Quinny & Hopper: Partners in Slime

by Adriana Brad Schanen

  The twins scoop up their soccer ball and run for their lives.

  “How’d you girls escape?” I ask the chickens. “C’mon, let’s get you back home.”

  “Ssssss!” hisses Walter the cat, who I didn’t even know was here, too.

  “Oh, hello, Walter. Calm down. I won’t hurt Cha-Cha. I know she’s your favorite.”

  Disco screeches at Walter to calm down, too. Walter screeches at Disco to mind her own business. Cha-Cha just stands there, all innocent and scruffy, balancing on her bony dinosaur-starfish feet. “Errp,” she says. “Oop.”

  “Sorry, I don’t have a treat,” I tell her. “Let’s go home and find you some raisins.”

  “Oooh prrrr.” Cha-Cha jumps onto Walter’s back, and he walks her home.

  Disco follows them, woop-ing and wrrr-ing and SCREEEEEE-ing, flapping her dusty feathers. I know an upset chicken when I see one. “It’s okay, Disco. You’ll get raisins, too.”

  We walk to Mrs. Porridge’s yard, which is noisy with hammering and arguing. Hopper’s Grandpa Gooley, who doesn’t even live here, by the way, is nailing wood pieces together into a rectangle shape on the ground. Mrs. Porridge is standing over him with a sour face and her hands on her hips.

  She is telling him to stop. He is telling her to stop telling him to stop.

  “Grandpa Gooley, why are you and Mrs. Porridge arguing?”

  “We’re not arguing. We’re debating, like civilized human beings. Right, Myrna?”

  “Hmmmpt,” says Mrs. Porridge.

  “My point is, that’s not much of a chicken coop.” Grandpa Gooley points toward the rickety shed that Mrs. Porridge wants to use for Disco and Cha-Cha once they outgrow the screened-in porch coop. She already fenced in a little outdoor run for them by the shed.

  “The shed is fine—those chickens don’t need a palace,” she snaps.

  “That skimpy poultry netting you used for the run won’t protect them from predators,” says Grandpa Gooley. “And the shed is too small, with poor ventilation.”

  “Quinny and I are perfectly capable of taking care of these chickens without a know-it-all man swooping in to save the day,” says Mrs. Porridge.

  “I’m not swooping, just trying to help,” he says. “Quinny, the chalet des poulets is officially under construction. I’ve got some extra work gloves if you’d like to lend a hand.”

  “Absolutely, Grandpa Gooley! But why did you just call it the shah-lay de poo-lay? Is it because chickens poo a lot, and also lay eggs?”

  “Chalet is another word for ‘house,’ and poulets means ‘chickens’ in French,” he says. “But I like your explanation better.”

  He hands me some work gloves, and I bring him more pieces of wood, which he nails together to make the bottom frame of the coop. He says I’m such a good helper I can help him again tomorrow if I want.

  “I’ll show you how to hammer a nail,” he says. “How’s my grandson doing? They weren’t home when I stopped by earlier.”

  “Oh, Grandpa Gooley, it’s so sad. I haven’t seen Hopper since yesterday! I mean, I saw his foot when they carried him inside just now, but his mom wouldn’t let me in.”

  “Imagine that.”

  “I’ve really had the bad-luckiest day ever.”

  “Sorry to hear that, Quinny.”

  “I’m not even kidding—it was the worst. Hopper wasn’t in school, and now he’s busy sleeping. And Victoria made fun of my lice bandanna and stole my chickens, AND she’s planning an animal costume party I can’t go to. Plus, did I mention that my precious teacher Ms. Yoon is gone and Mrs. Meanie Sub hates me?”

  “Sounds like you’re feeling mighty low.”

  “What did my grand-niece do this time?” Mrs. Porridge sighs. She’s walking back over to us with a tray of minty lemonade, which is my favorite, except for the mint.

  “Oh, Mrs. Porridge, I know you love her and I don’t want to tattle, but I told her I was going to write about taking care of the chickens for an assignment, and then Victoria stole that idea for herself without even telling me. I can’t take it anymore. She’s so awful I wish she would switch schools.”

  “That’s a pretty extreme thing to say, Quinny,” says Grandpa Gooley. “Is it that bad?”

