Quinny & Hopper: Partners in Slime

by Adriana Brad Schanen

  I don’t know why Ms. Yoon is dragging me away from the bus for that amazing field trip to the animal shelter, which is a trip I’ve been looking forward to every minute of every day since she told us about it a few weeks ago.

  “Ms. Yoon, I’m supposed to be getting on the bus for that amazing field trip!”

  “Hold your horses, Quinny. There’s something we have to do first.”

  “Can’t we do it later? For example, after the field trip? Because this might be my only chance to play with a puppy, or it can even be a grown-up dog. I’m not picky, because I’ve wanted a dog for so long, but my parents keep bringing home little sisters instead—”

  “Yes, Quinny, you’ve mentioned this once or twice before.”

  “Plus I want to sign up to volunteer with the animals, too, because all those poor homeless animals have nobody and nothing, and I just know I could cheer them up.”

  But Ms. Yoon leads us around the corner and down the hall, and I suddenly realize this is the way to Principal Ramsey’s office.

  “Wait, Ms. Yoon, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to yell at Hopper—”

  “I know—”

  “I’m very, very, extra-very sorry. Please don’t report me to the principal!”

  “Quinny, take a breath.”

  “Or, if you’re mad about the thing with Victoria at recess, it wasn’t my fault. That yard guard–playground lady did not see the whole thing! I really, truly, absolutely did not trip Victoria on purpose. My foot was there first—”

  “I hear you—”

  “Or, if you’re upset about my how-to project, I promise I’ll definitely find a new topic that is one hundred percent appropriate.”

  “I know you will, Quinny.”

  Earlier this week we all had to figure out topics for our how-to-do-or-make-something writing projects for language arts, and mine was How to Get My Sister Piper to Stop Peeing Her Pants at Night.

  Piper just turned five last month and has a very small bladder (plus a very sneaky personality, but that’s a different problem). I had this idea for hooking her mattress up to an alarm that would ring when she pees on it—like the opposite of a fire alarm—and I thought this would be a great topic. But Ms. Yoon pulled me aside and said Piper’s bed-wetting is her own personal business, which isn’t true, since it makes my parents super tired and cranky to me in the mornings. I guess Ms. Yoon talked to my parents, too, because that night they did this whole ultralong lecture about privacy and respect and how big sisters should treat little sisters. But I already know how to treat Piper. I read to her all the time (someone’s got to help that kid learn proper English). I play cards and games with her, even though she cheats. I let her jump in the tub with me, even though her grimy feet turn the water brown. Just once I’d like my parents to do a lecture about how little sisters should treat big sisters (rule number one: No using your spit as a weapon) because she’s the one who starts all the trouble.

  Anyway, I’m about to tell Ms. Yoon that I’ve come up with an even more brilliant how-to idea—“How to Raise Chickens in Your Backyard”—but she holds up her hand.

  “Quinny, I can assure you, this isn’t about your how-to assignment, nor your difficulties with Victoria. Nurse Mira actually needs to see you.”

  “Nurse Mira? Why me? I’m not even sick.”

  “We’re almost there. She’ll explain.”

  “I promise I’m not sick! Look, I’ll prove it. I’ll do a cartwheel. See, I’m fine!”

  I turn a happy cartwheel right there in the hall, to prove to Ms. Yoon I did not catch that barfy stomach bug that’s been going around school.

  “Quinny!” she shrieks as my upside-down legs whiz by her, very close.

  “Sorry, Ms. Yoon,” I apologize through my flustered hair.

  “Please check your engine.” Her voice is tight now. “And no cartwheels in the hall.”

  I know that rule. But sometimes I forget the things I already know.

  “I’m very, very, extra-very sorry. It won’t happen again.”

  Ms. Yoon leads me to the nurse’s office and opens the door, and Nurse Mira is sitting in there with a surprise guest: my little sister Piper.

  Piper’s hair is messier than usual, and loose from its pigtails. Her cheeks are blotchy. Her eyes look scared.

  “What’s going on? Piper, are you okay?” I rush over and feel her forehead, like Mom does when we’re sick. It does not feel hot. I put my arm around her.

