Remarkable

by Elizabeth Foley

  The girl looked familiar, but it took Jane a moment to realize why. She was the same girl that Anderson Brigby Bright had been sketching on his napkin at the dinner table. It would be impossible not to recognize the long black braids, chic glasses, and well-shaped nose from Anderson’s photorealistic napkin sketch. The only detail he had missed was a large button pinned to the girl’s lapel that read S.Y.N!C.

  “Who’s that?” Jane asked her brother.

  “Her name is Lucinda Wilhelmina Hinojosa,” he said wistfully. “She has perfect pitch.”

  “What’s perfect pitch?”

  Anderson Brigby Bright didn’t answer her, and it occurred to Jane that he was looking at Lucinda Wilhelmina Hinojosa the same way that most of the girls from Remarkable’s School for the Remarkably Gifted looked at him.

  “Oh,” said Jane. “Oh. You like her, don’t you?”

  Anderson Brigby Bright tore his eyes away from the strange, humming girl long enough to give Jane a mournful look.

  “I think I’m in love,” he said. “But she doesn’t know I exist. Can you imagine anything more awful?”

  Jane’s imagination didn’t have to run away with her at all for her to understand how he felt. It was a feeling she knew all too well.

  The Dentist’s Lament

  Jane was late to her dentist appointment on Tuesday, but this was not her fault.

  Her father was supposed to pick her up from school and drive her to Dr. Pike’s office. For once, he’d remembered to show up on time (reminding him about important appointments was Action Item #34 on Jane’s mother’s list), but then he had accidentally locked his keys in the car. So Jane wound up having to walk up the hill to Dr. Pike’s office while her father waited in the school’s parking lot for one of Remarkable’s highly competent automotive locksmiths to open his car door for him.

  Jane wanted to explain to Dr. Pike about the locked car and the long uphill walk, but Dr. Pike—who’d been torturing herself with the thought that Jane wasn’t coming after all—was eager to get to work. She hurried Jane into the exam room and began X-raying her mouth.

  “So tell me,” she asked Jane. “Have you been brushing twice a day?” She was hoping Jane would say no, so she could deliver a nice stern lecture on the importance of oral hygiene. But all Jane said was “Urgurguhuhruf.” She had the bitewing tray in her mouth, and she couldn’t really talk.

  Dr. Pike finished with the X-rays and began examining Jane’s teeth. “Hmmm,” she murmured. “Open wider.” She poked and prodded at Jane’s mouth with a periodontal probe and dental mirror. “It looks like you have a teensy bit of plaque and just a hint of tartar…but I guess it’s not too bad. Have you been flossing regularly?”

  “Uhguhguhgugh,” Jane said.

  “I see,” Dr. Pike said. She poked around Jane’s mouth some more. She switched her periodontal probe for a dental explorer, and her mirror for a tongue retractor.

  Finally, she was done. “Well,” she said. “I don’t see any cavities right now. Not even a tiny one.…” She sighed despondently, set her dental instruments down on a tray, and handed Jane a cup of water so she could rinse and spit.

  “But that’s good, right?” Jane asked. She wasn’t sure why Dr. Pike seemed so disappointed.

  “Well, yes, I suppose so. I mean, of course it is. I was just hoping…” Dr. Pike let her thoughts drift. “Well, thank you for coming in. I guess I’ll see you in six months? Does that sound okay?”

  “Sure,” Jane said. “I’ll see you then.”

  As soon as Jane was gone, Dr. Pike grabbed a lollipop from inside her desk and stuck it in her mouth. She knew better than to eat something that was so likely to promote tooth decay, but she couldn’t help herself. She was depressed, and she always craved sugary snacks when she was depressed.

  Dr. Josephine Christobel Pike was a very good dentist. She could put a filling in a tooth so gently that she didn’t even need to use novocaine. She could take dull, yellow teeth and polish them until they were bright and white again. She had a wonderful flair for curing gum disease and gingivitis, and her patented techniques for performing dental extractions and root canals were taught in every dental school in the country.

