The Mighty Quinn

by Robyn Parnell

  “Buddy lunch, uh, you eat by the teacher’s desk,” Quinn heard himself saying. “It’s a privilege. You can earn it by …”

  “Move along, milkies.” Matt stumbled out the cafeteria door, pretending he was about to spill his tray.

  “Ay, hey!” Arturo Delgado turned around, dipped his head three times and cupped his hand, motioning to Quinn. “Going now.”

  Quinn saw that he had lagged several feet behind Arturo, who hesitated in front of the entrance to the cafeteria, waiting for the rest of the class to catch up. Quinn also saw that a straw had rolled off of Matt’s tray. He bent over and picked up the straw from the footprint-streaked, speckled tile floor, mumbling to himself about how once again Matt had somehow managed to sneak to the front of the line without getting caught.

  “My straw—oh, stop, you thief!” Matt’s yell was shrill, like a cartoon damsel in distress. He lunged toward Quinn, but Neally quickly stepped between the two boys, whisked the straw from Quinn’s grasp, and twirled it above her head as if the straw was a Fourth of July sparkler.

  Matt shoved his lunch tray toward Neally. “You’re welcome,” Neally said. She held the straw loosely, dangling it between her thumb and forefinger as if to drop it on his tray. Matt jerked the tray back, and the straw remained in her hand. Neally arched her feet, standing tiptoed, which made her a good six inches taller than Matt. She looked down at Matt, her galaxy-green eyes boring into his.

  She’s expecting something, Quinn thought. It looked like there would be a stare-down. How was a new girl to know that in all of infinity, Matt Barker had never lost a stare-down?

  “Ándele!” Arturo nervously whispered to Quinn. “C’mon!”

  “You dropped something,” Neally said to Matt.

  “No kidding,” Matt sneered.

  Neally slowly and methodically blinked her eyes and tapped the straw against her palm.

  “MOVE IT UP!” Kelsey boomed from the end of the line.

  “Thank you, ma’am,” Matt finally said to Neally.

  Neally dropped the straw on Matt’s tray. “You’re welcome.” Her voice was warm, but there was no smile in her eyes, and her fiery green irises seemed to turn a bitter, deep blue as she watched Matt saunter away. Quinn watched Neally as she stared at Matt’s retreating form, and he felt as if Ms. Blakeman’s frog clicker had snapped between his ears. There was something familiar and unsettling about Neally’s expression, something that reminded him of a shimmering green python, the kind of snake that was on the cover of his sister’s favorite picture book. Neally had eyes that saw inside you, even when they seemed to look right past you.

  That’s it! She knows.

  Quinn’s face felt hot, and he knew that anyone who looked at him would see him blushing.

  3

  THE WORMS GO IN, THE WORMS GO OUT

  The mud-matted, thick green blades jutted defiantly skyward, as if taunting the school district’s groundskeeper, I dare you to cut me down. Turner Creek Elementary School’s field was in need of a good mowing, Quinn thought, as he stood at the edge of the playground blacktop. He considered running a lap or two around the field, but didn’t want to attract attention by sprinting solo. When they were heading to recess, Tay, Sam, and Quinn had all agreed to organize a game of tag, but as soon as they got outside, Tay said he wanted to go rescue the swing set from the second graders, and Sam had followed Tay.

  Quinn couldn’t decide which he liked least—the swings, or Tay’s recently acquired interest in the swings. Quinn had known Taylor Denton III since kindergarten. It used to be that Tay was always up for playing tag, but now he just wanted to play that stupid game where you try to swing higher than anyone else, high enough that the swing chain loses tension at the top of your arc and jerks you back on the downswing, high enough to attract the attention of Ms. Barnes, who blows her whistle and yells, “It’s dangerous to swing that high. You’re setting a bad example for the younger kids, and if you fall and break your neck, your parents will sue the school!” at which point you slow down and sing that stupid song:

  The worms go in, the worms go out

  in your stomach and out your snout

  they eat your guts with sauerkraut.

  Quinn had been bored with that game since third grade, and he thought that Tay’s newfound interest had more to do with annoying the younger kids than with using the swings. Tay wants to get to the swings before the second graders do, Quinn told Sam, because he likes to watch them make their pathetic lost puppy faces and beg for a turn. Sam agreed with Quinn, but lately it seemed to Quinn that whenever Tay wanted to go on the swings—whenever Tay wanted to do anything—Sam went along with Tay.

