Quinny & Hopper (7 page)

Twenty-two

I look down at Quinny frowning on the floor. “
We
can’t give up now,” I tell her.

“Easy for you to say.
Yo
u’re not the one whose arms are falling off from playing ‘Yankee Doodle Dandy’ a gazillion times.”

“But, Quinny, look.” I point outside.

Freya’s peeking out from some bushes at the back of the yard. She seems confused.

“She’s listening!” cries Quinny. “She wonders why the music stopped!”

Quinny slides the accordion back onto her chest and starts playing again. Freya hops closer to the house. I hide behind the kitchen door again. I’ll push it closed right after she hops inside and then I’ll scoop her into the net.

Freya hops closer and closer. She’s only a few feet away now.

Today is the day we’ll catch her. I can feel it.

Quinny feels it, too. I can tell. She smiles as she plays her accordion louder and faster. The beat of her music thumps inside my chest. Being with Quinny feels like being by myself, only better.
We
’re a team.

I wish this summer would never end.

Freya’s at the door now. She’s getting ready to hop inside. Quinny keeps playing. I keep gripping the net. This is it.
We
’re about to catch that chicken.

But then, we don’t.

Just as Freya steps into the kitchen, Quinny’s little sister runs in, wearing only her underpants and waving an envelope. “Snail mail!” she screams.
“Yo
u gotted snail mail!”

And Freya hops back outside and runs away.
“Bockbockbockbockbock!”

Just like that, she’s gone. My whole body feels like a flat tire now.

“Piper, how could you!” Quinny cries. “
We
almost had her!”

“Look, you gotted snail mail! Open it, open it!”

“Go away.
Yo
u ruined everything!”

Quinny takes the envelope from Piper. It’s addressed to
Eleanor Quinston Bumble
.

“Who’s that?” I ask.

“It’s me,” says Quinny. “Eleanor’s my real first name.”

I didn’t know that about Quinny. Then I notice the return address on that envelope:
WHISPER VALLEY ELEMENTARY SCHOOL
.

And I get a bad feeling in my stomach. Even worse than how it felt to lose Freya.

Quinny rips open the envelope and reads the letter.

Slowly, her teeth start smiling. Her dimples dig deeper into her happy cheeks. I turn away and close my eyes. Because I know what’s in that letter.

I wish this summer would never end. But it just did.

Twenty-three

I’m very, very, extra-very mad at Piper for scaring off Freya, but the next-best thing in life to catching a homeless zebra-chicken is getting actual, real-life SNAIL MAIL.

“What does it say? What does it say?” Piper bounces like a little maniac.

“Calm your engine down.”

I hold the letter so she can’t see, because it’s none of her beeswax.

I stop reading and turn to Hopper. This news is too juicy to keep to myself!

“Hopper, look! School’s going to start, and I have Ms.
Yo
on for third grade. Look, she says it’s going to be a wonderful year and—wait, if I got a school letter, maybe you got one, too!”

Hopper just stands there, blinking slowly.

“I bet you got the same letter! Let’s check! Let’s go check right now.”

I grab Hopper’s arm, which feels heavier than normal, and pull him over to his house and open up his mailbox, and sure enough, there’s an envelope in there from Whisper Valley Elementary School. “Hopper, it came! Look!” I cry. “Open it! Who’s your teacher? Who?”

Hopper is being a slowpoke, so I help him open that envelope and, YES, he’s in Ms.
Yo
on’s third-grade class, too! This really is my luckiest summer ever!

“Y
ippeeeee! Hopper, we’re going to be in the same class! Starting in just two weeks. How cool is that?
Yo
u can introduce me to everybody. I’m so excited to meet your friends—hey, should we find out if any of them got Ms.
Yo
on, too? I bet everyone got their letters today.”

Hopper doesn’t answer. He looks tired all of a sudden. A little queasy, too. But then I turn over the letter and discover something else that will perk him up for sure.

“Plus look, Hopper! On the back of this letter is a fabulous list of school supplies we need. How convenient! Let’s go shopping right now.”

“Quinny, please.” Mom walks over and rudely interrupts us.
“Yo
u’ve had enough excitement for one day.”

“Mom, can you drive us to the store? Hopper and I need to get school supplies.”

“Yo
u need to eat dinner and get ready for bed. Come on.”

Instead of going to bed feeling sad that we didn’t catch Freya, I go to bed excited about getting that school letter and being together with Hopper in Ms.
Yo
on’s class in just two more weeks. All that excitement rolls down a hill inside me into a bigger and bigger ball of happiness.

The next morning I persuade Daddy to take me shopping for back-to-school supplies.

“Can we ask Hopper to come, too?”

“Quinny, please.”

Unfortunately we do have to take Piper and Cleo along because Mom’s working. Piper’s extra
crabby since she has to wear clothes out in public.
Cleo’s extra gassy since she ate a green bean smoothie for breakfast. I’m squished between the two of them in the backseat as Daddy drives us to a big, giant school-supply supermarket two towns away.