  Dr. Pike had replaced Dr. Bayonet, who’d been the dentist in Remarkable before she arrived. Dr. Bayonet was gruff and grouchy—which was possibly due to the fact that he was much more interested in being an amateur lepidopterologist (who is a person who collects butterflies) than he was in fixing teeth. One day he decided to build the world’s largest live butterfly collection—and he’d become so preoccupied with catching specimens for it that he’d quit coming into work. Eventually, Grandmama Julietta Augustina was forced to hire a new dentist. She’d heard that Dr. Pike was the best, and so she asked her if she’d be willing to take over Dr. Bayonet’s practice. Dr. Pike was only too happy to accept.

  It didn’t take Dr. Pike long to discover that if a dentist wanted to look at rows and rows of perfect teeth, then Remarkable was certainly a good place to work. The citizens of Remarkable had remarkably strong teeth, and they knew how to take care of them, too. In the two years that she’d been in Remarkable, Dr. Pike had seen nothing but beautifully white teeth in beautifully wide smiles.

  Now, Dr. Josephine Christobel Pike liked beautifully white teeth in beautifully wide smiles as much as the next dentist, but this meant that no one in Remarkable really needed her services. It didn’t matter that she knew how to cure all different kinds of gum disease when no one in town ever seemed to suffer from any of them. It didn’t matter that she could drill a painless filling when no one ever got a cavity.

  The only exception to this was Jane. Jane’s teeth weren’t terrible—but she did have an average number of cavities for a girl her age, which wasn’t very many, but it was enough to remind Dr. Pike how much she liked fixing teeth. And now she wouldn’t see Jane again for six months, and Jane might not have any tooth-related woes for her to fix then, either.

  In the meantime, all she could hope for was that the Grimlet twins would stop by again to visit her. They were tied for her second favorite patients, but this wasn’t because the Grimlets had tooth decay like Jane. Their teeth, although surprisingly sharp, were as white and perfect as everyone else’s.

  Dr. Pike liked the Grimlet twins because they asked a lot of questions about cavities. Specifically, they wanted Dr. Pike to tell them how they might cause cavities in other people. What would happen, say, if they managed to put sugar into sugar-free gum? Or if they managed to get the fluoride out of fluoride toothpaste?

  Dr. Pike never answered because she didn’t want to encourage the wicked Grimlet twins in their wicked ways. But sometimes at night she’d dream that the Grimlet twins had succeeded in their dastardly plans and that she had patients needing root canals and multiple fillings lining up around the block. When she awoke, she’d find herself smiling a big, toothy grin.

  Wednesday

  It was Wednesday, the most ordinary day of the week, and the only day of the week that was neither at the beginning or the end. If Jane were a day of the week instead of a ten-year-old girl, she was sure she would be a Wednesday, just as she was sure if she were a kind of fruit that she’d be one of those dull red apples that don’t taste like anything, and if she were a color, she’d be beige or maybe clear.

  This particular Wednesday was more ordinary than usual. Even Ms. Schnabel, Jane’s fifth-grade teacher, seemed to be feeling the effects of the day’s overwhelming ordinariness. She looked across the mostly empty classroom and said, “I don’t know why I bother,” in a despairing voice just as if Jane wasn’t there. Then Ms. Schnabel walked out of the classroom and headed down the hall to the teachers’ lounge to get a cup of coffee and to see about trading her defensive linebacker for Coach Dunder’s up-and-coming cornerback.

  Of course, Ms. Schnabel’s sudden departure from the room didn’t make this Wednesday any more interesting than it already wasn’t. Ms. Schnabel was always asking herself why she bothered and then wa
ndering off to the teachers’ lounge for coffee and fantasy football trades on Wednesdays. And once again, Jane was left all by herself in the classroom with nothing to do but answer the questions about storm clouds on the science work sheet Ms. Schnabel had given her before she left. It was the same work sheet on storm clouds that Jane had to answer last Wednesday, because Ms. Schnabel had forgotten that she’d already given it to her.

  Jane looked out the window hoping she might at least catch a glimpse of some real storm clouds, which—while not necessarily interesting—would at least be better than answering questions about them on a work sheet. But the weather was remarkably fine that day, as it often was.

  In the distance, Jane could see the tall, castlelike building that was home to Remarkable’s School for the Remarkably Gifted. She imagined that her sister and brother were having a fabulous, nonboring day at their fabulous, nonboring school. They probably hadn’t even bothered to notice how interesting this Wednesday wasn’t.

