A Friendly Town That's Almost Always by the Ocean! Read online

  Most of all, what’s the deal with those rock cats? They’re just not NORMAL!

  But that’s the thing. Almost nothing about Topsea is normal. Not even you, Mr. Zapple. (No offense. But a locker at the bottom of the swimming pool? Really???)

  I know my mom really wants me to like it here, and I don’t want to let her down. This year’s been really hard for both of us. And I know I haven’t been in Topsea very long at all.

  But it’s nothing like my hometown. The school is nothing like my school back home. The kids are nothing like my friends back home….

  Maybe I’m more homesick than I thought.

  “It’s so nice out this morning,” Davy’s mom said, adding cracked pepper to her crab-and-cheese omelet. “You should spend the day outside. Do something fun.”

  Davy picked at his eggs. “Like what?”

  “Like anything! My supervisor at the seaweed cracker factory mentioned there’s a great water park in town. You could—”

  “It’s closed,” Davy interrupted. “Quincy told me. They don’t know when it’ll be open again.”

  “That’s too bad.” His mom took a sip of coffee. Then her face brightened. “But who needs a water park when you have the whole ocean? You should go to the beach! Maybe take your fishing pole?”

  Davy stared down at his plate. “I don’t want…” he began, then stopped.

  The truth was, he didn’t want to go fishing without his dad. But saying so would just make Mom feel bad, and he really didn’t want to do that. So he forced himself to smile.

  “I’m not sure which box I packed it in,” he said. “But I can still go to the beach. It’ll be fun!”

  His mom beamed at him. “Great! I just know we’re both going to love it here, Davy.”

  Davy nodded. But he doubted it.

  After breakfast, Davy headed down to the beach. When the grass turned to sand, he kicked off his shoes and carried them, watching for clamshells and stepping over driftwood. He was scrambling over a particularly large and twisty log when he heard a familiar voice.

  “Stay! Stay! Oh, why won’t you stay?”

  Davy glanced around until he spotted Nia. She was calling commands to Earl Grey as he snuffled around, blissfully unaware. A few feet away, Jules was perched on a rock beside Quincy, who was scribbling in his notebook. And much farther down the beach, Davy saw Talise crouched in the sand, studying something with a magnifying glass.

  “Roll over!” Nia was saying. “Roll over!”

  “You’re not saying it right,” Jules told her.

  “How would you know?” Nia replied huffily. “You’ve never trained a watch hog!”

  Davy stood uncertainly by the twisty driftwood. Should he go join them? Before he could decide what to do, Quincy glanced up and beamed.

  “Daley!” he called, waving. “Hi!”

  Somewhat encouraged, Davy walked over to them. “Hi,” he said. “It’s Davy, actually. With a v.”

  “Do you have any watch-hog training experience?” Jules asked him. “Because Nia could really use an expert.”

  “I’m doing just fine, thank you,” Nia said irritably. She picked up a stick and tossed it toward the water. “Fetch!”

  Earl Grey gazed out at the ocean, then back at Nia. He wagged his tail. Nia sighed.

  “Are you trying to train him like a dog?” Davy asked.

  “A dog?” Nia repeated, looking offended. “Earl Grey might not be easy to train, but he’s real.”

  Jules hopped off the log. She smiled at Davy. “How do you like Topsea so far?”

  “Oh! It’s…um…” Davy hesitated. “Nice.” Weird was what he meant, but he didn’t want to offend his new friends. If they actually counted as friends. They were very nice to him, but couldn’t seem to remember his name.

  “What was your old town like?” Quincy asked.

  Davy broke into a grin. “It was great! We lived by a big lake. And there was a really good library, and Main Street had lots of fun places like a comic book store and a movie theater and…”

  He trailed off. Talking about his old life was making his throat feel funny. Besides, he knew he shouldn’t be talking about it at all. He was supposed to be adjusting.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Davy heard himself say. “I don’t live there anymore.”

  “That’s true,” Nia said. “But I’d still like to hear about it!”

  “Me, too,” Quincy added. “I’ve never lived anywhere but Topsea. Moving to a new town sounds kind of scary.”

