Quinny & Hopper (11 page)

Thirty-one

Except for Ms.
Yo
on’s fabulous gigantic baby belly, I don’t love third grade at Whisper Valley Elementary School so far. Here’s why:

Riding the bus this morning with a rude boy who ignored me was a frowny way to start the day. (I’m not going to waste my breath talking about him, but his name starts with an
H
.)

And then we got off the bus, and the school was so big and I wasn’t sure where to go, and I wished someone would help me (the boy whose name starts with an
H
, for example), but no one did. All the grown-ups were busy helping the smaller kids, I noticed. The bigger you are, the more people think you know where you’re going, but that’s not always true. Finally a teacher pointed the way, and I found my classroom and it wasn’t that hard, but I didn’t know that ahead of time, so I was just a little bit scared.

And then my locker wouldn’t open right, or close right. Cubbies were much easier!

And then Victoria showed up, wearing a glittery itchy-pink top and a puffy itchy-pink skirt and my favorite watermelon barrette that I gave her by mistake. She saw my backpack and made a crinkly face.

“Yo
u can’t bring a dirty, ruined backpack to third grade,” she said. “Get rid of that thing.”

I looked down at Cleo’s marker scribbles on my backpack. I thought:
ruined
is kind of a mean word. Especially the way Victoria said it. Cleo was probably just trying to draw a tree.

“I can’t get rid of it,” I told Victoria. “Mom and Dad just got it for me.”

“T
ell them you want a new one. Duh!”

And then Victoria introduced me to all the pretty friends, who belong to her very much, and their names were Kaitlin, Kaylee, and McKayla. Their backpacks were clean, and their clothes were mostly itchy-pink birthday-party clothes, and their hair was mostly skinny, and their mouths mostly whispered. I noticed they were all wearing BFF bracelets, too.

“I thought you were from New
Yo
rk City,” said one of those pretty friends. She looked at me from head to toe, like she was searching for something she couldn’t find.

“I am. I mean, I was.” I felt a tiny droop of sadness make me shorter.

Those girls all looked at me like they didn’t quite believe me.

“T
hat T-shirt’s really old,” said another pretty friend.

It used to be Mom’s from the night she met Daddy. That’s why it’s special.

“Yo
ur socks don’t match,” said the third pretty friend. “It looks like you got dressed in the dark.” And everyone giggled. Except me, because I was the one they were giggling at.

“
We
ll, it looks like you guys got dressed in a bubble-gum factory,” I said, not because I was making fun, but because it was plain old true. I’d never seen so much itchy-pink in my life.

Then all those pretty girls looked at me a certain way, and I have never seen girls look at me like that before. It was not pretty. And Victoria smiled, but not in a nice way, either.

Then the bell rang and the classroom part of school started, and I finally got to meet Ms. Yoon and her fabulous gigantic baby belly. I had tons of curious questions about that belly, but I only got to ask a few since we had to rush on to regular-typical stuff like writing and math.

And now writing and math are over, so we’re lining up to go to library.

And that’s my first day of school so far.

So far, so bad—except for Ms. Yoon’s fabulous gigantic baby belly.

Library is when you have to be all quiet, which is not one of my strengths. It is one of Victoria’s strengths, I notice. She knows how to be quiet, even when she is talking. Everywhere we go, from library to gym to music, she and those pretty girls whisper into one another’s ears. I don’t know how to whisper very well. My talking always comes out too big. Whispering is for secrets, and I’m not good at keeping those, either.

Everywhere we go, Victoria also keeps an eye on me. From library to gym to music, she tells me where to sit and what to do and who’s who and what’s what. All I have to do is obey her and my life will turn out fine. But my body is full of this strange, shaky feeling. Like I’m wearing my sneakers on the wrong feet and my right earlobe is heavier than my left. I rub the skin on the side of my head, right where my watermelon barrette used to be. I think maybe I am having a sad hair day.

In the hallway after music, Victoria hooks her arm through mine and pulls me along. “Come on, we always start by meeting at the sycamore tree,” she says.
“T
hen we’ll work our way over to the blacktop for jump rope and hula hoops.”

It takes me a second to figure out what that girl is talking about.

Recess is next.

Thirty-two

I’ve been going to school since kindergarten and I still don’t understand recess. It’s too loud and too fast. It’s too crowded and too rough. And there’s never enough shade.

My friend Owen didn’t like recess, either, so we would always play together, away from all the trouble. But then Owen moved away in second grade, so from then on I just sat on the steps at recess and read a book. Some of the playground grown-ups tried to stop me at first. They tried to get me to play tag with the other kids, but I didn’t want to. Trevor and Ty chase me around at home all the time. Who needs more of that at school?

Reading on the steps was my kind of fun. So I sat there for second-grade recess and I read
The Great Brain Book
and
Why Don’t
Yo
ur Eyelashes Grow?
and all the Harry Potter books and
The Art of Juggling
and
Dr. Frankenstein’s Human Body Book
and
Have a Nice DNA
and
Blood and Guts: A
Wo
rking Guide to
Yo
ur Own Insides
. (Grandpa Gooley was amazed by all my reading. “Hopper, you’ll make an outstanding doctor one day,” he told me. “Or possibly an Olympic swimmer.” The reason he said that last part is because we were at the pool during this conversation, and I’d just beaten him in the fifty-meter freestyle.)

