It’s the next morning, and the whole family is at the breakfast table munching on what Dad calls Georgie’s specialty, breakfast tacos with home fries. It’s actually the only thing my oldest sister knows how to cook, which is why she walks across the yard from her apartment in the old barn to our house every morning to make us breakfast. The rest of us take turns making family dinner—Dad on weekdays, Mom on Saturdays and Sundays, me and Vivica together on Fridays. My parents came up with this system because, as Dad says, “You girls are Knights, not princesses, and knights never shirk from work.” Dad loves puns, and he’s even more ecstatic if he can fit a pun and a rhyme in the same sentence. We loved it when we were little, but now it’s annoying, which Dad seems to find hysterical. Unfortunately for us, he has a ton of those “You’re Knights, not princesses” sayings that he whips out whenever he wants to make a point.
My tortoiseshell cat, Milky Way, sits under the table curled up between my feet. She’s using my foot as a pillow and mrrmphs every time I move. But it’s really hard to stay still. I’m helping Vivica practice for this audition she’s going to have with a big Austin theater, and she’s insisting that I put as much “heart” into reading my lines as she does “because acting is about interacting, Quinn, and how am I supposed to interact when you’re just sitting there like somebody tied you to the chair?” But it’s hard to be both an animated actor and an immovable cat pillow at the same time. And let’s face it, most of the time, Milky Way is nicer to me than Vivica, so guess who I want to make happy right now?
I pour a glob of ketchup onto my plate and dip in a forkful of home fries. When I lift the fork upright, I can’t help it, the sight of a ketchup-topped chunk of potato makes me think of Mr. Heinz.
Taking advantage of the break in the rehearsal, Mom asks, “How was your first day at school, Quinn?” Mom wears her expression of professional curiosity (mild smile, slightly raised eyebrow) to match her workday look: long, dark hair twisted back into a loose bun, a little bit of makeup around her hazel eyes, plain black pants, and a light blue button-down blouse with no wrinkles, ever.
“Except for my science teacher embarrassing me in front of the whole class, it was okay. Nurse R-J was nice.”
“What did Mr. Ketchup do?”
“Vivica!”
“It’s okay, Mom.” Vivica let out a dramatic sigh, her way of telling Mom something was no big deal without actually saying that and getting Mom’s lecture that when it comes to manners, Mom is the one who gets to judge if something is a big deal. “Mr. Heinz lets us call him that. He knows that with his name, kids are going to make up some joke about ketchup, so he just goes with it. He tells everyone the first day of school, ‘Just make sure it’s Mr. Ketchup, please.’”
“What a good tomato,” Dad says, and we all groan. Even Milky Way flicks her tail in annoyance. Dad leans back in his chair with satisfaction, his blues eyes sparkling and his hands clasped behind his completely bald head. Being totally bald is Dad’s choice. He shaved it to be a pirate last Halloween and liked it so much he now shaves his whole head every morning. He’s got on his Knight Plumbing blue polo shirt (I don’t know why parents always wear blue to work) and khaki cargo pants. Dad starts to tip his chair farther back, still looking very proud of himself for his bad pun, but after a sharp look from Mom he lets the chair drop back to normal.
“Why do you guys have the same teacher?” Georgie asks. Sitting across the table from me and Vivica, Georgie clasps her hands behind her head, making her curls bounce as she waggles her eyebrows at me and Viv in turn. Only Georgie can mimic both of our parents at the same time. I put my napkin over my mouth to stifle a laugh. Georgie winks at me, takes a big bite of breakfast taco, gulps it down, and says, “Trying to pretend you’re a sixth grader so you can take it easy in science, Viv?”
“It’s a small school, George,” Vivica says. “A lot of the teachers teach all the grades in their subject.”
Georgie uses her spoon to catapult a chunk of fried potato at Vivica’s face. Georgie hates being called George.
“What happened in class, Quinn?” Mom asks.
“You didn’t break a rule, did you?” Vivica asks. Mom gives Vivica an exasperated look at the interruption, but Vivica keeps talking. “Mr. Ketchup is so strict about rules. You’d think he’d be cool with the whole ‘call me Mr. Ketchup’ thing, but that’s really a cover. He’s totally uptight. And he already has it in for me. The last thing I need is guilt by association with you.”
Seriously? I’m so not in the mood for Vivica’s whenever-possible-blame-Quinn routine right now. I drop my fork on my plate just right so that it hits the pool of ketchup, which splatters on Vivica’s arm. She narrows her eyes at me, and they go from blue to green as she grins, knowing how much I hate her eye tricks. I ignore her and answer Mom.
“I was just trying to follow my snack schedule—”
“You did, you broke a rule! Geez, Quinn.”
“Vivica, please.” Mom rests a hand on the table and lets out a deep breath. It’s her universal signal to us all to dial it back. “Quinn, do I need to speak with Mr. Heinz? And in this house, I only want to hear teachers called by their true names.”