  She took a deep breath, which she was planning on using to exhale a long, bored sigh, when suddenly she saw a straw wrapper float into the classroom through the open window. The wrapper glided toward her and landed gently on top of her desk.

  Jane was so surprised that it took her a moment to notice that there was tiny spiky handwriting on the straw wrapper. She squinted at it.

  “GET READY,” it read in all-capital letters.

  “Ready for what?” Jane wondered.

  BOOM!

  The sound came from the direction of Remarkable’s School for the Remarkably Gifted.

  The sound was followed by smoke—blue smoke—which billowed out of the school’s doors and windows. The school’s fire alarm blared loudly, and all of the students came running outside. Jane ran to the window to get a closer look.

  The blue smoke, which had settled like a great blue storm cloud around the school, slowly drifted away. But somehow, the color blue lingered. The outside of the school was now blue, and the playground and everything in it—like the jump ropes and tetherballs and swing sets and slides—had turned blue, too. The big yellow school bus that had been parked in the asphalt-colored parking lot was now a big blue school bus parked in a blue parking lot.

  Jane saw the esteemed Dr. Presnelda, headmistress of the gifted school, emerge from the building. Somehow she alone had retained her normal color. She shouted for calm as she strode through the crowd of panicked gifted students, who all suddenly seemed to have blue hair and blue skin and be wearing blue clothes.

  And then a second straw wrapper—a blue straw wrapper—came drifting in through the window and landed on Jane’s desk.

  “HA HA HA!” the tiny writing on the wrapper read. “SEE YOU SOON.”

  The Captain

  It did not take the esteemed Dr. Presnelda long to determine that the Grimlet twins were responsible for the disruption at the gifted school. The evidence of their guilt was overwhelming. They’d been caught blue-handed with seventeen empty bottles of bluing rinse and wide wicked grins on their nefarious faces. And just in case anyone suspected that they might still be innocent, they’d prepared a signed confession, written on blue vellum paper in blue fountain-pen ink and covered in their sticky blue fingerprints. “IT WAS US!” the confession read. “BWAH-HAH-HAH-HAH! SINCERELY, MELISSA AND EDDIE GRIMLET.”

  The only thing left to do was to decide how to punish them. Dr. Presnelda arranged for an emergency meeting to be held at the school that night, and then went home to prepare herself.

  Dr. Presnelda lived with Ms. Schnabel in a small yellow house near the library. They happened to be sisters, although most people never guessed this since their address was the only thing they had in common. Ms. Schnabel was tall and tended to slouch. Dr. Presnelda was quite short but had perfect posture. Ms. Schnabel usually had a glum expression on her face as if she were perpetually unhappy, while Dr. Presnelda was almost always wearing a smug, self-satisfied smile. Ms. Schnabel rarely found anything to laugh about, but when she did, the whole town could hear her deep, bellowing guffaws. Dr. Presnelda had no sense of humor whatsoever and, consequently, never laughed at all.

  The two sisters had never liked each other very much, and they only spoke to each other when it absolutely necessary. So Ms. Schnabel was quite surprised when Dr. Presnelda knocked on her bedroom door.

  “You’re going to be late if you don’t start getting ready soon,” Dr. Presnelda told her. “And you know mother always said it was rude to be late.”

  “Late for what?”

  “For the emergency meeting I’ve called at the gifted school. I need to discuss how I plan to punish the Grimlet twins.”

  “Why should I care? They didn’t turn my school blue,” Ms. Schnabel said. She was reading a book on Sir Francis Drake and didn’t want her evening disrupted.

  “You should care because…because…oh never mind!” Dr. Presnelda pursed her lips as though she’d like to say something more but didn’t dare. Then she walked out of the room and slammed the door behind her.

  Although Dr. Presnelda never had much to say to her sister, she tended to be long-winded in most other situations. And because she enjoyed having other people listen to her almost as much as she enjoyed the sound of her own voice, she’d made the emergency meeting mandatory for all parents of gifted-school students.

  Jane’s parents knew the meeting was likely to last a very long time, so they asked Grandmama Julietta Augustina and Grandpa John to come over to make sure that Jane, Anderson, and Penelope Hope did their homework and got to bed at a reasonable hour. Grandmama Julietta Augustina was only too happy to spend time with her grandchildren, but she did think Dr. Presnelda was overreacting.