  Davy ducked his head. “I’ll tell you more about it some other time. It’s just…different here.”

  “That’s exactly what my stepsister said when she moved away for college,” Jules said. “But she loves it there now.”

  “Really?” Davy said. Jules nodded.

  “Why don’t we show you around town?” Quincy said eagerly.

  “Okay,” Davy said. “Um, thanks.”

  Jules whipped out a notepad and pen. “All right, Davis,” she announced. “First stop on your grand tour of Topsea: the beach!”

  Davy looked around. “Yeah, I’ve seen it.”

  “Not all of it,” Jules said. “Follow me!”

  She led the way down the beach toward Talise. Quincy and Davy kept up on either side. Nia trailed behind, barking commands at Earl Grey.

  “Walk!” she said. “Heel! Heel! Ow, not my heel!”

  Jules turned around and walked backward. “That’s just pathetic,” she informed Nia. “Isn’t there a training book you can buy or something?”

  “Well, I had a book, but it was for teacup pigs,” Nia said crossly.

  Davy noticed the rocks in the distance. “Are we going to visit the cats?” he asked nervously. “Because I’ve already seen them, too.”

  “But I bet you haven’t seen the new crabs yet,” Jules said. “They migrated in yesterday. I’m investigating them for the school paper. My stepsister’s been giving me tips. She’s a journalism major and the best reporter on her college’s newspaper staff and—”

  “We know, we know,” Nia groaned.

  “Jules is a great reporter,” Quincy told Davy. “And Talise is a great bathymetrist. Do you have a hobby?”

  Davy thought about this. “Fishing, I guess. My dad and I used to go fishing at the dock all the time.”

  “Oh, look!” Nia cried. “Talise just caught one!”

  She pointed to Talise, who was surrounded by what looked like a large patch of black sand. But it wasn’t sand, Davy realized, stopping short. It was actually a swarm of crabs.

  “I should’ve brought my camera,” Nia said with a sigh.

  Talise straightened up, crab in one hand and magnifying glass in the other. A tiny claw reached up and swiped at one of her shiny pigtails.

  “It’s a baby,” Talise said as the other kids crowded around her, stepping carefully around the scuttling crabs. “At least, I believe so. These crabs are quite unusual looking.”

  “I’m glad I’m not the only one who thinks so,” Davy said, feeling relieved. “That thumbprint marking on its back can’t be normal.”

  “It sure isn’t!” Jules agreed. “That’s why I’m investigating them. There’s something fishy about these crabs.”

  Nia rolled her eyes. “They’re just crabs, Jules.”

  “And just because we’ve never seen them before doesn’t mean they’re not normal,” Talise added. She tapped the baby crab’s shell gently, then set it down in the sand with the others.

  Davy stepped aside as the crab scuttled off. Talise did have a point, he thought. After all, Davy had never seen a zebra in person. But zebras were normal.

  “Well, we should keep going,” Jules said, then turned to Talise. “We’re showing Declan around town. Wanna come?”

  “Thank you, but no. I’d like to keep studying these crabs.”

  “Let me know if there’s any breaking news!” Jules said cheerfully.

  “Talise keeps to herself a lot,” Quincy told Davy as they walked away. “B
ut when she does come, she’s super interesting! So we always ask.”

  Jules led the group past the rocks and farther down the beach. “We might not have a dock for fishing. But a pier is close enough, right?”

  The pier was very, very long. Davy squinted and squinted at the horizon. “Where does it end?” he asked.

  Nia laughed. “End? It doesn’t end!”

  “Normal piers do,” Davy insisted. “They’re short.”

  “What’s the point of a short pier?” asked Jules. “The ocean is really long.”

  “Well, you can sit on the end and go fishing,” Davy said. “Or cannonball off it, like a diving board.”

  Nia studied the endless pier. “That does sound pretty fun.”

  “It is,” Davy told her. “Back in my old town, I used to cannonball off the dock with my d—”

  He closed his mouth abruptly. Jules and Nia gave him a questioning look that he ducked to avoid.

