Worse Than Weird Read online

  Dedication

  For my entire family—

  may you all embrace your “weird.”

  But especially for Steve, Alli, and Ryan,

  I love you.

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter One: A Summer Plan

  Chapter Two: Hippie Chicken

  Chapter Three: The Sighting at the Joan of Arc Statue

  Chapter Four: Money

  Chapter Five: The End-of-the-Year Picnic

  Chapter Six: The Hawthorne Street Food Carts

  Chapter Seven: The Missing Mysterious Note

  Chapter Eight: Plea Bargaining

  Chapter Nine: Summer Plans for All

  Chapter Ten: The Double-decker Bus

  Chapter Eleven: The Division Street Cart Pod

  Chapter Twelve: Willa’s House

  Chapter Thirteen: The Alder Street Carts

  Chapter Fourteen: Where Cold Drinks Are Needed

  Chapter Fifteen: More New Housemates

  Chapter Sixteen: Never Enough Money

  Chapter Seventeen: The Bus Ride

  Chapter Eighteen: The Smoothie Cart

  Chapter Nineteen: Brie’s Crisis

  Chapter Twenty: Willa’s Crisis

  Chapter Twenty-One: A Decision

  Chapter Twenty-Two: Patsy’s Diner

  Chapter Twenty-Three: A Proposal

  Chapter Twenty-Four: Joey’s Connections

  Chapter Twenty-Five: Pepper or Monterey

  Chapter Twenty-Six: A Visit with Brie

  Chapter Twenty-Seven: The Broody Chicken

  Chapter Twenty-Eight: Hannah and Isabel

  Chapter Twenty-Nine: Mississippi Avenue

  Chapter Thirty: Details

  Chapter Thirty-One: The Team of Four

  Chapter Thirty-Two: Texts

  Chapter Thirty-Three: The Rhode Island Red

  Chapter Thirty-Four: The Tenth Clue

  Chapter Thirty-Five: The Next Step

  Chapter Thirty-Six: Cathedral Park

  Chapter Thirty-Seven: The Light People

  Chapter Thirty-Eight: The Food Cart Hunt Results

  Chapter Thirty-Nine: Parents

  Chapter Forty: Coho’s Gift

  Chapter Forty-One: Joey Marino

  Author’s Note

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Books by Jody J. Little

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Chapter One

  A Summer Plan

  On the second-to-last day of sixth grade, I wake up to my parents snoring on the futon couch across the living room.

  They snore in perfect rhythm.

  It’s like a timed loop in a computer program, really.

  Hank gargles on the inhale.

  Coral whistles on the exhale.

  Repeat.

  In a tiny house like ours, I don’t get my own room like most twelve-year-olds. I get a corner, with a twin-size futon, unfolded on the floor. It’s my island, 39 by 75 inches of space just for me.

  But today, I don’t mind seeing Hank and Coral across the room, because if they are sleeping on the living room futon, then our cousin James is sleeping in their bedroom.

  He’s here.

  Finally.

  My very first thought is to spring off my island and rush to the bedroom to wake him up. I have so much to tell him, and so many questions to ask. But then I remember my plan, and I hold my eagerness in because a plan is like a computer program. You don’t jump ahead and leave out steps. Missing steps means one thing is certain: ERROR.

  My school-issued laptop is in its spot under my pillow. I slide it out and cover myself with blankets. This is my last morning with this beautiful device. All computers and equipment must be returned today to our tech teacher, Mrs. Naberhaus. Linking on to our neighbor’s Wi-Fi, I open our class blog one last time. I skim the posts about upcoming summer vacations, clicking Like as I go. Pilar is going to Hawaii. Austin is hiking in the gorge for seven days. Aditi is visiting her grandparents in India. I wish I could share my summer plans too, but I can’t. Not yet. Not until I talk to James.

  I navigate to my emails and tap to open the message from Mrs. Naberhaus, from two weeks ago.

  Hi Mac,

  See the attached flyer. I think this opportunity is perfect for you. The instructor’s a friend of mine. With her guidance in an intensive camp like this, your coding skills will soar. I hope you’ll talk to your parents.

