Free The Quirks, Welcome to Normal by Erin Soderberg

“Fi-
inn
!”
    From across the parking lot, both girls heard a sickening squeal of tires. Molly ran toward the sound. Her breath whooshed out of her body when she saw that her brother was standing less than
six inches in front of a stopped car.
    Molly stared in wonder. The driver had miraculously screeched to a stop, right in the middle of the parking lot! Molly couldn’t believe her brother had gotten so lucky. The woman inside
the car couldn’t even
see
Finn. What a strange thing that she had stopped just in the nick of time!

    “I’m fine,” Finn called, waving to his sister. Gumballs fell from inside his armpit when he lifted it to wave. Molly could see that his pockets were full of gumballs.
He’d turned up the edge of his shirt to create a giant invisible pouch for even more balls, and his mouth was stuffed with the sticky stuff.
    Penelope ran up next to her sister. “Finn?” she wondered aloud.
    “He’s fine,” Molly said, motioning for her brother to come back to the sidewalk with them.
    “I know,” Penelope said slowly, her eyes wide. “I can see him.”

“ F i n n ? ” P enelope asked timidly, moving
toward her brother. “Is that really you?”
    Finn’s face broke into a huge, lopsided smile. “You can see me?” He jumped up and down and spun in a circle and wiggled his backside. “Can you see this?” He bounced
and twisted, acting like a nut.
    “You look exactly like I thought you would,” Pen said, grinning. She ran over to her brother and wrapped him in her arms. “You
look
just like you
feel
!”
    The woman in the car rolled down her window. She looked shaken and her face was pasty white. There was a child, about Finn’s age, in a booster seat in the back. “I’m so
sorry,” the woman said hurriedly. “It’s like your brother popped up out of nowhere. I was driving through the parking lot, and then all of a sudden, there he was—right in
front of me! I don’t know how I didn’t see him sooner!”
    Molly nodded at the woman. “It’s okay,” she said. “He’s fine.”
    “He’s not hurt?” the woman asked.
    Right then, Mr. Intihar, Bree, and Grandpa came barreling out of Crazy Ed’s. Mr. Intihar waved at them. “There you are, boy! I thought I saw your car pull up.” Mr. Intihar
tapped on the window of the car that had almost hit Finn. A little boy waved at him from the backseat. “Hello, Maggie,” he said, smiling warmly at the woman. “Come meet the
Quirks, Charlie.”
    Charlie popped out of his seat and leaped out of the car. He ran up to Mr. Intihar and gave him a hug. Molly looked at her mother and saw that she was staring—openmouthed—at Finn.
She hustled over and squeezed her son tightly. Penelope’s arms were still wrapped around her brother. Finn looked both delighted and squished between them. In all the commotion, Grandpa Quill
hadn’t yet noticed that there was suddenly an extra kid standing in the parking lot.
    Pen stared at Finn’s hair and his fingernails and his little ears as Mr. Intihar talked with Maggie and Charlie. “You’re filthy,” she whispered to him. “It’s
like you’re trying to grow carrots behind your ears.” She plucked at the backs of Finn’s dirty ear, and a tiny carrot emerged in her fingertips. She stuffed it down the back of
his shirt to hide it. “Sorry, pal.”
    “I’m on a bath strike,” Finn whispered back. “Only Molly could see me, so why wash?”
    Molly was nervous to move or speak or do anything at all, for fear that Finn would somehow disappear again.
What made him show up?
she wondered. Had Penelope’s magic come to the
rescue and made him appear just in time for the car to stop? Or had Finn figured out how to control his own Quirk?
    “Have a good weekend, Charlie,” the woman—Maggie—said, waving at Mr. Intihar and their son. “I’ll see you on Sunday.” Then she drove off and the Quirks
were left in the parking lot with Mr. Intihar and Charlie.
    “Well, hello there,” Mr.