Lola Zola and the Lemonade Crush (16 page)

“Oh, hi,” she said casually. Super casually. “What's up?”

“I need to talk to you,” said Buck, losing the high-pitched voice and sounding like himself.

Lola looked out her bedroom window and saw the sandstorm had subsided. Nature was taking a coffee break. She also noticed the curtains in Hot Dog's living room across the street, slowly opening, revealing Buck sitting on Hot Dog's couch with the phone to his ear.

“You want to come over?” asked Lola.

Buck was there a minute later, knocking on the Zolas' door. Lola didn't want to appear anxious, so from inside her bedroom, she waited patiently for her parents to open the door. Fat chance.

When Lola walked out of her bedroom and into the living room, she saw her parents slow dancing to the Louis Armstrong song her father had been searching for in the cabinet. The Smooch God was back big-time.

After fiddling with her frizzy ferns and nervously blowing on her sweaty palms, Lola opened the front door with a shy, “Hi.”

“Hi,” said Buck, his eyes hiding under a baseball cap.

There was an awkward pause. Lola tried desperately to think of something, anything, to say, but her mind was a bland piece of butcher paper. Where was the Blabber God when you needed him? Was he on a coffee break too?

Shifting his weight from one leg to the other, holding both hands behind his back, Buck mumbled, “My-dad-joined-Alcoholics-Anonymous.”

“Good,” said Lola, an expert mumble translator since she also spoke the mumble language. “Now he'll stop drinking.”

“Maybe.”

Maybe Lola would think of something to say before the decade ended. Maybe not. Maybe she would never say another word in her life and become a human statue, stuck in the doorway for eternity.

Buck peered out from under his baseball cap and flashed a split-second grin at Lola. That was all she needed.

“Want to come in?”

Peeking inside the living room, Buck took one look at Lola's parents dancing and smooching and shook his head no. What could be more embarrassing than talking to a girl you kind of like while her parents were in smooch-mode?

“Oh,” said Lola. “Just ignore them.”

Interrupting the stillness, Buck presented Lola with a tiny box he had been holding. It was wrapped in comic book paper.

“Sorry, we didn't have any wrapping paper at our house,” he said apologetically.

“Oh.”

“Aren't you going to open it?”

“Oh, yeah,” said Lola.

Lola opened the box and found a sliver of paper with three numbers on it.

“It's the new combination to the lock on my mountain bike,” said Buck. “You can ride it sometime if you want.”

Grinning, Lola nodded, “Gee whiz, Buck, this is so cool.” And it was, for she could imagine herself pedaling up Mount Everest with Bowzer providing travel commentary from the bike basket.

“Give me five,” said Buck, raising his hand.

As their palms met, Buck and Lola both hesitated, letting the slap last longer than most high fives. Were they holding slaps or holding hands? It was one of those pancake-flapjack questions. Who knew the difference? And who cared?

“Bye,” Buck said, abruptly pulling his hand away and racing back across the street to his friend's house. Lola closed the door, traipsed into the living room, and curled up on the sofa. Her parents sat close together on the couch taking a smooch recess.

Lola was so busy day dreaming about Buck that she almost didn't see Bowzer saunter over with a renewed sense of self-confidence. Purring extra loudly, the cuddle-ball jumped into her lap and peered up at Lola as if to say, “Notice anything different?”

Stroking the cat's fur, Lola stopped, did a double take, and gasped.

“Mom, Dad, look at Bowzer!”

Lola's father stared at the cat.

“What on earth…” He walked over to take a closer look. “I see a stump at the end of his rump!”

Diane Zola rubbed her eyes to make sure she wasn't dreaming.

“I never thought I'd say these words,” she said, “but Bowzer's tail is growing back!”

Quickly Lola grabbed a tape measure from a kitchen drawer, measured Bowzer's stump, and announced proudly, “It's almost two inches.”

“I'd say that qualifies as a tail,” said Lola's father.

“Amazing,” said her mother.

“Cataclysmic!” said Lola on the parrot phone with Melanie, seconds later.

“Why do you think it grew back?” asked Melanie.

Lola scratched her head. She wasn't a tail scientist, but she did have some theories. “I'm not sure. Maybe my lemonade does have secret powers or…”

“Or what?”

Lola was reluctant to share her second theory, but she took a risk. “Or maybe the magic was in holding Buck's hand, in high-fiving it.”

