The Quirks, Welcome to Normal (9 page)

Penelope nodded sadly. “So far, so good . . . but I’ll bet you ten bucks that we won’t even make it to Normal Night.”

“Ten bucks it is,” Molly said, holding out her hand to shake on it.

Neither girl had ten dollars to bet, but that was beside the point.

O
n
e
F
r
i
d
a
y night, shortly after the Niblet incident, the
Quirk family piled into their enormous yellow van and shuttled over to Crazy Ed’s for their free weekly dinner. Grandpa Quill eased the van into the parking lot, slipping into a space between
two tan minivans. Molly and Penelope hopped out of the giant sliding door and headed toward the restaurant. Finn walked ahead of them, squeezing a whoopee cushion that he’d hidden under his
shirt.

Just after Finn and Grandpa stepped inside the restaurant’s front door, Stella Anderson and her parents strolled out. “Hi, guys!” Stella said in her always-loud, raspy voice.
Pen and Molly often sat with Stella at lunch, and Molly had begun to think of her as something like a friend. Penelope still said very little around the other girls in their class, but Molly knew
she liked Stella a lot. From a distance. “Mom, Dad, this is Molly and Penelope Quirk. The new girls I’ve been telling you about.”

They all said hello, then Molly and Pen stood there awkwardly, side by side. Molly chewed her lip, hoping Finn wouldn’t come back outside to find them.
What has Stella been saying
about us?
she wondered.

“My parents and I were just planning my birthday party,” Stella said. “You guys will come, right?”

Molly and Penelope glanced at each other. They’d never been in any town long enough to get invited anywhere. “Us?” Molly asked hopefully. “Like, Penelope and
me?”

“Yeah,” Stella said, laughing. “It will be fun. I promise. It’s next weekend,” she said. “I decided to have a sleepover on the night they’re announcing
the dare for Normal Night!”

Just then, Stella’s dad let out a huge belch and patted his ample belly. Molly watched as Stella’s face reddened. Somehow, seeing Stella embarrassed by her father made Molly feel
better about her own family. And she was thrilled about the idea of a sleepover party. “Of course we’ll come,” she said boldly. “I love sleepovers.” This was a lie.
She’d never actually been to one. In fact, none of the Quirk kids had ever been to a birthday party before, period. “And I can’t wait to see what the Normal Night dare will
be!”

“Me neither. Maybe they’ll pick my suggestion this year!” Stella said, bubbling over with excitement. “My mom’s getting the invitations this weekend. I’ll
bring them by your house, okay?”

“Um,” Molly said, not wanting to be rude, but also not wanting Stella to just drop by their house. “Why don’t you just give it to us at school on Monday?”

Stella wrinkled her nose. “Okay . . . ,” she said. “See ya.”

Molly and Penelope looked at each other. “A sleepover . . . ,” Penelope whispered nervously.

“A sleepover!” Molly squealed. She pulled open the door and hustled toward the Quirks’ regular booth in the back of the restaurant, plopping down with a flourish beside Grandpa
and Finn. As usual, Martha Chalupsky strolled by the table almost immediately, offering the girls a taste of this and a spoonful of that.

Thanks to Bree’s power of persuasion, Martha seemed to have forgotten about Finn’s dessert sampling and Grandpa’s time twisting that had gone down during the Quirks’
first dinner at Crazy Ed’s. Though she still seemed oddly protective of the dessert case, Bree’s boss welcomed the Quirk family with open arms every time they came in.

“Who likes noodle kugel?” Martha crooned as she passed by the Quirks’ table. “Want a taste-o-la?”

Penelope nodded and held open her mouth. “Yum. You make good food, Martha.”

“Thanks, squirt,” Martha said. “It’s praise like that that keeps me cookin’.” She wandered off, humming something under her breath.

“Why would you ever call any kind of food a ‘kugel’?” Finn asked quietly. “Who’s going to eat something that sounds like ‘booger’?”

Penelope gagged and spit the remnants of her food into a napkin. She peeked at it, lying there in a pale lump on the paper, and coughed roughly. Molly suspected that Finn’s suggestion had
turned Pen’s bite of something yummy into something else altogether.

Molly changed the subject just as their mother joined them at the table. She didn’t really want to talk about boogers at dinner with her little brother, but she
did
want to gloat
about the invitation they’d received. “Penelope and I were just invited to a birthday party,” she announced happily. “Stella Anderson’s. It’s next weekend, the
night they’re revealing the Normal Night dare. It’s a sleepover!”

Penelope beamed, looking less nervous than she had when Stella had been standing beside them. “We were
both
invited.”

Finn rolled his eyes, but only Molly saw. “Ooh-la-la, aren’t you just fancy?” he asked in a mocking voice.

“It’s nice to have friends,” Molly spat back. Finn frowned. Sometimes, Molly found it hard to remember that she and Penelope weren’t the only ones who had trouble making
friends.

“Are you girls getting to know a lot of kids from your class?” Bree asked. She pulled off her soiled apron and patted her hair into place. She felt tired and a little woozy, as she
often did after a shift at Crazy Ed’s. Their mother had discovered that she was a terrible waitress. She was forced to rely on her magic way too much—convincing one person that he
actually
hadn’t
ordered a dinner when everyone else at the table had, or another that her soup was actually
supposed
to land on her lap. Bree would have been fired after
every shift if not for her Quirk! She murmured quietly, “Oh, my girls, you’re getting so big. Making friends and everything.”