This place has a parking lot and sliding glass doors and shopping carts, just like the grocery store, but instead of apples and cereal and two-percent low-fat milk, the aisles are filled with pencils and notebooks and folders. (The store also has grown-up school supplies, which are called office supplies.)

I get a twelve-pack of pencils plus three folders plus a ruler plus a big thing of glue sticks.

“Quinny, do you want a notebook with flowers
on the cover, or hearts?” asks Daddy.

“I’d like a notebook with a chicken on the cover, please.”

But they don’t have any here. They do have erasers that look like tiny burgers and fries. Those look like they work much better than the basic rectangle kind.

Then I push our cart past a big pile of backpacks. “Hey, I need a new backpack, too!”

“Indoor voice, Quinny,” says Daddy.

“Remember how my backpack got ripped last year back in New
Yo
rk when it got stuck in the subway door that time we were running late for school and—”

“How could I forget?”

But the only backpacks in this store are plain blue or plain brown or plain red.

“My favorite color is green with orange polka dots.”

“Really? I hadn’t heard,” Daddy says.

“If we can’t find green with orange polka dots, I also love orange with green polka dots.”

“T
hat’s good to know, Quinny.
We
’ll keep looking.”

We
turn into the next aisle, and then I see something that is even more exciting than school supplies. It’s a big, blank bright-white poster board. Big enough for someone to draw a life-size picture of Mr. McSoren on it…which I’m sure Hopper can do since he’s an artistic genius. Then we’ll put his big drawing of Mr. McSoren right inside my kitchen and leave the door open so Freya sees it, and she’ll be so excited to see him again that she’ll hop inside, and then we’ll sneak up on her with the net and finally—

“Quinny? Hello, earth to Quinny?” Daddy looks down at me. “Let’s keep moving.”

“Oh, Daddy, I just have to get this poster board! Please? Freya’s life depends on it.”

Daddy sighs.

We
get in line to pay. Piper begs for candy by the cash register. Cleo grabs candy without begging. When Daddy takes it away from her, she cries so hard that the tuba in her diaper plays a fart again.
We
make a big mess and a big ruckus and a big stink in that store, and people stare big-time.

“T
his is why you should have left them at home,” I tell Daddy as I plug my nose. It’s a good thing I didn’t run away back to New
Yo
rk City. I’m the only normal, well-behaved child this poor guy’s got.

I carry my poster board and my wonderful, swingy bag of school supplies out to the car. On the ride home, Cleo screams and spits up. Piper picks her nose. My sisters are driving me nuts. I can’t wait until I get to spend all day every day in Ms.
Yo
on’s beautiful, lovely third-grade classroom with Hopper, who doesn’t spit up or share his boogers with the world.

We
get home and I’m about to run over to Hopper’s house and show him the exciting poster board that we’ll use to finally catch Freya, but then I notice a box in the corner of my garage. A big, new box, and it looks like it could be for me.

“What in the world is that?” I ask Daddy.

“Only one way to find out.” He winks at me. Which means it
is
for me!

I tear open the box and find a backpack, and it’s green with orange polka dots. But wait, there’s more: inside the backpack is a matching lunch box, and it’s orange with green polka dots.

“My favorite colors! Daddy, how did you know?”

“Wild guess.”

I hug Daddy thanks, and I grab my amazing new backpack and that big white poster board, and I run out the garage door and over to Hopper’s house.

“Hopper, Hopper, Hopper!” I bang on his front door.

Hopper’s dad answers the door.

“Hopper’s dad, look what I just got! Plus I need to talk to Hopper.”

“T
hat’s a snazzy backpack, Quinny,” he says. “He’s in the kitchen.”

I find Hopper sitting at the kitchen table staring at a cauliflower sandwich.

“Hopper, why are you staring at that sandwich? Did you find out if your other friends are in Ms.
Yo
on’s class, too? Plus guess what, I went shopping for school supplies and saw this giant poster board, and I figured out a way for us to catch Freya! Oh, and check it out: here’s my exciting new backpack! It’s so roomy I can fit all my school supplies in here!”

Hopper looks at the poster board and then at my backpack. He doesn’t look too excited. He just shrugs and walks upstairs. So I rush up after him.

But Hopper won’t come out of his room. He won’t let me into it, either.

I knock. I wait. I knock again. “Hopper, please open the door.”

“Go away.”

“Come on, let’s play.
Wa
it till you hear how we’re going to catch Freya! All you have to do is draw a big picture of Mr. McSoren on this poster and then—”

“I don’t care.”

“What?”

“Just leave me alone. I don’t want to play.”

“Why not?”

“Stop it.”

“C’mon Hopper, please?”

“I said go away and leave me alone!”

“But—”

“A
re you stupid? Don’t you get it? It’s over!”

Hopper booms this very, very, extra-very loud, which startles my ears. A lump bumps up in my throat. Then I ask a question that I am almost too afraid to ask.

“What’s over?”

“Everything!”