  At home, Piper is a pain in the bottom who ruins my life. But at school, she is kind of fun to have around. Almost like a little pet.

  “Quinny, I’m afraid I need to do a head check,” says Nurse Mira.

  She comes at me with a magnifying glass. Phooey. Not again. Some kids in my grade had fleas last month, so we all had to get our heads checked. But I was fine.

  “Nurse Mira, you mean Piper has fleas?” I pull away from that little sister.

  “They’re called lice, Quinny, and yes, we found a live bug and several nits, or lice eggs, on Piper’s head,” she says. “And now we need to check your head, too.”

  “But I don’t have lice! I’m not itchy or scratchy or anything!”

  “It’s school policy. Just to make sure.”

  I let her pick through my hair. I hear the bus engine growl to a start outside.

  “Please hurry! The bus is going to the animal shelter exactly right now!”

  But Nurse Mira does not hurry. When she’s finally done poking and pulling, my hair has swelled up to twice its normal size. She goes to talk to Ms. Yoon by the door, and they take forever. Then she comes around to me. “I’m afraid I have bad news, Quinny.”

  Even before she tells me, I know: I won’t be getting on that bus.

  I start crying, and Piper comes over and hugs me, and she’s crying, too. I’m so shocked to lose my big, beautiful field trip that I forget to blame her for giving me fleas.

  I just slump there, holding on to my pesky little sister who ruined my life. It’s not as good as hugging a dog, but it’ll have to do.

  It’s the night before my tonsillectomy, and Dad brings home a cake.

  The frosting on top of the cake says Good-bye, Tonsils.

  “So long,” says Dad. “It’s been swell knowing you.”

  I’m not sure if he is talking about my swollen tonsils or all of me. But then he elbows me and I realize I’m supposed to chuckle at his joke.

  “Relax, Hopper, everything’s going to be okay,” says Mom, picking up a knife and aiming it at the cake. “It’ll be over before you know it.”

  It will. The operation. And maybe my life, too.

  Trevor and Ty are excited about the cake. They surround it. They lean over and breathe on it.

  I am not excited. I don’t see the point of eating cake to celebrate something awful, so I go upstairs to my room.

  Mom and Dad follow me. They try to talk to me about my feelings. (Again.)

  It is a short conversation because I only have one feeling right now, and it’s this: I do not want to have a tonsillectomy. Not tomorrow, not ever.

  Daddy picks us up from school and promises we’ll go to the animal shelter another time, but he won’t say exactly when. I know a wishy-washy promise when I hear one.

  “When? When exactly can we go? How about now? I’m free right now!”

  “Quinny, cut it out. We have to deal with the lice first.”

  “You’re never going to take me there, are you?”

  “Not if you keep acting like this.”

  “See, I knew it!”

  On the ride home, Piper tries to snuggle with me in the backseat, but I push her away.

  “Don’t touch me. This is all your fault!”

  She wiggles back to me again, so I poke her just a bit, very gently.

  “Quinny hitted me!” she bellows.

  “I did not! She won’t get off me!”

  “Quinny, please!” yells Daddy from up front.

  All my friends got to visit cats and dogs
today, while all I got were fleas from my little twit-ster. The UNFAIRNESS of it all stings my whole body with icy-hot pain. I feel like pinching Piper. But I don’t, because I’m the oldest, so I have to SET A GOOD EXAMPLE. (Which is even more unfair.)

  But then, as Daddy pulls into our driveway, I remember something interesting. Last month McKayla, my friend at school, got lice, too. And she went to see this lady called the Lice Lady. McKayla said that, at the Lice Lady’s house, you get to sit in a big, cushy chair and watch cartoons and drink punch while she combs conditioner that smells like flowers through your hair. And then you get this cool braided hairstyle that stays in your hair for a whole week. And this all sounded so great that nobody even felt bad for McKayla for getting lice—not even Victoria. So I tell Daddy about the Lice Lady. And he looks her up.

  But it turns out that a trip to the Lice Lady is expensive.

  Very, very, extra-very expensive.

  So Daddy decides he’s just going to read the pamphlet from Nurse Mira and handle the whole situation himself at home.