Melanie was mum for a long minute. Then a giggle escaped. “How will you ever know?” she asked.

“I guess we'll have to hold hands again and test my theory.”

“Ondomay Rossgay!” said Melanie—Pig Latin for
mondo gross
.

*** *** ***

“I have no choice,” Lola told her cat later that night as Bowzer curled up in the crook of Lola's neck and thumped his newly sprouted tail on Lola's pillow. “I have to proceed scientifically.” She looked at Bowzer and could have sworn he smiled.

With the full moon in view right outside her bedroom window, Lola stared at Bowzer's rump and waited for his tail to sprout another quarter inch.

One minute passed, then two, three, four, ten. Nothing grew except Lola's sleepiness and the volume of Bowzer's engine. Right before drifting off, however, Lola felt something furry tickle her ear.

“Oh Bowzer,” she said, “I love you—and your new tail!”

*** *** ***

If you love Lola Zola….get ready for her return in…

New Girl on Salt Flat Road

a Lola Zola book

by

Marcy Winograd and Jackie Hirtz

(Turn the page for a sneak peek)

Chapter 1

Lola Zola's eleven-year-old life turned upside down like a monkey the day “Tween Queen Pauline” clanged into town. She wore glittery bangles and arrived special delivery from Malibu.

“I wonder if she plays Ping-Pong or soccer,” mused Lola, sticking her head out of the upstairs window in her best friend's bedroom. Melanie's décor was bubblegum pink, not exactly the color of a soccer uniform or Ping-Pong paddle—way feminine.

Life on Salt Flat Road was usually Dullsville, but today the newcomer's arrival in the city of Mirage caused tweens to pop their heads out of windows. Lola's neck hurt from popping her head out so much.

“I don't think she's a soccer jock,” said Melanie, craning her head out the same window. “Check out her rhinestone tiara. Oh, my God, she's like all sparkly and princessy.” Melanie pointed her bubblegum pink fingernail at the newly arrived royalty below. The princess's long, swooshing, jet-black hair screamed sophistication.

Well, sort of. Lola wondered if the swooshing hair was real black or bottle black. She'd need at telescope to make that determination—and all she had were her nosy eyes. Either way, the newcomer's sleek locks made Lola self-conscious about her own ferns—hair frizz that rarely hung straight and certainly never swooshed. Just for the heck of it, Lola tugged on one of her ferns—to see if it would straighten—but all she managed to do was upset her hair band, the one with the coyote bow her father had given her for Coyote Spirit Day. The bow slid behind her ear. Geekness.

Lola adjusted the bow, giving it a slight tilt. Perhaps this might make her look as sophisticated as the newcomer, though the coyote howling at the stars wasn't exactly fashionable, even in Dullsville Land.

“Her hair is so awesomely straight,” said Lola, staring at the new girl. “I bet she flat irons it from dusk to midnight.” Lola's mom forbade Lola from ironing her natural waves. “Natural is always better” was something Diane Zola said often.
Natural was having hairy armpits,
Lola thought. Ewww.

“I don't see any freckles,” observed Melanie, a fiery redhead forever searching for a fellow freckler to share the challenge of multiplying spots.

Lola and Melanie, best friends and next-door neighbors, studied the street below where the new tween in town and her family unloaded a U-Haul full of exotic furniture into a foreclosed home. Out came the movie-star vanity, complete with an array of cosmetic mirror light bulbs.

“She looks like a tweenage Cleopatra,” said Lola. “I bet she dates.”

The Body God had blessed the middle-school newcomer with curvy hips and dips. All Lola got, however, was a pancake-flat chest. Melanie was in the same pancake boat. Nothing rocked—yet.

Last week, Lola had worked up the courage to ask her mother for a bra. “I need one,” she begged her mom, as the two peeled onions to prepare burritos for dinner. Bowzer, Lola's tailless cat, circled between their legs, lobbying for a kitty snack of chicken.

“Lola, you're too young for a bra.” Her mother patted her on the head like she was a cat.

“No, I'm not too young, Mom. I'm in sixth grade—middle school.” Bowzer meowed. Was that a show of support or a demand for chow? Lola continued, “All the girls wear bras.”
Well, almost all, except Lola and Melanie. Some of the other girls wore padded fake push-up numbers that scared Lola. Sure, she wanted to grow up, but not in the fast lane. Who wanted to race to twenty?