  His stomach was doing the twisty-turny thing again. Talking about his old town was one thing. But Davy definitely didn’t want to talk about his dad with his classmates. He wasn’t sure that his stomach could handle it.

  Quincy adjusted his red wire-rimmed glasses. “What else did you do in your old town?”

  “Um…” Davy chewed his lip. “I went to the library every Saturday.”

  Jules clapped her hands. “Library! Next stop: town square.”

  As they headed into town, the other kids chatted happily. Davy didn’t join in. He was busy wondering if the endless pier was really endless.

  Maybe if you walked long enough, you’d find a dad sitting on the edge with two fishing poles, waiting for you.

  Jules led them to the center of town square, marching past the statue of a mermaid. The mermaid gazed solemnly out in the direction of the sea. In one hand, she held a shell. In the other, she held what almost resembled a dog’s leash.

  “She looks sad today,” Quincy observed.

  “I’m just glad she’s here so Dirk can see her,” Jules said. “The boardwalk is a long walk away.”

  “What do you mean?” Davy asked. “Are you saying this statue…moves?”

  “Well, yeah,” Jules said. “It would be pretty boring to stay in the town square all the time, wouldn’t it?”

  Davy had to admit that was a good point. “I guess so.”

  The kids continued walking through the square until they reached Main Street. It was lined with perfectly normal things like restaurants, a movie theater, a bank, and a comic book store. A real smile lit up Davy’s face.

  Maybe Topsea wasn’t so strange after all. Maybe it was a regular town with a few extra quirks, and he could get used to living here.

  But when they passed the striped pole outside the barbershop, it started spinning—and screaming. Davy covered his ears, alarmed.

  “I never realized how much that sounds like Earl Grey!” Jules yelled over the noise.

  “No way!” Nia exclaimed. “Earl Grey is much louder than that pole!”

  The watch hog snorted in agreement.

  “But why does the pole scream at all?” Davy hollered right as the pole fell silent. Next to him, Quincy opened his notebook.

  “How else would you know when someone’s hair is getting cut?” Jules said.

  Davy didn’t have an answer for that.

  “There’s the library!” Nia announced excitedly.

  Across the street, a large building made of white stone sparkled in the sun. Davy squinted at the two entrances on either side of the building. Each had a sign over the door: BOOK CHECKOUT and PEOPLE CHECKOUT. “You can check out people?” he asked incredulously. “Why?”

  “Why not?” Nia replied as Quincy scribbled in his notebook again. “People and books can both tell stories.”

  “I guess that’s true.” Davy couldn’t help imagining his dad’s reaction to this library. He used to love making up bedtime stories for Davy about robots and aliens and intergalactic battles. He’d probably volunteer to be one of the library’s checkout storytellers!

  Davy sighed.

  Next door, the roof of the post office was covered in seagulls, some of which still had envelopes clamped in their beaks. Davy was kind of used to the seagulls delivering mail by now. But when he saw the big blue mailbox outside the entrance, he halted. Quincy stopped next to him, pen poised over his notebook again.

  “Fiction and Nonfiction,” Davy read aloud, pointing from one slot to the next. “What does that mean? Is this for the library?”

  Instead of responding, Quincy started to scribble.

  “What is it that you’re always writing, anyway?” Davy asked.

  “He’s writing down your questions,” Jules explained. “You ask very good ones. And these mailboxes are for your mail.”

  “Fiction and nonfiction mail?”

  “Well, sure,” Jules said. “If you’re mailing a letter to your grandmother, it goes in the nonfiction slot. If you’re mailing a letter to Rumpelstiltskin, it goes in the fiction slot. I’m pen pals with Gretel.”

  “I’m pen pals with Pinocchio,” Nia added.

  Jules rolled her eyes. “You are so lying.”

  Quincy sighed. “I’m still never sure which slot I should put my letter to Santa in.”

  Down the street, the barbershop pole spun and screamed again. Davy winced. Earl Grey nosed his hand in a comforting way. But despite the kind gesture, Davy didn’t feel better. He’d had enough of trying to adjust for one day.

  Nia tilted her head. “What’s wrong, Devon?”