  First he pours mouthwash all over my head in the bathroom sink. My hair has never had such fresh breath in its whole life!

  Then he closes the lid to the toilet and sits me down and squeezes goopy-slimy white conditioner all over my head and picks and combs through my hair for approximately seventeen thousand hours in a row while barking at me to hold still.

  Holding still is not one of my strengths.

  “Quinny, stop wiggling.” Daddy pulls at my hair with a pinchy, tight comb.

  “I’m not wiggling. The toilet seat is wiggling.”

  Piper plays in the bathtub, waiting her turn. Cleo, our baby sister, is in the next room, sitting in front of a Muppets video. I can hear her giggling. I don’t much feel like giggling.

  Piper splashes my foot and says, “Last night ago, you promised to read me a pitcher book and you forgotted.”

  I make a ferocious face toward the bathtub. “There’s no such thing as a pitcher book. And forgotted isn’t a word. I can’t believe they let you into kindergarten.”

  “Quinny, hold still!” Daddy tugs at my hair. “And be nice.”

  “How come she gets a bath while I have to sit on the toilet?”

  Piper splashes around again, in a braggy way, and I notice she’s not just splashing. She’s putting foam numbers up on the wall around the tub, making complicated addition and subtraction sums. Three, four, and five numbers at a time.

  4 + 6 + 1 − 2 − 3 = 6.

  Piper = show-off.

  This is not normal math for a measly five-year-old. Piper wasn’t even supposed to go to my school this year. She turned five on September 4, which means she’s too young to be in kindergarten. But she was driving her pre-K teacher nuts with pesky questions, and then at home she kept trying to do my math sheets, and so my parents decided she was ready to start kindergarten after all. So now Piper rides the bus with me and Hopper to Whisper Valley Elementary School every day. But at home, she still runs around our yard like a half-naked, barefoot baboon and pees outside by her special tree, and she still can’t speak proper English. I think my sister is part monkey, part evil genius.

  “I got one!” says Daddy, holding up a speck from my hair and looking proud.

  I can’t look. That poor dead flea is just a tiny, sad smear on the paper towel now.

  Then Mom gets home from work and takes over my head so Daddy can go put all our bed stuff in the dryer and vacuum the whole house (which the lice booklet from Nurse Mira said to do).

  Mom picks through my hair, sighing and snapping at me to hold still, too.

  That’s when I notice Piper out in the hall, squirting a big bottle of gloopy white conditioner onto the soles of her feet. Which definitely don’t have fleas.

  “Quinny, hold still.”

  “Uh, Mom? Look, I think Piper’s turning herself into a human Slip’n Slide.”

  Piper zooms down the long hallway on her slippery feet. Naked and laughing.

  Mom bolts from the bathroom.

  Next there’s yelling. Lots of yelling and crying. And the sound of a mop sloshing and squeaking. I sit tight on the toilet seat, the only well-behaved child this family’s got.

  Mom comes back and keeps picking through my hair. Her face is sweaty and droopy. When she’s all done, she hands me a shower cap. A big, puffy, crinkly shower cap that I’m supposed to put over my slimy hair so I don’t smear the world.

  I stretch that noisy cap over my head and stare at myself in the bathroom mirror.

  I look like a mini lunch lady now.

  And then, because this is an extremely unlucky day for me, the doorbell rings, just as I’m washing goopy conditioner off my hands, and Mom calls out, “Quinny, it’s for you!”

  Which is a shock, because who on earth could be visiting me right now?

  With my unlucky luck, it’s probably Victoria, who sometimes visits her great-aunt, Mrs. Porridge, who lives down the street from us. I picture Victoria’s face looking at my slimy hair in this shower cap. I picture her little mouth twisting into a smile, and her words rubbing it in that I missed the field trip and all the amazing animals.

  I hear noise coming from downstairs and lock the bathroom door.

  I can’t let Victoria see me like this. She’s nice to me half the time and not nice the other half—and I never know which half I’m going to get.

  “Quinny, Hopper’s brothers are here,” Mom calls up. “They’d like to talk to you.”

