The Quirks, Welcome to Normal Read Free Page B

looking closely enough.
    When the girls’ bus pulled up in front of Normal Elementary School on that first day of fourth grade, Penelope gazed out the window at the school yard full of kids. She took a deep breath
and stood, following Molly as she plodded toward the front door. Molly twisted at the curl directly behind her left ear, a nervous habit she had picked up in first grade.
    No one seemed to notice that Penelope was now wearing a skirt with yellow stripes. The skirt was identical to one that another girl on their bus had been wearing. When they’d left home
that morning at half past seven, Penelope had been wearing shorts.
    As Molly and Penelope followed the other kids across the playground, Molly was pretty sure she was the only one who saw a tiny white rabbit in a waistcoat running up a tree in front of them.
    “Did you see that?” Penelope whispered, a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. She instantly stopped grinning when she saw the look on her sister’s face. “I
promise, Molly, I’m trying really hard. I was thinking I feel a lot like Alice did when she got to Wonderland, and then . . .”
    “
Poof
, right?” Molly chewed on her lower lip. “Are you really that nervous, Pen?” She could sense people watching them. It was like this on their first day at
every new school. Everyone always stared.
    Even though Molly knew it wasn’t because of the Quirk family magic, she still felt uneasy. But
of course
people stared at them—they were not only new, they were also pretty
noticeable. Adults
and
kids often did a double take when they saw a pair of matching girls with super-long brown hair. Big, crinkly spirals sprouted out of their heads like curly parsley.
Both twins were as thin as stretched taffy and taller than anyone else in their grade. Their feet were as large as their mother’s feet, which embarrassed both girls to no end.
    Molly and Penelope walked quickly toward the front doors of the school, trying hard to look like they fit in.
    “You must be the new girls. The Quirks, right?” Penelope jumped as a short girl with suntanned skin and a neat bob with tidy bangs reached out and took her arm. “I’m
Stella! I’m in fourth grade, too. Welcome to Normal.” Stella smiled warmly at both Penelope and Molly as she repeated the message that had been on all the shiny balloons.
    “I’m Molly, and this is my Penelope sister.” Molly jumbled her introduction. Not because Stella made her nervous or shy, but because she’d just noticed that their
grandfather was crouched, hidden, in the leafy tree above them. He looked like a giant, hulking squirrel.
    Molly tried hard not to look at Grandpa Quill. She didn’t want to call any attention his way. Their mother had obviously told him to come and keep an eye on them, and he always followed
Bree’s instructions—he didn’t have a choice. Molly found it almost impossible not to stare straight at him, perched as he was on the skinny limb of an oak tree. She didn’t
know why he’d picked a tree, of all things, to hide in. He wasn’t exactly nimble. Or slim.
    “I mean, I’m Molly, and this is my sister, Penelope.” She shot Grandpa Quill a quick evil look, and he grinned sheepishly back at her. Busted.
    Stella laughed loudly and said, “You’re twins, right? You’re exactly the same.”
    Molly and Penelope exchanged a funny look—they really weren’t at all the same, but you couldn’t tell that by looking at them. “We’re in Mr. Intihar’s class.
Are you?” Molly asked, glancing up just in time to see Grandpa Quill lose his footing and slip—
crack!
—to a lower branch. Penelope gasped when she spotted their
grandfather hidden in the leafy canopy above them.
    Just as Stella tilted her head to look up, Molly felt Grandpa Quill rewind time. He turned time back just long enough that he could readjust his position in the tree so neither Penelope nor
Stella would catch him hiding.
    “You’re twins, right?” Stella asked