“Mom?” Molly said timidly. “We’re nine—almost ten. It’s not like it’s
unusual
to make friends by the time you’re ten.” She paused.
“It’s just that no one has ever had a chance to get to know us.”

“I know.” Bree sighed. Then she snapped, “Dad, put the ketchup back.” She gave Grandpa a harsh look.

Too late. Grandpa Quill squirted ketchup straight out of the squeeze bottle that had been resting on the table and into his open mouth. As the stream of ketchup hit Grandpa’s tongue, Finn
pounded on the table and shouted, “He shoots, he scores!”

“Enough now,” Bree said angrily. “As if we don’t have enough to deal with without you two acting like baboons.” Finn snickered.

“My grandest apologies,” Grandpa muttered. Then Molly felt time shiver and twist backward, until they popped back in time to just moments before he’d lifted the ketchup bottle
to his mouth in the first place.

Molly said again, “No one has ever had a chance to get to know us.”

“I know,” Bree said again, sighing. “I’m sorry about that.”

Molly shot her grandfather a look and he winked at her, reaching his fingers out toward the ketchup. She shook her head the tiniest bit and he resisted squirting it again.

Suddenly, the front door of Crazy Ed’s opened and a familiar head bobbed into the diner. “Girls,” Bree said happily. “Isn’t that your teacher?”

“Sure is,” Pen said, and called Mr. Intihar over to their table.

“How are you, Quirks?” Mr. Intihar asked. “Been well?”

Finn slipped away from the table without a word. He wound between the stools at the coffee counter, making it appear that they were spinning of their own free will.

“Very well,” Bree answered with a charming smile. She waved her hand to offer Mr. Intihar a seat at their table.

“Well, that’s awfully nice of you. But I don’t want to crash another family dinner,” he said reluctantly. He was obviously just being polite and waiting for a second
invitation. Since they’d arrived in Normal, Molly had noticed that people here needed to be offered everything twice before they’d accept anything. That was the big difference between
Normal and other places they’d lived—that, and the fact that there was so much
sameness
everywhere.

“You’re more than welcome,” Grandpa Quill seconded, patting the bench seat. Then, just to make himself laugh, Grandpa rewound time and said again, “You’re more than
welcome.” He did this again and again, until he was howling with laughter and Molly insisted he stop. “You’re more than welcome,” he said one final time, then chuckled and
let time move forward again.

Mr. Intihar smiled strangely at Grandpa Quill before settling into their booth. “Well, if you insist, I’d love to join you for a slice of pie. I’m just waiting here for my
son—his ma’s dropping him off in an hour or so, and I didn’t want to be late, so I came awfully early.”

“Your son?” Molly and Pen asked at the same time. They grinned at each other, then Molly said, “I didn’t know you had a son.”

“Sure do,” he said wistfully. “He just turned six. Crazy-fun kid with a heck of an imagination, but I don’t get to see nearly enough of it. He lives with his mom, all the
way over in Detroit.”

None of the Quirks wanted to press, but they were all wondering about his son. Mr. Intihar waved at Martha and ordered a cup of coffee. When it didn’t arrive immediately, Bree slipped on
her apron, then hustled over to the coffee counter herself and poured him one. “Sugar?” she asked.

“Yes, please.” Mr. Intihar smiled widely. “I do miss my boy something fierce. But my wife and I split up—several years ago.”

“I’m sorry,” Bree said.

“It’s okay,” Mr. Intihar replied, stirring his coffee. “Better, probably. We married too young, and two people couldn’t have been more different. It’s just
sad that Charlie has to spend his time hopping from here to there. It’s hard for him to make friends when he’s only here a few weeks and an odd weekend or so a year. He usually spends
holidays with me. I think he gets a little bored, just hanging around with his old pop. It would be nice if he had a friend in town.”

“I’m sure he has fun,” Bree reassured him. Suddenly, she had an idea. “He and Finn could—” She broke off, realizing Mr. Intihar had no idea who Finn was. She
struggled to back up and say something to turn her comment around. Then she looked at Grandpa, who shrugged in response.

Molly could tell Grandpa
wanted
to rewind time, but he had used up too much of his do-over power earlier in the night, making himself laugh. Even
trying
to rewind time now
might turn him into a hiccuping mess.

Instead Bree smiled at Mr. Intihar and asked, “I mean, is he a Finn?”

“I’m sorry? Is who a Finn?” Mr. Intihar pulled his eyebrows together.

“Finnish, she means. Is he Finnish? From the chilly country of Finland?” Grandpa asked, trying to be helpful. “Finnish people are good stock. We’re Scottish, you
know.”

Mr. Intihar shook his head, confused. But at least they’d distracted him from wondering what Bree had been talking about when she mentioned Finn. “I’m English, actually. And
Norwegian. I think a bit German. There’s a little of something else mixed in there, but I’m not exactly sure what. My mom was a private lady, and she and my father passed some time
ago.” Mr. Intihar sipped at his coffee. “So you’re Scottish, eh?”