This year, in third grade, I don’t know what’s going to happen at recess.

Hopefully nothing new.

When I get outside, I see that recess is still loud, fast, crowded, and rough. I sit on the steps. I pull out my book. (I’m starting off the school year with
101
Things
Yo
u Didn’t Know about the Human Heart
.) Without moving my head too much, I look around for Quinny. Not because she is my friend, but just to see where she is, so I know where not to look. I see her standing with Victoria and a bunch of Victoria-type girls by the sycamore tree. They’re talking in one another’s ears and covering their mouths with their hands. But Quinny isn’t talking. She doesn’t look happy. Which is not my problem, since we’re not friends anymore.

Then a strange thing happens.

One of the new kids, a boy named Caleb who moved here from California and who doesn’t know yet that I’m not too friendly, runs past and tags me.

“Yo
u’re it!” Caleb cries as he runs away.

I stand up. “
Wa
it.…”

I’m never it. I’m not even in the game. If this new kid knew me, he’d know that.

But Caleb keeps running away.

And then I realize everyone’s looking at me. Everyone’s waiting.

Suddenly I
am
in the game, even though I don’t want to be. I’m it.

I put down my book and walk down the steps.

Everyone runs out of my way because I’m it. But I don’t chase anybody.

I walk all the way over to the other side of the playground, to the sycamore tree.

I walk right up to Quinny and I tag her arm.

“Yo
u’re it.”

Thirty-three

I’m
what
?

I stare at Hopper, very, very, extra-very shocked.

First of all, he isn’t even my friend anymore, and second of all, we’re not supposed to be playing tag in third grade (although a ton of kids didn’t hear about that rule, I guess, and are still playing tag). And third of all, Victoria is watching me, and I don’t want to make her mad by playing tag with a boy who is not even my friend anymore.

But here he is, standing right in front of me.

So I tag Hopper back. Hard.

He stands there for a second, like he’s surprised, and then he tags me AGAIN.

So I tag him again. And he tags me again.

This keeps happening until Victoria steps between us.

“Leave her alone!” Victoria booms at Hopper, right up his nose, which is the place he is most sensitive about words getting boomed.

Hopper’s startled nose backs away from Victoria. He looks at me. It is not a making-fun kind of look.

I don’t know what to do now. I’m still mad at him and I’m still sad at him, but I’m also still curious about him.

“Quinny, why are you playing with a boy?” Victoria huffs at me.

“I…I…”

“Remember the rules.”

And then Victoria’s mouth makes a terrible kissy shape. The other girls giggle.

“Get him!” Victoria cries.

Two pretty friends grab Hopper’s arms and back him up against the sycamore tree.

Victoria and another pretty friend push me toward Hopper.

“Pucker up, city girl,” sneers Victoria.

“No!”

“Kiss him!”

“Do it!”

“On the lips!”

“Y
o
u love him!”

The pretty friends giggle as they push me toward Hopper now. His face is white. His looking-looking eyes are bulging. Our lips are getting closer.

Hopper’s lips + my lips = the biggest vomit volcano in the history of vomit volcanoes.

I shake my head, I close my eyes, I try to swallow my own mouth. This can’t be happening. It’s just a bad dream.

And then somebody screams.

“KEEE-YAAAAP!”

It’s me. And it’s called self-defense. A strong, fast side kick to the left. My leg does it without me even realizing.

“Owwww!” screeches Victoria, whose knee gets in the way of my kick.

The other girls move away from me. No one’s giggling anymore. They all look afraid. That’s right.
Yo
u mess with a tae kwon do green belt, you should be scared. Very, very, extra-very scared.

“I think you broke my kneecap,” Victoria whimpers, limping a little before falling elegantly to the ground. “Call nine-one-one. I need an ambulance—”

“Victoria, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to—”

“Don’t touch me. Shame on you for attacking your best…”

But then Victoria stops in the middle of her sentence. Her face gets all stiff.

“Quinny?” she says in a creepy, calm voice.

“What?”

She points up at my bare wrist. “Where’s the friendship bracelet I gave you?”

I look at my wrist. I realize that itchy-pink thing must have fallen off.

“What did you do with it?” Victoria snaps.
“Yo
u weren’t supposed to take it off, ever.”

“I didn’t.”

“Put it back on right now.”

I look at the ground all around me, but it’s no use. That friendship bracelet is gone. I look around the playground. Hopper’s gone, too.

“Quinny, we’re waiting!”

Victoria stands up, glaring at me. The good news is, I guess she doesn’t need an ambulance after all. The grumpy news is, she’s waiting for me to put on something that I don’t even have.

The other girls wait for Victoria to finish waiting. Kaylee whispers into Kaitlin’s ear. Then Kaitlin whispers into McKayla’s ear. All their eyes stare at me in a sunburny way.

I close my eyes and try very, very, extra-very hard to remember the rules again. Especially this one: there’s no crying in third grade.

“I’m sorry,” I mumble. “I don’t know where it is.”

“Fine,” Victoria huffs.

Then, with a mean little smile, she reaches up to her own head and unsnaps my precious watermelon barrette and throws it over the playground fence.