“Probably not exactly what you want to be doing on a Friday night,” Jackson says.
Jackson Oates is terrible at reading minds. It is exactly what I want to be doing on a Friday night.
“Your dad must be a good cook,” I say instead.
“My mom would say he’s an elaborate cook. He cooks about twice a year, like this—a whole day and a million ingredients. But I’m not sure if he could make a hamburger or pancakes or whatever.”
“That’s too bad, because Tyler only eats hamburgers or pancakes or whatever.”
“There’s always white bread and Cocoa Puffs”—he shrugs—“for when Quinlan goes on hunger strike.” He sits down on the bed, all the way to one end so there is room for me, but I sit on the edge of his desk instead, and take a sip of my banana lassi.
“Do you like that?”
“It’s good. Like a banana smoothie.”
We talk about the weirdest foods we’ve tried and not tried, which leads to a discussion of places we’ve been (me = New York, Tuscany, Florida. Jackson = everywhere). The conversation gets easier, more like when we are standing in the hall before math and less like I am in his bedroom about to lose control and launch myself into him.
“So where are the rest of the trophies?” I ask, nodding up at the bookshelf.
“I don’t know why Quin said that about trophies.”
“Is there a special trophy case somewhere? Do they even fit in a trophy case?” Jackson smiles and sticks out his tongue at me. “Ooh, is there an Oates family hall of fame?”
“Oh yeah. There’s a special wing with all the trophies. I’m surprised Quin didn’t show you. There are so many trophies. I even got a trophy for having so many trophies.”
“Really? What’s on the top of that trophy? A trophy?”
“Actually, I got a second-place trophy for having the second most trophies, but once I got it, it made me tied for first.”
“Nuh-uh, because the first-place guy would have gotten another trophy, too, so he’d still be ahead.”
“You just made that an equation, didn’t you?”
“n+1, where n is the winning number of trophies. You had n-1, and then when you added one, you had n but he had n+1.”
“Well, you’re wrong, anyway.”
“Oh yeah? I don’t think so. If there were math trophies, I’d have n squared trophies.”
“You’re wrong because the first-place winner got a certificate, not a trophy. So we both had n trophies. And you’re doubly wrong because the first-place winner was a girl.”
“Really? The person with the most trophies—”
“Tied for the most trophies.”
“The person tied with you for the most trophies is a girl, and now she’s got one more certificate than you?”
“Oh no. Don’t even get me started on certificates.”
I laugh and dribble lassi from the straw. It lands, as everything does, in the middle of a boob. I wipe at the lassi with my sleeve and try to arrange the cowl neck to cover it. Thank god it was banana and not mango or strawberry or something bright. I’m trying to divert attention from Maude and Mavis, not go over them with a highlighter.
Melinda calls Jackson down to set the table before I can ask more about the things he’s keeping out of reach of Quinlan. I excuse myself to the bathroom.
As I’m blotting the lassi spot with a wad of toilet paper, I peek into the shower. There’s a high shelf with matching bottles of Malin+Goetz shampoo and body wash, and a lower shelf with a dozen shampoos and conditioners that say “Sugar Cookie,” “Watermelon Kiwi,” and “Prevents Lice.” I am reaching in to take one quick whiff of Jackson’s shampoo when Tyler pops in beside me.
“Look!” he whispers. He shows me a pair of earbuds that look like the heads of Mario and Luigi. They were his first night of Hanukkah gift last year, which was kind of a preview, because every other gift he got was related to video games, too (including Ready Player One, which I correctly guessed would trick him into reading a book).
“Mom will kill you if you wear those at dinner.”
“They’re mine!” he hisses.
“I know. I helped Mom pick them out?”
“No, I mean, she stole them.”
“What? Who?” I pull Ty the rest of the way into the bathroom and close the door. Now I’m whispering, too.
“The girl! Quincy or whatever.”
“Quinlan?”
“When we got here, I left them in my shoe—”
“Gross.”
“—by the front door. And you know how she was acting all weird when she came into the kitchen? When we went up to her room, I saw her sneak something into her drawer—”
“You went through her drawers?!”
“I just wanted to see what she was hiding.”
“Ty, they’re probably hers. She probably has the same ones. Did you even go check your shoe?”
“No, but I know these are mine.”
“And how do you know that?”
“Because I found this in there, too.”
He unfolds his left hand. There in his palm is my dwarf. I pick up Grumps by the glass hat and turn him around slowly. He looks okay. She hasn’t hurt him. She hasn’t smacked him in the forehead with a can opener. I stare into his shiny face. I imagine he smiles a grateful little smile before fixing his face in a frown again. I can only imagine the things that dwarf has seen.
I realize I wasn’t ever 100 percent sure Quin had him; part of me was hoping that Ty had used his pointy hat to scrape something out of his ears and forgotten to return him. But now I know Quinlan Oates is a shoplifter-in-training.
I wonder if I have some moral obligation to rat out Quinlan to her family, but I’m not going to say anything before we eat. It smells unbelievable and I haven’t had anything except a Lärabar since practice. Maybe I can eat Ty’s, too.
There’s a plastic Amazing World of Gumball cup with orange soda at my place when I get to the table, and Quinlan bouncing on the balls of her feet waiting for me.
“It wasn’t blackberry. It was clementine,” Quin says. She’s chosen the spot right next to mine—almost on top of me. “Do you like that kind, too?” She looks like she wants me to say I like clementine Izzes even more than she wants all the toys and clothes and pillows and junk in her room.
And I decide that I won’t tell anybody about Grumpy or Mario or Luigi. She looks so little and lonely leaning into my lap, trying to fold herself into an angle that fits, and Grumpy is safe now with me—no harm. She’s got all the stuff in the world, but it can’t be easy to be Quinlan Oates. She’s in her third elementary school in her third state. Jackson slips in and out of schools and teams and friends like he’s trying on shirts, but Quinlan is a weird kid. She’s smart and intense, and what my dad would call an “acquired taste.” I sip the clementine Izze that she has saved for me and give her a thumbs-up. She beams.