  Sincerely, Mrs. Naberhaus

  Clicking open the attachment, I read it for the thousandth time.

  Summer Coding Camp

  Learn Python and C++ to create a new app or game

  For incoming 7th graders only

  Eight-week session begins June 28

  Every day, Monday through Friday 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.

  All materials and devices are provided. Bring your own lunch.

  Cost: $500

  This is it, my summer plan.

  I haven’t talked to Hank and Coral because I know they’ll say no. But James is here now, and who can better convince my parents that I should attend a computer camp than the chief information officer of Technobotical Software?

  That’s my hope, anyway. I cross my fingers and squeeze them tight.

  “Mac?”

  Peeking out from under my blankets, I see Hank. He’s shielding his eyes from the electron beams shooting out of my screen.

  “Could you close that? It throws my morning energies out of alignment.”

  “Sorry.” I shut the laptop and tuck it into my schoolbag, along with my notebooks and binder.

  “Are you going out to feed the chickens?” Hank asks.

  I’m not sure why he’s asking, since feeding the chickens and collecting their eggs is my morning chore. I shrug the question aside and scoot off my island, folding and tucking the ends of my sheets and blankets around my futon. Then I select a pair of jeans and a clean T-shirt from the cattail basket that serves as my dresser and walk the eleven steps to the bathroom to dress in private. I comb my long brown hair, separate it into three equal parts, and weave it into a tight braid down my back.

  Tiptoeing out of the bathroom, I grab Coral’s hemp-fiber egg basket from the hook in the kitchen and slink outside to the garage, which is not really a garage at all since Hank converted it to a chicken coop. There’s 144 by 240 inches of private living space for his flock of three. Nine futon islands could fit in here with space left over. I’ve done the calculations.

  Livie, Divie, and Bolivie, the White Leghorn poultry triplets, strut around the straw-lined garage floor. They ignore me completely and jerk themselves out the opened door toward the lawn, ready to peck for whatever it is that free-range chickens peck for.

  I check the water bucket and the feeder, and add more grains, but as I move toward their nesting boxes to collect the three fresh eggs, I hear a soft clucking.

  There, perching on a roost, is another chicken.

  “Who are you?” I ask, which is a ridiculous question to pose to a nearly brainless animal.

  I step back to check out this strange fowl. She’s not a White Leghorn. Deep red and brown feathers cover her rather skinny body. Her head is crooked, like someone bent her neck to the right and it stuck there.

  “Hey! Shoo!” I wave my hands toward the garage door.

  She doesn’t budge. She just sits on the perch and twitches her crooked head.

  I reach for an egg, keeping my eye on the strange hen. She keeps clucking, looking at me with glazed eyes.

  “You don’t belong here.”

  And then, just as I stand up straight, the squatting fowl launches herself off the roost, right toward my face. Her win
gs flap twice, swatting me in the forehead.

  “Ahhhh!” My arms flail in the air, spinning the basket upside down. The egg inside lands on the garage floor, splatting on the cement.

  “Look what you did!”

  I wipe at my forehead to check for blood, then grab a pair of Coral’s gardening gloves so I can scoop up the slimy egg mess and drop it in the compost. Gathering the remaining eggs, I storm back into the house to report the lost egg and the unwanted intruder.

  Coral is up, chopping her garden kale and collards, when I enter the kitchen. My forehead stings from the nasty bird’s wing lashing.

  “Thank you, MacKenna.” She kisses my cheek. Her blond dreadlocks tickle my face, and a new trinket twisted into one of her dreads taps me in the eye. Coral collects discarded plastic bits and stores them in her hair. She considers it her way of protesting the devastation of Mother Earth by the horrors of plastic.

  Coral is the only person who calls me by my full first name. Actually, I have three Mac names, MacKenna MacKensie MacLeod, but three Macs is excessive. It doesn’t adhere to the coding principle of D.R.Y., which stands for Don’t repeat yourself. The triple Mac is like having unnecessary steps, so I prefer just Mac.

  As for Hank and Coral, I’ve never called them Dad and Mom.

  Hank and Coral don’t like titles.

