed Kelsey. “This could go on forever, and we've only got a few minutes of recess left. Let's play wall-ball.”

“It's too cold for wall-ball.” Tay pulled his jacket tighter. “Let's go to the swings.”

“Uh, Tay,” Quinn said, “it'll be even colder swinging on the ...”

“Four square is boring to infinity.” Matt snuck up behind Tay and bounced the four square ball off his head. “Wall-ball in the gym! Last one inside plays on a team by himself!”

The four square line disintegrated before Quinn's eyes as all of the kids, Tay and Sam included, followed Matt to the gym. Only Mickey remained behind. She picked up the ball and looked at her brother, her eyes widening with hope and sympathy.

“It's all right, Quinn.”

Quinn didn't know what felt worse: being deserted by your so-called friends, or having your little sister try to make you feel better because she'd seen your so-called friends desert you.

“Let's ask Mom if she'll take us to the pool,” Mickey suggested. “There's nothing like a swim after a hard day at school, except for ... well, except for a swim after a hard day at school. Okey dokey?”

The buzzer rang out, signaling the end of lunch recess.

“That's getting to be
soooo
loud!”

“Mickey, you say that every time the lunch buzzer rings. It's the same buzzer as always.”

Mickey tilted her head, touching her ear to her shoulder. She did that, Quinn thought, whenever a new idea was trying to enter her head and the old ones didn't want to make room.

“Really? It still sounds louder.” Mickey headed for the wall where the second graders lined up. She turned around and called back to her brother. “Say, do you ever wonder if someone counted to six thousand hundred thousand, and they were still alive?”

Quinn knew she didn't expect an answer. Whenever Mickey wore that quizzical face at home, Quinn and his mom would play a game. His mom would say, “Mickey's thinking out loud,” and Quinn would circle his finger by his ear and say, “
Think
–ing;
that's
what you call it.”

For just one microscopic moment Quinn wished he was back in the second grade. Although he rarely missed an opportunity to tease her, Quinn sometimes felt envious of Mickey, in ways he didn't understand. His father said that Quinn admired Mickey's positive attitude, but it was more than that, Quinn thought. Or, it was different than that.

YOOOOWEEE!

Matt Barker's distinctive yelp bounced off the walls and ricocheted off the roof of the playground cover down to the blacktop, and Quinn had his last figuring-something-out-moment before vacation: It's not that Mickey is “positive,” or that nothing bothers her—it's that nothing bothers her for longer than two minutes. That characteristic seems to make her happy, Quinn grudgingly admitted to himself, but he knew that not letting something bother you means you aren't fully paying attention.

Quinn Andrews-Lee had figured something out long before any vacation: if you pay the least bit of attention in life, things will bother you for a lot longer than a couple of lousy minutes.

Ms. Blakeman's class was the first class to be let out for vacation. Quinn was the first student out the door, and thus was the first student to discover that while the diligent scholars of Turner Creek Elementary were cleaning out their desks, the first snow in three years had fallen in Hillsboro, Oregon.

He let out his breath in a frosty gasp. Less than an inch of snow dusted the ground and the rhododendrons by the main building, but the stuff was glistening and white—it was snow! Quinn's classmates pushed past him, gleefully kicking at the light powder beneath their feet. Ms. Barnes, who was bus monitor as well as playground supervisor, stood ramrod straight at the spot by the curb where students lined up for their busses.

Quinn set his book pack down and began to scoop up snow in his hand, and a cold, wet blob hit the top of his jacket and slid down his neck. “Hey!” he gasped.

Teena Freeman crouched behind Quinn, trying very hard to look like she had not thrown the snowball. Quinn cupped his hands to press clumps of white mush into a respectable sphere. It wasn't much, but it would have to do. As soon as the meager missile left his hand he heard Ms. Barnes' whistle blast, which felt icier than the slush down his back.

“The next one who throws a snowball goes to Shirkner's office. You!
BRRRREEEEET
!” Ms. Barnes aimed her whistle at Neally, who was gathering a pile of snow. “Drop it, now!”

“Oh, for Santa's sake! Let the kids play in the snow.”

Quinn looked to see who had dared to talk back to the whistle. The voice belonged to a man who stood at the curb, behind Ms. Barnes. It was the man who'd come to class with Neally.

Ms. Barnes looked like she'd swallowed her whistle. Her cheeks and nose were red, as if she'd been sunburned. Quinn wondered if it were true that, as some of the sixth graders had said, Ms. Barnes had the power to cancel recess for adults.

“There could be rocks in the snowballs!” Ms. Barnes huffed.

“Rocks?” Neally's father repeated.

“This is a safety issue. If kids scoop up snow from the ground they might also scoop up rocks or other sharp objects. What if there was broken glass
underneath, or rusty nails, or razor blades? A kid would get hit in the eye with it, that's what.”

The man ran his fingers through his beard, and his eyes sparkled as if Ms. Barnes had told him the funniest joke in infinity.