  “Nothing,” Davy said. “I—I have to go. I promised my mom I’d help unpack more boxes.”

  “Aw,” said Jules. “We haven’t even shown you the bottomless cove yet!”

  How can a cove not have a bottom? Davy wanted to ask. Instead, he just said, “Maybe next time. Thanks for the tour!”

  His classmates waved good-bye as he headed back down Main Street, and Davy waved back.

  He knew he needed to do a better job adjusting. Because he wanted to like it here! The library did seem pretty fun. The endless pier was probably just fine for fishing. The moving mermaid statue was kind of cool, and the screaming barbershop pole…well, he could just bring earplugs when he got a haircut.

  Sure, none of it was normal. But Davy could get used to living in Topsea. If only he didn’t miss his old life so much.

  The Ice-Cream Man

  Everybody loves it when the ice-cream man comes to Topsea.

  Even though you never know what you’re going to get.

  That’s the fun of it, most kids say. It’s exciting when you don’t know what you’re about to bite into. Whether the flavor on the menu is what you’re actually tasting. Or exactly what that crunch is.

  Sometimes your ice cream is perfectly normal. At least, it tastes and looks that way.

  Sometimes your ice cream is imperfectly normal. Or not normal at all, though you can’t always tell at first.

  Sometimes, you’ll get all the way to the bottom of your ice cream before the surprise.

  A candy corn.

  A cluster of barnacles.

  A plastic triceratops covered in glitter.

  A wad of used chewing gum. (Hopefully it’s yours?)

  The ice-cream truck plays a jingle as it drives around town. All the kids in Topsea recognize it as soon as they hear it, although their parents rarely do. But for some reason, nobody can remember the tune after the truck drives away.

  “I think it goes like this,” one kid will say, then hum.

  “No, that’s ‘Rockabye Baby.’”

  “Are you sure?”

  It’s the same thing with the ice-cream man himself. As soon as he leaves, nobody can really remember what he looks like, although everybody remembers how nice he was.

  “He’s so smiley! He must be the happiest guy.”

  “Once my candy-cane-flavored ice-cream cone had a lump of coal in the bottom. But I’m sure it wasn’t on purpose.”

  “I didn’t even m
ind the time I ordered an ice pop, and he gave me a baby-doll head on a stick.”

  The grown-ups in town have nice things to say about him, too.

  “Nothing is as cheerful as the ice-cream truck going by with a crowd of children running after it,” they say. They share fond memories of the ice-cream truck from their own childhoods, and all the exciting things they found in their ice-cream cones, like tentacles and elongated molars.

  Then again, not everybody likes surprises.

  NOTIFICATION: WANTED FLYER

  (Posted to every telephone pole in Topsea and stuffed in every mailbox.)

  Some kids collect seashells or rocks or oddly shaped teeth. Quincy collected questions.

  He kept them in a notebook. Some were questions he asked. Some were questions others asked him. And some were questions he overheard.

  Whenever Quincy heard a question, any question, he wrote it down.

  So Quincy spent a lot of time writing. He had quite a collection of notebooks, too.

  When it came to questions, there was an infinite supply.

  It was kind of overwhelming, actually. But then, lots of things overwhelmed Quincy.

  His parents asked endless questions at home. And because they were scientists, their questions were especially challenging. Also, Quincy’s classmates came to school with shiny new questions every day. This meant Quincy’s collection would always be incomplete.

  The world would never run out of questions.

  Wednesday morning was Show-and-Tell. Quincy brought his questions.

  Nia went first. She stood at the front of the classroom holding a hoop. Earl Grey eyed it warily. After the rock-cat incident, Ms. Grimalkin allowed the watch hog in the classroom for special occasions (as long as the kids promised not to tell the PTA).

  “Jump!” Nia ordered.

  Earl Grey just stared at her.

  “Please?” she begged.

  Finally, the watch hog leaped toward the hoop. He made it halfway through and got stuck, his back legs wiggling in the air.

  Ms. Grimalkin poked his rump with a pointy fingernail. “Looks like someone’s been eating too much oatmeal!”