  “A stray chicken got into the garage,” I say. “Hank needs to find out where it came from and get it out.”

  Hank saunters into the kitchen now, yawning, tugging on his rust-colored beard, which hangs to his midchest. “So, you met Poppy.”

  “Poppy?”

  “Isn’t she a beauty?” Hank gushes. “She’s a Rhode Island Red, an excellent breed for urban coops.”

  “She’s yours?”

  “She is now.” Hank reaches into the cupboard for his favorite green tea mug.

  “But . . . but you can’t keep her. The city of Portland chicken ordinance clearly states that you can only keep three or fewer chickens on your property unless you get a permit.”

  Hank laughs. “Oh, I don’t think I need a permit, Mac.”

  “Yes, you do. Those are the rules. You could get a citation.”

  Why did I always have to explain things like this to my parents?

  “I’m not worried about a citation.”

  But I am.

  I’m forever worried when it comes to Hank and Coral.

  I slump into a chair at the kitchen table. “Is my forehead red or scratched?” I point right under my hairline.

  Coral comes over to investigate. “You do have a scratch, honey. What happened?”

  “That illegal chicken attacked me.”

  “The poor thing,” Hank says. “She must be distressed. I’ll get my drum out later this afternoon. Maybe that will calm her.”

  It’s not lost on me that Hank appears more concerned with this new chicken than he is for me and my injury.

  I sigh and reach for one of the unsweetened carrot muffins on the table and take a bite, chewing for the sake of sustenance only. I long to teleport to Willa’s kitchen, where her mom’s probably making pancakes with syrup and bacon. Or to Brie’s kitchen, where she’s likely eating a steaming bowl of her father’s pho.

  “Two days of school left, MacKenna. Seventh grade is just around the corner.” Coral sits down at the table across from me. “Are you as stoked about summer as we are?”

  For the first time ever, I am stoked about summer.

  Because this summer is going to be different, thanks to my plan. It won’t be the usual ten excruciating weeks with Hank and Coral, where I spend my days with chickens and garden compost, and help make natural fiber baskets and soap, and wipe down yoga mats with vinegar solutions.

  And the best part of my summer plan is that I will not have to deal with Hank and Coral’s week-long Mother Earth Festival, an endless seven days of smelly, long-haired, barefoot people, drumming and dancing and singing. They used to all camp in the yard, but the cops came by two summers ago after a neighbor complained about the tents. Hank and Coral were slapped with citations for illegal city camping, so now all the strangers sleep inside, in the living room, surrounding my futon island.

  “Wait until you hear what Hank has planned for the festival.” Coral beams.

  Oh, I can wait.

  I can wait a long time.

  Before Coral begins to share the plans, a hairy-chested, bearded man wearing nothing but soccer shorts ambles into the kitchen.

  I blink about fifty times trying to focus on this man in front of me. “James?” My voice is shaky and uncertain. Is this really him?

  Coral rises and takes the man’s wrist. She squeezes his hand and bounces up and down on her toes, like she’s a child holding the hand of Santa Claus. “MacKenna, James now wants to be called Coho.”

  “Co . . . Coho?”

  Did I hear that right? Isn’t Coho a salmon? Why is the CIO of Technobotical Software going by the name of a fish?

  “Hey, Mac. It’s been a while,” the man named Coho, formerly known as our cousin James, says. He moves toward me like he wants to hug me, but I quickly extend my hand and he shakes it instead.

  “Coho brought us Poppy,” Hanks announces.

  “Who we need a permit for,” I remind them. But inside my mind, I’m not really thinking about a rogue chicken. Other, more important questions are firing around, like what happened to James? Why does he look like . . . like Hank? Where are his pressed khaki pants and white button-up shirt and polished penny loafers?

  Coral drops James’s—Coho’s—hand and puts her arm around my shoulders. “MacKenna, Coho is exploring new paths, and this new energy inside him is colossal. Can’t you just feel it?”

  “No.” I thought his old energy was colossal, his energy of codes and numbers and sequences, and brilliantly engineered devices. The energy that filled me with hope for my future as a computer programmer, far, far away from chickens and drums and stale sugarless carrot muffins.