  Part of me wants to tell Grandpa Gooley what Victoria is really like. The stares; the snappy, hurtful comments; the bossiness.

  But then I look at Mrs. Porridge’s sad face, and I feel bad for complaining. Victoria’s not all bad. She leaves me stickers at my locker. She gives me candy and braids my hair. She gives me fashion advice. (I usually ignore it, but still, it’s nice of her.)

  “I’m sorry, Mrs. Porridge. I know it’s not nice to say not-nice things about people, even if they’re not-nice in the first place. I didn’t mean to tattle on your pretty grand-niece.”

  “Please don’t give up on her, Quinny. Victoria needs some extra help to do the right thing sometimes. She could use more friends like you.”

  “You really think I can help her be nicer?”

  “I do.”

  “But, before, you said, ‘We are what we are—no amount of conversation’s going to change that.’”

  Mrs. Porridge does an almost-smile now. (She almost never does a full smile. I’ve only seen it once.) “Well, before, I was talking about chickens. People are usually more complicated than chickens. There’s good and bad mixed up together in all of us.”

  I promise Mrs. Porridge I won’t give up on Victoria. Not yet, at least.

  In exchange, I make her promise to let Grandpa Gooley come back and finish building the chalet des poulets.

  “Deal.” She holds out her hand and we shake.

  I’m getting pretty good at this negotiating thing.

  The phone rings in the house, and Mrs. Porridge goes to answer it. She comes back a minute later. “Quinny, your parents want you back home. It seems they need to talk to you.”

  “About what?”

  “I’m just guessing here, but sounds like it’s probably none of my business.”

  My stomach twists. I think I know what, but I hope I’m wrong.

  “Quinny, have a seat.” Mom and Daddy sit on the sofa, all calm and serious.

  “What is it? Did the school call? It’s not my fault, honest. That meanie sub hates me—”

  “No, the school didn’t call,” says Daddy. “But maybe we should call the school…?”

  “No! Not at all! That would be a big waste of time, and I know how busy you guys are! Let’s just move right along, shall we?”

  “Okay, well, we wanted to talk to you alone, while Piper isn’t here,” says Mom. “We have an idea for how our family can help with Piper’s bed-wetting, and it involves you.”

  “Me? Why me?”

  “Well, it was kind of your idea in the first place. You inspired us to do a little research.”

  “I did? What are you talking about?”

  Then my parents tell me the idea. And it’s the worst idea I have ever heard. (Even though I had the same idea for my first how-to topic.) It turns out there really is an alarm to help stop kids from peeing in their beds at night. My parents got one and they want to clip it onto Piper’s pajamas, and then it will beep very loud if she has an accident, but that beeping would also wake up Cleo, which is not great because my parents already spent a really long time trying to get that baby to sleep through the night in her crib.

  “So we’d like you to move into Piper and Cleo’s room—just for a couple of weeks—and let Piper sleep in your room so she can try out this alarm without waking anyone up.”

  “But she’ll touch all my things! She’ll pee in my bed!”

  “We’ll put a liner on the bed,” says Daddy.

  “Two liners,” adds Mom.

  I don’t care. It’s still gross. Someone else’s pee is always worse than your own pee.

  “How come Piper can do my third-grade math, but she can’t figure out how to go to the bathroom at night?”

  “Bed-wetting is a phase some kids g
o through as they grow up,” says Mom. “We love Piper, and we want to try to help her get a better night’s sleep. Will you help us?”

  Grrrr. It’s not my problem that Piper has a small bladder. But now I guess it is, since I’m being kicked out of my own room because of her. I don’t mind sharing a room with Cleo—I actually like that baby sister since she doesn’t try to lick me, like certain other sisters do. I just don’t want Piper touching my stuff with her booty cooties. And she will. She’s a stinky little sneak who gets away with everything.

  “Okay,” I grumble. “But what if that alarm thing doesn’t even work?”

  “It may not. If it doesn’t help her start waking up to use the toilet, we’ll try something else. The room switch is temporary, Quinny. We appreciate your flexibility.”

