The Quirks, Welcome to Normal
Read The Quirks, Welcome to Normal Online
Authors: Erin Soderberg
Table of Contents
1: The Fifth House on the Left
2: Penelope Quirk’s Strange-Mazing Imagination
3: Grandpa Quill and His Rewinding Eggs
5: Lions and Tigers and Scares, Oh My!
10: Feathery Fur and Other Mischief
11: Another Day, Another Dinner
17: Invisibility Tricks and Jell-O Lips
N
o
t
s
o
v
e
r
y long ago, there was a house in Normal,
Michigan, where nothing was as it seemed. If you happened to stroll by on a warm September afternoon, you might have thought the house was perfectly plain and comfortably normal. Just a white
clapboard house surrounded by other white clapboard houses, sixteen to a block. But if you were the rare sort of person who
notices
things, you may have spotted the differences.
The thorny roses that climbed up the crumbling steps of this particular house were always wilted. That itself was troubling enough for a pleasant neighborhood. But some days, the flowers were a
different color than they were the day before. These roses had a tendency to change color with the weather and with one young girl’s mood.
A white picket fence that ought to have matched all the others in the neighborhood instead had a pinkish tint. For several weeks, it smelled faintly of ham and pickle sandwiches.
And if you looked very, very closely, you might have seen a tiny fairy grandmother darting between the drooping branches of the willow tree.
Luckily, no one ever took the time to look closely. And
that
was a very good thing.
Because when the front gate closed behind the people who lived in that house, most everything ordinary was left on the other side of the ham-scented fence. Inside, the Quirk family was anything
but normal—it was just that no one in Normal had noticed.
At least, not yet.
“
H
o
l
d
s
t
i
ll, Molly. I need to focus.”
Penelope Quirk jabbed one long finger at her twin sister, threatening to tickle her if she didn’t stop squirming. “I’m going to try to make you blond.” Penelope giggled.
“Okay.” Molly Quirk shrugged, laughing a nearly identical laugh. “I like blond hair. Then people won’t get us mixed up!” Molly wiggled her toes and closed her eyes,
relaxing in the privacy of her family’s backyard deck.
Penelope—who was often called Pen—automatically matched her sister’s movements. Both Quirk girls stretched out, belly up, on the wooden deck. Molly snuck a peek at her sister
and whispered, “But after this you should rest, Pen. Remember, school starts tomorrow.” Molly lay back, letting her dark-brown spiral curls rest comfortably on a half-flat helium
balloon.
The “Welcome to Normal” balloon was one of several dozen identical balloons that had been delivered by neighbors when the Quirk family moved into their house a few days earlier. No
one had brought over muffins or carrot cake or even lasagna. Instead, the Quirks had a collection of twenty-six floppy silver balls that no one was willing to pop and throw out.
In the few days since they’d arrived in their new town, Molly and Penelope had noticed that most everyone in Normal enjoyed doing everything the same as their neighbors. They all planted
the same flowers, lined up in tidy rows, in front of their houses. The men in town had the same haircut, parted neatly on the left. And at least half the families drove either a tan or blue
minivan. The Quirks’ new town was pleasant and perfect.
Molly shivered on the back deck, despite the warm afternoon sun. She squinted at her sister and said, “Okay, I’m kind of chickening out. What if this actually works? Mom will
freak.”
“It’s not going to work,” Penelope muttered, rolling over and pursing her lips. She was trying hard to concentrate, but something deep down inside her was making it difficult
to focus. Perhaps it was because Pen
liked
that she and Molly looked exactly the same. “Controlling my magic never works. But just hush, so I can at least try.”
The Quirk girls had been in the backyard for almost two hours, frittering away their last summer afternoon before the first day of fourth grade. As she had done every year on the day before
school began, Pen was preparing. She was trying to boss around her imagination.
Like other almost—fourth graders, Penelope Quirk had a vivid and wild imagination, full of fantasy and fun and silliness. But unlike other almost—fourth graders, Penelope
Quirk’s imagination had a tendency to roar to life—literally.
Most people have a filter—a little switch in their heads that keeps them from saying and doing the strange or rude or just-plain-wrong things that pop into their minds all day long. But
Penelope’s switch didn’t work as it should. Penelope could keep her mouth from sassing, but her mind was a different matter.
When Pen was nervous or distracted (or sometimes when she had to go to the bathroom in that way that made her cross her legs and turn yellow), Penelope lost control of her thoughts and
poof!
The tucked-away corners of her imagination became real, just like that.
For the last few years, Penelope even had an honest-to-goodness monster living under her bed. Molly had named their monster Niblet, because of his super-teensy toes. Niblet was the only thing
Penelope’s imagination had
poofed!
into existence that hadn’t disappeared within a few minutes. No one could figure out why the big guy had stuck around, but he was a welcome
part of the family now.