  “I have to get to school.” I rise from the kitchen chair, feeling a little queasy.

  “Let’s talk later, Mac,” Coho says, but I don’t respond. I just bob my head in agreement.

  “Wait, MacKenna. Do you mind if I borrow your bicycle today? I’m going to loan mine to Coho. It’ll fit him better.” Coral beams at me. “We’re going to meet up with some bicycling friends this afternoon for a few photos.”

  I shrug. “Sure, I guess, but . . .” I eye Coral and the man I used to call James. “You’re not going to do something weird with my bike, are you? I don’t want any adjustments or bells and whistles added.”

  Coral laughs. “I’m just going to be riding it, sweetheart. I promise.”

  Coho laughs too and scratches his beard.

  I feel my summer plan begin to crumble beneath me.

  Chapter Two

  Hippie Chicken

  Without my bike, I race the twenty blocks to school to get there on time. Thoughts and questions blend inside me the whole way. What’s going on with our cousin? What are these paths he’s exploring? Will he still help me convince Hank and Coral that this coding camp is important?

  I enter the front door of Winterhill Middle School, panting down the main hallway toward my classroom, barely focusing. I feel someone jostle me on the side, but I keep moving. Austin passes me, flapping his arms. “Hey, Hippie Chick-chick-chicken, you got feathers in your hair.”

  The insult wakes me up. I glare at him.

  Hippie Chicken.

  I’ve been called names since the first day of first grade when our teacher, Mrs. Grubb, asked us to draw a picture of something we did over the summer. I drew our Earth Festival, with people sitting on grass in a circle with bongo drums in their laps. I added little music symbols to show them singing and thumping on their drums. I drew our chickens too. On the lines below my picture I tried my first-grade best at writing a sentence. We had a sumer festvl.

  When everyone finished their drawings, Mrs. Grubb told us to come to the carpet
at the front of the room and share, one at a time.

  Brie went to Disneyland with her family and saw Mickey Mouse. She drew spinning teacups and the Matterhorn roller coaster. “It’s the happiest place on earth!” she said.

  I’d never been to Disneyland.

  Austin went to the coast. His picture had sand and waves. “I made a giant sandcastle!” he said.

  I’d never been to the coast. I’d only made castles in Coral’s garden compost.

  Willa drew a picture of her birthday party with balloons, a big pink frosted cake, and lots of presents wrapped in colorful paper. “I got ballet slippers.”

  I had birthday parties with Hank and Coral’s friends. They wrapped my gifts in towels.

  When it was my turn, I held up my picture of the drums and the music notes.

  “What’s this, Mac?” Mrs. Grubb asked.

  “Our summer Earth Festival.”

  Mrs. Grubb’s eyebrows lifted.

  “Every summer people come to our house for bongo drumming and dancing, and we make crafts.”

  “Why, that’s a unique tradition,” my teacher said.

  Austin and the other boys began to giggle. He pointed at my picture. “Bongo Girl.” Then he snickered some more. I felt like a stinkbug. Maybe I smelled like one too.

  “Boys,” Mrs. Grubb said, “be polite. It’s Mac’s turn. Mac, do you have more to share?”

  I shook my head. I was done sharing. I didn’t want to be Bongo Girl. I wanted to be a girl with a pink cake. I wanted to be a girl who flew to Disneyland. I still want that.

  I snap out of my bad memory daydream and scowl at Austin, but when I smooth my braid, three small reddish feathers drift to the floor.

  Poppy feathers.

  He laughs some more. “Bawk-bawk-bawk!” he squawks as he walks away.

  I turn around to scoop up the feathers, but when I do I find myself nearly nose to nose with someone else. The someone brushes his straggly black bangs from his eyes with one hand and extends his other hand toward me to reveal the Poppy feathers.

  Joey Marino.

  He’s new this year. I’ve never even spoken to him, yet here he is helping me. I take the feathers from his open palm. “Thank . . .”

  “MAC!”

  I jerk quickly to see Willa grand jeté-ing toward me, her blond curls springing up and down like coils. Brie glides along next to her like the athletic half dolphin she is. They link arms with me.