  I didn’t think life could get any worse after what happened at school today. But I was wrong. Pee-U Piper will now be peeing in my bed at night. And touching all my things, which are none of her business. The worst thing of all: How will I see into Hopper’s room from Cleo and Piper’s room? It’s all the way on the other side of the house!

  I’m supposed to be sleeping. But I feel fidgety and sore, and my eyes keep popping open. I roll over and peek out the window again.

  It’s dark outside, but there’s a lamp on in Quinny’s bedroom.

  And there’s Piper, jumping up and down on Quinny’s bed.

  She’s wearing Quinny’s boots and Quinny’s sun hat.

  She’s spinning Quinny’s favorite stuffed monkey around by one leg.

  What?

  Piper does the splits as she jumps, and one of the boots flies off her foot and hits the window. Then I hear a rooster crowing.

  I must still be asleep, I guess. This is one long, strange dream.

  Cleo is so excited that I’m sleeping in her room that she won’t go to sleep.

  It takes an hour to get that baby down.

  Then she wakes back up and tries to climb out of her crib. Twice.

  Luckily, her crib has room for both of us in it, if I bend my knees. Problem solved. Except…the sound of Cleo sucking her Binky is really annoying when it’s next to your ear.

  Finally, everything gets quiet.

  That’s when Piper’s bed-wetting alarm beeps all the way down the hall and wakes everybody up. Because, surprise: that beep isn’t just loud—it’s very, very, extra-very loud. I can hear Piper crying now, and Mom yelling at Daddy that he should have turned down the volume on that alarm before attaching it to Piper’s pj’s. Then Daddy yells at Mom that he thought she’d done that. Then Cleo spits out her Binky and starts crying, too.

  This bedroom-switching experiment is officially a disaster, if you ask me.

  I pick Cleo up and go out into the hall. Her cries quiet into whimpers, and she grabs my hair. I walk her over to my old room. I peek inside.

  And then a volcano bursts up in my belly.

  Because all my stuff is where I didn’t leave it. My twit-ster’s booty cooties are everywhere. She even moved stuff on my bulletin board! I’m holding Cleo, so I can’t give Piper a consequence for her bad behavior, but believe me, I will. Oh, I will. Just as soon as we’re alone and nobody’s looking.

  For now, I just yell. Then Mom and Daddy yell at me to stop yelling. And I yell at them to stop yelling. But here’s what I discovered: yelling at a person to stop yelling doesn’t actually stop them from doing it. It just makes the baby you’re holding cry some more.

  After we’re all out of yelling and crying, I take Cleo back to our room. I’m too mad to sleep, but I lie there, trying to get her to close her eyes. And it works, for a few precious minutes of sleepy silence. Long enough for my body to feel softer and my head to go quiet.

  But then Disco starts up with his cock-a-doodle-do, which really should be spelled SCREEEE-KOOOOR-SCREEEE because that’s what it actually sounds like. And Cleo starts wiggling again and playing with my hair. It’s getting light out now. It’s no use. We’re up.

  I stub my toe in the hall as I step around a pile of stinky sheets on my way to the bathroom. Between all the crying, peeing, snoring, and yelling, I did not get a good night’s sleep. Neither did my parents, I guess, because no one remembers to feed me breakfast.

  Luckily, I know where everything is. It only takes me a couple of minutes to fill my tummy with Cheerios (and cookies), and then I head outside to do my chicken chores.

  I walk through my yard toward Mrs. Porridge’s house. The air is calmer and cooler out here. Maybe I’ll pitch a tent and sleep in the yard tonight. It’s a lot more peaceful outside than it is in the house.

  But then, on my way to the chickens, I hear a scream. It’s coming from the direction of Mrs. Porridge’s house, only it doesn’t sound like Disco or Cha-Cha.

  That’s a human person I hear screaming now.

  The screaming is what finally wakes me up.

  It sounds like an opera singer falling off a cliff.

  I look out the window and see Quinny running through my yard, toward Mrs. Porridge’s house. She’s running toward all the screaming.

  I rub at my face, but this is no dream. I push up from my bed and find my balance….Whoa. I pull a sweatshirt on over my pajamas. I forget about my sore throat and my woozy head. I go downstairs and sneak outside and start after Quinny, through the trees.

  But then a voice comes at me from behind.

  “Hopper? Sweetie, just where do you think you’re going?”