  Arturo Delgado, Janos Petrov, and Lily L’Sotho stood at the far end of the blacktop with their hands in their coat pockets, bouncing up and down on their toes. The three friends and ESL study-group mates moved as if they were one entity, and gazed longingly out at the field, wondering how muddy their shoes might get if they chanced running on the grass. Quinn scanned the school yard. Everyone else was either playing tetherball or four square or some other group game. He reminded himself that first-rate English speaking skills were not necessary for tag. Perhaps if he got something started, others would join in. Quinn jogged onto the field and sure enough, Arturo ran to join him, followed by Lily and Janos.

  “FREEZE TAG!” Kelsey King jumped off the top of the play structure slide and ran toward the field, followed by four younger students. “DON’T START WITHOUT ME!”

  “We’ll be a team.” Quinn pointed to Arturo, Lily, and Janos. “The four of us, okay?”

  “YOU’RE IT!” Kelsey flew past Quinn and whacked her hand against his shoulder. The students who followed Kelsey shrieked with joy, and scattered across the field like a pack of squirrels let loose on a peanut farm.

  Lily clapped her hands and ran aimlessly in a figure eight, looking for someone to tag.

  “No, I’m it!” Quinn called to Lily. “You’re supposed to round up the others for me to tag!”

  Janos stood as if frozen to the spot, his thick, straw-yellow, bowl-over-the-head-cut bangs almost obscuring his eyes. He stretched his arms out like a scarecrow and turned slowly in a circle, his gap-toothed grin splitting his face from ear to ear.

  “This is great,” Quinn muttered, as one of Kelsey’s squirrels hopped in front of Quinn, wiggled her hands by her ears and made a nyah-nyah face. “C’mon, Arturo,” Quinn yelled to his teammate, “chase ‘em toward me.”

  SSSSSSSSSSSSSQQQQQQ

  QQQQQQQQQQQQQQUUUU

  UUUUUUUURRRRRRK!

  Ms. Barnes’ whistle sliced through the chilly noon air.

  “No running on …”

  “IT’S THE FIELD!” Kelsey sprinted to the edge of the grass. She shook her fists and stomped her feet, spattering mud on her jeans. “WE CAN RUN ON THE FIELD!”

  “Not after three days of rain!” Ms. Barnes yelled back. “All of you, here, now.” The tag players reluctantly shuffled toward the blacktop. “You’re ruining the track marks.” Ms. Barnes pointed her whistle toward the line of flattened mud and grass that formed an oval inside the borders of the field. “The sixth graders have to do timed laps next week for their P.E. grade.”

  “But next week is winter break,” Quinn protested.

  “The next week of school.” Ms. Barnes spoke slowly, as if she were trying to explain cursive writing to an orangutan. “The school can’t afford to pay the groundskeeper to come back during vacation and redo the lines.”

  Ms. Barnes craned her neck toward the sounds of a Did too! Did not! argument, her eyes gleaming with anticipation as she stuck the tip of her whistle in her mouth. She marched toward the tetherball courts, her brawny arms swinging and her purple plastic clogs squeaking with every step. Kelsey stuck her tongue out at Ms. Barnes’ back, and she and her squirrels scampered toward the play structure, walking as fast as they could without breaking into a run.

  “Gracias, Quinn.” Arturo tugged at the spiky, coal-black, close-cropped
hair behind his ear and smiled shyly. “I like tag.” Arturo headed for the gym, with Lily and Janos right behind him, as usual.

  I bet they even go to the bathroom together, Quinn thought. Well, maybe not Lily.

  I hope it rains the first week of winter break, and then during the second week I’ll come here with twenty other kids and we’ll run on the field every day.

  4

  MICKEY GETS ANTY

  Quinn pushed teriyaki chicken and sesame noodles around his plate with his fork while his sister Mickey entertained their parents with the day’s events in Ms. Reese’s second-grade class.

  “Three kids had their names written on the chalkboard. That’s the most ever!” Mickey exclaimed. She dropped her fork on her plate, pushed her chin-length hair behind her ears and wriggled her stubby fingers in front of her mouth. “Ms. Reese says when there’s only two days left ’til vacation everyone gets anty.”