  “Hmph!” Grandmama said to no one in particular, even though Jane was standing right in front of her. “Not much of an emergency, if you ask me.” She wasn’t the least bit impressed by the fact that the Grimlet twins had turned an entire school blue, or even that they’d somehow managed to specially reformulate the bluing rinse so that it wouldn’t wash off. Anderson Brigby Bright Doe III and Penelope Hope Adelaide Catalina had spent hours scrubbing their skin and shampooing their hair, but they were still just as blue as before.

  Grandpa John disappeared into the kitchen to cook everyone a nice dinner of plain noodles and unbuttered toast. But just as soon as he was out of sight, Jane’s grandmother forgot all about him and picked up the phone to order dinner from Remarkable’s House of Otherworldly Pizza.

  Exactly three minutes after Grandmama placed the order, the doorbell rang. Jane went to answer it, expecting that the pizza had arrived. Remarkable’s House of Otherworldy Pizza had the fastest pizza delivery anywhere. Madame Yvette Gladiola, who owned the pizza parlor, was psychic and could see the future. She knew who would be ordering pizza from her before they knew it themselves.

  But when Jane answered the door, she didn’t see the Otherworldly Pizza delivery driver standing on the front porch. Instead, she saw a pirate.

  At least Jane was pretty sure the man on the porch was a pirate. He was wearing a big pirate’s hat, had a large green parrot on his shoulder, and had not one, but two peg legs.

  “Ahoy,” the pirate said politely. The parrot on his shoulder said nothing, but gave Jane a sideways stare.

  “Ahoy,” Jane replied. “… er, I mean, hello.”

  “Me name be Captain Archibald Rojo Herring,” the pirate said. “I be seeking the architect that lives in this ’ere house. Be she available?”

  “Oh,” said Jane. “I’m afraid my mother’s not home right now.”

  “Arggh!” the pirate said. “That be a shame. Will ye be expecting her back in her home port soon?”

  “No, not for a while I’m afraid. Can I give her a message?”

  “Arggh!” the pirate said again, and then he sat down on the front porch to rest his weary peg legs. “Perhaps you could help me then. I be looking for the new fine bell tower that she built as an addition to the post office—but, blimey, I can’t seems to find it anywheres.�
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  “Jane? Who’s at the door? Is it the pizza?”

  Grandmama Julietta Augustina came to see what was taking Jane so long. When she saw the pirate, her eyes narrowed. Grandmama Julietta Augustina did not approve of pirates.

  “Who are you?” she demanded. Captain Rojo Herring took off his hat and bowed.

  “Captain Rojo Herring, at your service, ma’am. And this be me parrot, Salzburg.”

  “And what, might I ask, is a pirate captain doing in Remarkable?”

  “He came to see the bell tower,” Jane explained.

  “Well, it hasn’t been built yet,” Grandmama told him. “We had some complications in the planning stage.”

  “I be sorry to hear that,” Captain Rojo Herring said. “A lovely town like this deserves to have a lovely bell tower.”

  “Hmph!” Grandmama Juliette Augustina said. She still didn’t approve of pirates, but she always had a soft spot for people who spoke highly of Remarkable. “Seems a shame you’ve come all this way for nothing. Come inside and have dinner with us. Bring that bird, too.”

  The pirate took a moment to consider her offer, and the parrot on his shoulder snapped its beak at the tip of his ear. Jane didn’t know much about parrots, but she thought this one looked hungry.

  “Thank ye,” the pirate said, nervously covering his ear with his hand. “We don’t mind if we do.”

  A Pizza and a Pirate

  There was plenty of food for dinner that night. Just as Grandpa John finished cooking a big pot of noodles and a stack of plain white toast, Madame Gladiola’s delivery driver showed up with an extra-large super-duper supreme pizza with all the toppings. The pizza was a whole size larger than what Grandmama had ordered, because Madame Gladiola had foreseen that the Doe family would have an unexpected dinner guest. Madame Gladiola had even sent over a small plastic container of pineapple for the parrot, and as soon as Grandmama opened it up, the parrot flew to her shoulder and began eating from it.

  “Hmph!” said Grandmama Julietta Augustina. She thought the parrot was being rather impudent, but Jane noticed that she didn’t try to shoo the bird away.