“No!” both Vivica and I say in unison.
“No, Mom,” I say, “I can handle it myself.”
“Exactly,” Dad says. “You girls are Knights, not princesses, and knights fight their own battles.”
“It’s really okay,” I say. “He was about to tell me to stop eating, but then he remembered that I’ve got to snack all day. I was just embarrassed because everyone was watching me, that’s all.”
“So much for keeping the Migraine Girl thing on the down low,” Vivica mumbles under her breath. Milky Way mrrmphs at her. I stroke her fur with my free toes to thank her.
“Wait, back up,” Georgie says. She wipes her mouth on the sleeve of her red T-shirt until she sees Mom take her own napkin from her lap with an exaggerated flourish. Georgie grabs her napkin from the table and swipes it across her mouth. “Why does Mr. Ketchup—”
“Mr. Heinz,” Mom says, neatly laying her napkin back in her lap.
Georgie looks up at the ceiling and takes a deep breath. She’s way too cool to roll her eyes. “Why does Mr. Heinz have it in for you, Vivica?”
“Don’t you remember? The Great Fawn Incident back in August?” Vivica looks from Georgie to Dad for confirmation. “You remember, right?”
Dad must feel everyone’s eyes on him, because he looks up from forking up bits of breakfast taco and blinks. “Hmm?”
“I don’t remember you telling me about a problem with a fawn when we talked on the phone,” Mom says, her questioning eyebrow now raised at Dad. He shrugs his shoulders and sips his coffee.
“Oh, do you mean that day when Mr. Heinz brought us the bat box as a welcome-to-the-neighborhood gift?” Georgie asks. Vivica nods, smiling triumphantly. Georgie turns to Mom. “Mr. Heinz lives in the neighborhood, and he’s all into wildlife preservation. He volunteers for wildlife rescue and at the bat cave information center.”
“Bat cave?” Dad asks, straightening up with mock excitement. “Can he show me the Batmobile?”
“Dad!” all three of us girls yell at once.
Vivica takes back the story. “Anywaaaaay … he was hanging the bat house for us in that tree at the edge of the backyard—”
“Of course, I had to help him,” Georgie says. “He’s not the tallest guy.”
“Not relevant, Georgie,” Mom says, “Vivica, please go on.”
“Okay, so I’m hanging out to be polite, but I’m bored. I go over to where the fields start, and I see this fawn curled up all by herself in the grass. I can’t see the mama doe anywhere, and I’m worried she’s abandoned the fawn. So I run back to the house and get a bowl of water and take it out to her and sit a few feet away to see if she’ll be okay. I do not touch her, no matter what Mr. Ketch— Mr. Heinz, says. But he sees what’s going on and gets all upset and waves me over and gives me this big lecture about how I should never, ever disturb a fawn, because the mother is out feeding and she’s hidden the fawn in the grass and is staying away so predators don’t find her and that I may have ‘good intentions,’” Vivica says and makes air quotes with her fingers, “but that I’m most definitely not helping.”
“Okay,” Mom says in that drawn-out way grown-ups do when you’ve said a lot, but they think you haven’t told them anything. “So, did you leave the fawn alone?”
“Yes!”
“She did, Mom,” Georgie says and comes over to Vivica and gives her a sideways shoulder hug. “And she sat up in the balcony of my apartment with binoculars all afternoon until dusk watching for the doe to come back. Which she finally did.”
“Exactly,” Vivica says. She flips Georgie’s hand up from where she’s still hugging her shoulder and gives her a high five. “Thanks, George.”
“You’re welcome, Vivid.” Vivica grimaces and Georgie smirks—she knows Vivica hates being called Vivid even more than Georgie hates being called George. “Glad to be of service.”
“Well, good,” Mom says. “It sounds like everything turned out okay and maybe we all learned something.”
Something Georgie said, about Mr. Heinz being short, nags at me. I try to picture him in my mind, but I’d been so nervous during class and my brain had been a little foggy from the Hideous Hummer starting up, so all I can picture is bright red hair. Headaches do not help artistic scientists store evidence in their minds.
“Georgie, how short is Mr. Heinz?” I ask.
“I believe I heard myself say that wasn’t relevant,” Mom says. “Someone’s physical characteristics have no bearing on whether they are a good teacher or neighbor.”
Georgie starts clearing the table, picking up Mom’s empty plate. As she passes behind Mom on her way to the kitchen, she puts her hand up to her ear and mouths to me, “This short.”
The same height as a lot of teenagers, and Vivica thinks he has it in for her. As in, Mr. Ketchup could have a motive for trying to mess with Viv’s head. I try to picture The Grayster, replaying again in my mind the movie of the figure running across the patio. Could our teacher really be as mad about the fawn thing as Vivica makes him out to be? Mad enough to risk getting in a ton of trouble if someone figured out he’s trying to scare one of his students?