  “Antsy,” Quinn groused. “No one gets anty, they get antsy.”

  “You sound thoughtful.” Jim Andrews grinned across the table at his son. “Did anything interesting happen at school today?”

  “Let me guess.” Marion Lee turned to face Quinn, who sat next to her, and her foot playfully nudged Quinn’s shin under the table. “Matt Barker saw the error of his ways and came crawling to you on hands and knees, begging for your understanding and forgiveness.”

  “Mo-om!” Although he was in no joking mood, Quinn could not stop the smile that snuck across his face. “Like I’ll live long enough to see that.”

  “Now let me guess,” Mr. Andrews said. “Is there more trouble with Matt?”

  “You still think he’s trying to get Tay to be his friend, and not yours?” Ms. Lee asked.

  “No. Well, sort of. Matt was being … Matt.” Quinn looked at his father, and then at his mother, and then down at his dinner plate in an attempt to quash a chuckle that caught him by surprise. His parents both had warm, coffee-brown, wide-set eyes and short, dark brown hair, and at that moment, with their softly arched eyebrows and almost identical facial expressions of loving concern, he thought they looked more like fraternal twins than a married couple.

  Quinn usually enjoyed talking with his parents when he had a problem. Sometimes they had answers to questions he hadn’t even asked yet, and sometimes they just listened and empathized. Either way, their attention always made him feel better. But Quinn had too many feelings stomping around in his brain; he didn’t know how to make them line up single file, and he thought that if he let them all out they’d crash together and trip over his tongue, and he’d sound ridiculous, or worse.

  Quinn was not looking forward to winter break. He didn’t want to say that out loud and worry his parents; every adult thinks every kid looks forward to every vacation. Quinn was determined to look “on the brighted side,” as Mickey put it. It was Mickey who had pointed out that two weeks of winter break would be a two-week break from Matt Barker. It was also Mickey who’d pointed out that while their family was staying put, all of Mickey’s and Quinn’s friends would be traveling during vacation. There would be no one to play with, except for Grandma and Grandpa Lee, who always came to stay with Quinn’s family during the week between Christmas and New Year’s. Grandma Lee was both soft-spoken and high-spirited, and although she claimed to be “allergic to the rain” she was willing to play checkers or cards or any indoor game with you all day long. Slow-moving, fast-talking Grandpa Lee knew more elephant and fart jokes than any kid at Quinn’s school, and drew cool pictures of Chinese letters, but the noises he made when he chewed his toast drove Quinn up the wall. Quinn loved his mother’s parents and looked forward to their visits; still, a week was a long time.

  Quinn looked up from his plate. His parents still wore identical expressions, the one their eyebrows got taller and their eyes puffed up like baby spotted owls. It was the You know you can tell me anything face. It was a good face, Quinn reminded himself.

  “We got a new student in class today, and she …”

  “We got two new kids last week!” Mickey gestured wildly with her fork, not realizing that she’d flung noodles on the wall behind her. “And we’re getting another …”

  “Mickey,” Ms. Lee said, “this isn’t a contest. Let Quinn finish his story.”

  Mr. Andrews pushed his chair back, went into the kitchen and returned to the table carrying a washcloth. “What’s the new girl like?” he asked, wiping sesame oil from the wall behind Mickey’s chair.

  “I’m not sure,” Quinn said. “She didn’t get there until just before lunch. She’s … well … yeah. Her desk is up front. Ms. Blakeman’s going to rearrange the desks after vacation.”

  “Something tells me the new girl made an impression,” Ms. Lee said. “What’s her name? Is she from around here?”

  “She’s from Spokane. She’s tall, and talks like, I don’t know, like she’s smart.” Quinn put down his fork. “I only talked with her a couple of times. She seems friendly, and she has these weird eyes. I’ve never seen eyes that color.”

  “Pink?!” Mickey squealed. “Are they pink, like Alice’s? I’ll get her and you can check.”

  “No animals at the table, no exceptions,” Mr. Andrews said.

  “Alice has red eyes.” Quinn rolled his own eyes in disgust. “White rats have red eyes, not pink eyes. Okay, but now that you mention pets, I thought at first the new girl had dark brown eyes, like Peppy’s.”

  “If I brought Peppy out of his cage, we could check?” Mickey looked hopefully at her father. “Since Alice is my pet and Peppy is Quinn’s, maybe …”

  “You little negotiator.” Marion Lee reached across the table and ruffled her daughter’s hair.