Lola set Bowzer's bowl on the floor. Ah, to be a cat and live the simple life. Begging for scraps of food was easier than begging for a bra.

Lola's mother poured oil into the frying pan. “Sweetheart, there's plenty of time for brassieres.”

OMG! Why did she have to use that word? It made Lola feel fifty. For a second, she imagined herself a grandmother traipsing around in a bathrobe married to Buck, her archrival turned sort-of friend, not boyfriend, definitely not boyfriend, even though she kind of liked him but would never admit it, and certainly not to her mother.

Lola's mom continued. “You don't need to hurry your childhood, sweetheart. You're only young once.” She kissed her daughter on the cheek.

Lola threw sliced onions and chili peppers into the pan and stirred. She could feel her rage cooking.

“C'mon, Mom, please. I want one. Just one.”

Lola prayed to the Cool Mom God that her mother would change her mind. There was nothing more humiliating than begging for a bra.

But the Cool Mom God must have been on vacation because Lola's mother said, “Lola, honey, you don't need a bra yet.”

Ouch! Thanks a lot, Mom.

“When you need one, we'll go shopping together. It'll be fun.”

Through the screen door, Bowzer hissed at a neighbor's orange tabby trespassing in the yard. It was L.T. (short for Long Tail). Was Bowzer jealous of that tail? Can cats get jealous? Lola grabbed another onion and tore off the skin.

“You don't have to say that, Mom.” Like the onion, Lola now had no skin. Her emotions raw, she fought back tears.

Her mother paused. “I'm sorry, baby. You're right…”

“I'm right? Really?” Lola felt hopeful.

Her mother clarified, “I shouldn't be so blunt.”

“Oh.” Double ouch. She chopped up another onion and tossed it into the simmering pan. Lola wasn't sure if it was the onion or her disappointment that gave her a boulder-sized throat lump and watery eyes. A few minutes later, when Lola's father came home from managing the Mirage Cinema, he noticed the puddles in his daughter's eyes.

“What's wrong?” asked her father, making a sad face to match his daughter's gloom. Lola's father was the great-grandson of a Native American medicine man and believed love was the most powerful healer of all.

“Nothing's wrong,” Lola lied.

“Are you sure?” Lola's father couldn't stand to see his daughter cry. It made him cry.

“I'm sorry, Dad, I don't want to talk about it.”

Lola's father made a happy face, his eyes twinkling. “Let's not be sad on a holiday, Lola.”

“What holiday?” asked Lola. It wasn't Take Your Cat to Work Day or Walk Backward Carrying an Umbrella Day.

Lola's dad handed his daughter a popcorn box without the popcorn. “It's Coyote Spirit Day,” he told Lola. “Look inside.”

Lola peeked inside the box and saw a coyote on a bow serenading the stars. Lola forced a smile. Was she getting too old for bows?

“You're not too old for bows,” said her mother, reading Lola's mind with maternal x-ray brain vision. Her mother held the bow up to Lola's head. “Adorable.” Lola didn't want to be adorable. Little girls with pigtails were adorable. Barf.

When Lola's smile slipped into a frown, her father said, “Remember, Lola, the coyote is the spirit guide with unimaginable wisdom.”

Wisdom? Lola didn't want to be wise, either. She just wanted to be like most of the other girls in sixth grade—grown up, sort of.

“Thanks, Dad,” said Lola, clipping the bow in her hair. “Maybe the coyote can guide my spirit to a soft spot in Mom's heart.” She turned to her mother, who simply shook her head no.

With that, Lola scooped up her tuxedo cat and bolted to the backyard tepee to think about what her mother thought she was too young to think about.

Inside the tepee Lola sat cross-legged with Bowzer in her lap. Lola wished she was a cat. Eat, sleep, purr, hiss.

It wasn't until the middle of the night, that Lola awakened to appreciate her father's coyote gift. Maybe it was Bowzer batting the bow across the bed that got her attention—or perhaps it was the diamond sky that reminded her of the stars on the bow. Lola gently took the bow from Bowzer's paws, clipped the bow in her hair, and lay her head back down on the pillow to marvel at the magic of the stars twinkling outside her window. Through the glass, she stared at the outline of the tree branches, which in her sleepy state looked just like the ears of a coyote.