  What in the world do Trevor and Ty want with me?

  Mom sends those big twin bullies thumping upstairs. I peek out at them from the bathroom. “What do you want?”

  “We need your help,” says Trevor (or is it Ty?).

  “We need your help, big-time,” adds Ty (or Trevor—I can’t tell).

  I figure this is either a joke or a trap. I come out of the bathroom to find out which.

  “Dad got Hopper a cake ’cause his tonsils are getting sliced off tomorrow. But he won’t come down to eat it, and Mom won’t let us have any till he goes first,” says Trevor/Ty.

  “Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to get him out of his room and get him downstairs and get some cake in his face,” says Ty/Trevor.

  “I can’t. I have lice.”

  “No duh. But you’re wearing a shower cap,” says one of those bullyheads.

  “I’m not supposed to go near people until I get my head checked again.”

  “Trust me, it’s okay—we had lice last year,” says the other bullyhead.

  “And the year before,” says the other-other one. “We know what we’re talking about. Just keep the cap on and it won’t be a problem.”

  I don’t trust these bully twins. But I can’t think of a good reason not to help Hopper. He really could use more cake in his life. I look out my bedroom window, but his window shade is pulled all the way down. Not a good sign. I hate the idea of him sitting there feeling sad or scared. Everything’s going to be okay tomorrow. I wish he knew that. (Also, I should probably say sorry for calling him a wimpy scaredy-pants at school. I didn’t mean it. I was just mad he called me a liar.)

  “Okay,” I say. “I accept the mission.”

  “Great!” says Ty/Trevor.

  “Now, listen up, there’s more,” says Trevor/Ty.

  They come closer. We get in a huddle, kind of like football players on TV.

  “The doctor said he can’t eat for twelve hours before his operation. So you’ve got exactly thirty-four minutes to get over there, get him out of his room, and shove some cake in his face.”

  “What flavor is the cake?” I ask.

  “Huh? That’s not important.”

  “Of course it’s important. And how many pieces do I get to take home?”

  “None!” both bullyheads bellow at once.

  “It’s been nice chatting with you.” I back away.

  “Okay, okay, it’s chocolate-chocolate and you can have one piece.”

  “Three gian
t pieces,” I say. “One for me, and one for each of my sisters.”

  This is called negotiating.

  “But one of your sisters is just a baby,” points out T/T.

  “The price is now up to five pieces of cake. One for everyone in my family.”

  “Two small pieces, and we’ll throw in some soccer lessons.”

  “Whoopee.” I twirl my finger.

  “Don’t try to play it cool,” says T/T. “We know you watch us practice in our yard. You want to play soccer. It’s obvious.”

  I would never admit this to Hopper, but the bully twins are kind of right. After all, kicking is one of my strengths. And I’ll be out of belts to try for in tae kwon do pretty soon.

  “We could teach you. We’re awesome.”

  “Three pieces or no deal,” I say. “Now, shoo, go away and let me think.”

  I go back into my room and think hard about how to make Hopper cheer up and eat some tonsil cake. I pretend my shower cap is really a thinking cap.

  I start a list of things he likes doing—or, at least, likes watching me do:

  1) Cantaloupe bowling. (The trick is to use plastic bottles of salad dressing, not glass ones, for bowling pins.)

  2) Dance party with Disco and Cha-Cha. (One of these days I’ll get Hopper to dance, too, instead of just watching me and the chickens dance.)

  3) Feed my baby sister, Cleo, a pickle. (She makes the best faces.)

  Then I think of something even better to cheer Hopper up. I drag a chair to my closet and climb onto my tippy-toes and reach across the top shelf for a square brown envelope.

  Inside is a secret surprise I’ve been saving for his birthday.

  But this is an emergency. The twins need my help right now. Hopper needs my help. I am on a mission.

  Three knocks, then a brown envelope slides under my door, covered in scribbles.

  Dear Hopper, Sorry I told Caleb about your tonsils. I had a crummy day, and I know you did, too. The solution is CAKE!! Plus here’s a surprise that will cheer you up for sure. Also, please tell me all about that animal field trip, too!!!