  “Nice try, Mickey,” Mr. Andrews said. “No Peppy at the dinner table and no Alice. No hamsters, no rats, no animals.”

  “No fun,” Mickey muttered.

  “Her eyes are so dark, and green,” Quinn said.

  “They’re a color like you’d see in old paintings at the museum, or from another galaxy or cosmos, maybe. Neally has the greenest …”

  “Neally?”

  Quinn nodded at his mother. “Really, it’s Neally. Neally Ray Standwell. Sam agrees with me: Neally has the coolest name ever. She even thinks so; it’s obvious she likes her own name.”

  “So, the new kid has cosmic green eyes and the third best name ever,” Ms. Lee said.

  “Third best?” Mickey asked.

  “It’s a tie for first and second.” Marion Lee grinned.

  “I know, I know.” Although Quinn had never seen any animal’s lips form a genuine, human-like smile, he could tell his own mouth was twisting itself into the kind of grin adults said belonged on a sheep. He began to recite in a sing-song voice, “Mom thinks the best names in the world are Quinn Michael Andrews-Lee and Michelle …”

  “Mickey!” Mickey insisted.

  “And Michelle ‘Mickey’ Elizabeth Andrews-Lee.”

  Quinn looked past his parents, past the dining nook into the family room, to the framed pictures that cluttered the room’s oak fireplace mantle. He loved the story his father told him every year, on Quinn’s birthday, of how he was named for a special friend of his father’s. The summer after James Andrews graduated from college, he made a bicycle trip across Ireland, where he met a man named Quinn Michael Tiernan. Although he looked nothing like his namesake, who had sapphire eyes and thick, wild hair the color of candied yams, Quinn liked looking at the picture of his father and the Irish Quinn. On a gravel road atop a moss-green hill, framed against an impossibly blue sky, the two friends straddled their bicycles, held their helmets above their heads, and laughed into the camera lens. “Aye and always,” the Irish Quinn had written across the bottom of the photo. That meant Friends for life, Quinn’s father said.

  5

  BECAUSE SHE CAN

  It had been the longest day of infinity. Quinn reminded himself that whatever happened on Friday would be the last whatever to happen before vacation. At nine a.m. Quinn took his
last spelling test before vacation. The last morning recess before vacation was followed by the-last-time-Brandon-Morley-needs-a-hall-pass-even-though-he-should-have-gone-to-the-bathroom-at-recess before vacation. Before long, Quinn was standing in the last lunch line before vacation.

  At lunch recess, Quinn decided to play a last game of four square before vacation. Quinn was not the only student who had this idea, and all four courts had long lines of kids waiting to rotate in. Quinn got into the shortest line, behind at least ten other kids, including Tay, Sam, and Josh, and the new girl, who was in front of Josh. All of the kids in line seemed to be focused on Neally and not the four square game; a few circled around her, seemingly unconcerned about keeping their place in line.

  “You’ve got great eyes!” The voice was distressingly familiar to Quinn, but Tay blocked Quinn’s view. Quinn leaned to the side to get a better view, and groaned. His sister was near the front of the line, standing—or rather, squirming with a star-struck admiration—between Neally and Matt.

  “Ah, foof!” Quinn muttered. He didn’t go out of his way to avoid his sister at school, but whenever he did let her join in a game with him and his friends, Matt would tell anyone with ears about how Quinn liked to play with whiny, brainless second graders. And here they were, Quinn and his sister, totally, completely, accidentally occupying the same four square line. Quinn briefly considered moving to another court.

  No, this will be okay. It’ll be the last line-I-wish-I-wasn’t-standing-in before vacation.

  “Your eyes are so green!” Mickey gushed. “I bet there’s no other green like it in this world. It’s another galaxy green!”

  Quinn cringed to hear his copycat sister. No one else could know that Mickey was repeating his unique observation; still, it felt like she’d stolen his opinion.

  “Thank you,” Neally said. “Both of my parents have green eyes, which is unusual.”

  “Whooo-wee, green eyes, how unusual,” Matt said. “Like two green grapes smashed in your face. Hey, that’s not a bad idea.” Matt fumbled through his jacket pocket, as if he had something stashed there. “Where’s my lunch leftovers?”