  I turn around, maybe too fast, and that’s when the world starts to spin.

  Who knew Victoria Porridge could scream so loud? She’s on the floor of the chicken porch, flailing her hands and feet in the air. “My hands! My hands!”

  Mrs. Porridge is there, too, and looks annoyed. “Pull yourself together, Victoria. I expect more from the president of her own fashion empire.”

  “You didn’t tell me there’d be poop!”

  “Of course there’s poop. Where do you think chickens do their business? Right where they’re standing. There’s no magic invisible chicken toilet that cleans itself.”

  “Ooop,” says Cha-Cha, bopping around on her giant starfish feet. Walter slinks over and rubs against her. Then Cha-Cha jumps onto Walter for another kitty-back ride.

  “Brrrrup.” Disco skitters over and slaps her wings at Walter, who hisses at her.

  Victoria hiccups and looks at her poopy hands, like she wishes someone would get rid of them for her.

  “Victoria, it’s okay, just go wash your hands,” I tell her. “But hey, what are you doing here in the first place?”

  “I invited her,” says Mrs. Porridge. “Since my grand-niece is writing about how to take care of chickens, I thought she should take care of some. And who better to teach her than the person already taking care of them so well?”

  Mrs. Porridge stares at me. I stare back at her.

  “I’m talking about you, Quinny.”

  “Oh, right!”

  “Now, could you please show Victoria what taking care of chickens is all about?”

  “Sure, but I think she needs a wet wipe first.”

  “My shoes,” whimpers Victoria. Her ballet flats are stuck in the chicken muck.

  “I told you to wear your rubber boots.” Mrs. Porridge throws Victoria a wipe.

  “But it wasn’t raining.”

  “Well, don’t forget them tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow?”

  “Yes, tomorrow,” Ms. Porridge snaps. “These young chickens need to be fed, watered, and cared for daily, of course.”

  “Great,” Victoria mutters, picking up a ballet flat from the muck.

  “It’s not as much work as it sounds,” I tell her. “Just follow what I do. First we clean the poop out of their feeder.”

  “They poop in their food?”

  “They don’t realize they’re doing it. So we clean it out and add fresh starter feed. And they need fresh water daily, too—that’s super important since chickens get thirsty really fast. And then, once a week, we clean
out the mini-henhouse…with this.”

  I show Victoria the trowel and I push open the door to the big cardboard box that we use as Disco and Cha-Cha’s mini-henhouse. They even have a mini-roost and a mini–nest box in there, since I figured they are in training to be real grown-up chickens one day.

  Victoria coughs. “Why is it so dusty in there? And where are all the eggs?”

  “They won’t lay eggs until they’re older. Gee, Victoria, you really don’t know much about chickens, do you?”

  “I know that the fancy brown eggs at the supermarket sell for five dollars and sixty cents a dozen. If these chickens would lay some eggs instead of making dust and poop, I could make some money.”

  I can’t believe she just said that. They’re not even her chickens.

  “Why are their feathers so clumpy?” she asks. “They look all bony and sick.”

  “They’re teenagers. They’re still growing their grown-up feathers. Now, can you please pay attention?” I hand Victoria the trowel. “So to clean the henhouse, you scrape out all the old bedding and put it in this bin over here, for compost.”

  “Ewww.”

  “It’s not that bad, you can wear work gloves. Then we add clean bedding from that hay bale over in the corner. And then…my favorite part, we feed them treats from here.”

  I walk Victoria over to the metal can of kitchen-scrap treats. She wrinkles her nose when I open it. “You mean those chickens eat garbage?”

  “They’re kitchen scraps. Just leftover food mixed together. Anything except citrus, onions, or fish. You’ll get used to the smell. We keep it in a metal can so mice don’t get into it.”

  “Mice?”

  Victoria looks queasy. I feel a little bit bad for her. But mostly, seeing her slimed by chicken poop puts me in an excellent mood. And a good mood is like a bad cold—it’s easy for people to catch it from you if you’re in the same place together. So after she leaves, I run over to Hopper’s bedroom window so he can catch my good mood from me.

  “Hopper, Hopper, Hopper! Wait till you hear about Victoria and the chicken poop!”