Some Pigtails

by Jonathan Eig

  Lola loves the pigtails that her grandfather does for her every morning.

  Her principal isn’t so sure.

  When Lola asks Grampa Ed to do her pigtails before school every morning, she doesn’t expect either the kind of pigtails that he gives her, or the principal’s reaction to them. But she and her friends learn that they can stand up for themselves and explain how they feel to the school principal, with surprising results.

  Albert Whitman & Co.

  More than 100 Years of Good Books

  www.albertwhitman.com

  Printed in the United States of America

  Jacket art copyright © 2020 by Albert Whitman & Company

  For Lillian, Jeffery, and Lola—JE

  To every girl that stands for something—ATG

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data is on file with the publisher.

  Text copyright © 2020 by Jonathan Eig

  Illustrations copyright © 2020 by Albert Whitman & Company

  Illustrations by Alicia Teba Godoy

  First published in the United States of America in 2020

  by Albert Whitman & Company

  ISBN 978-0-8075-6564-3 (hardcover)

  ISBN 978-0-8075-6568-1 (paperback)

  ISBN 978-0-8075-6566-7 (ebook)

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Printed in the United States of America

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 LB 24 23 22 21 20

  Design by Aphelandra Messer

  For more information about Albert Whitman & Company,

  visit our website at www.albertwhitman.com.

  1. Getting Ready for School

  2. Dinner

  3. A Flashing Light

  4. A Letter Home

  5. Saturday

  6. A Coffee Cup Full of Hair

  7. Christmas Tree

  8. A Letter from the Principal

  9. Distractions

  10. Hatching a Plan

  11. A Mess

  12. A Smelly Day

  13. Another Trip to the Principal’s Office

  14. Pete and Repeat

  15. Petition and Repetition

  16. Some Pigtails

  “Where are you going with that brush?” Lola’s mother asked her one Monday morning before school.

  “Downstairs to see Grampa,” said Lola, who was eight and a half. She had a pink plastic hair brush and a bag of elastic bands in one hand and her favorite book, Charlotte’s Web, in the other.

  “Why are you bringing a brush?” her mother asked.

  “Well,” Lola said, “you’re too busy to do pigtails today and I can’t do them myself, so I’m going to ask Grampa.”

  Lola’s mother put a peanut-butter-and-banana sandwich in a brown bag. “Grampa doesn’t get up this early, Lola. You know that. Also, I don’t think he knows how to make pigtails.”

  “He might,” Lola said, and she sang a song as she skipped out the door of her apartment and down a flight of stairs to the first floor of her building. That’s where her grandfather lived.

  Lola opened the door with a key she wore on a string around her neck and went in. Grampa Ed had an art studio in the front of his apartment and a bedroom and kitchen at the back. Grampa’s apartment smelled of smoke and ink and glue and paint and coffee and Grampa.

  Lola was dressed neatly in her school uniform—a white shirt with a blue skirt—but her brown hair was a tangled mess. She went into Grampa’s bedroom. “Knock-knock,” Lola said, because she knew her grandfather liked knock-knock jokes.

  “Nobody’s home,” Grampa Ed said from under a pile of blankets in bed.

  “No, Grampa, you’re supposed to say ‘who’s there?’!” Lola said.

  “‘Who’s there?’ is only for people who arrive at a civilized hour,” came Grampa’s voice from beneath the covers. “Come back at noon and we’ll find out who’s there.”

  “But I need you, Grampa!” Lola said. “I really, really need you!”

  “Get lost, kid.”

  “But I have a surprise for you,” Lola said. “Get up, Grampa!”

  “A surprise? You’ve got nothing I want. No money, no beer, no White Sox tickets…”

  “I’ll read Charlotte’s Web to you!” Lola said, holding up her book.

  “No thanks,” Grampa said. “Any other ideas?”

  “Not yet, but I’m sure I’ll think of something,” Lola said. She stood there by Grampa Ed’s bed, rubbing her chin as she thought.

  Then Lola tossed her book on the bed and jumped on top of her grandfather’s mountain of a back. She threw her arms around him and said, “C’mon, wake up, Grampa!”

  “Hey, you’re heavy,” he said.

  Lola jumped off the mountain, her sneakers landing on a red plastic cup that made a cracking noise.

  “Now get up!” she said. “My whole day depends on an important job I have for you.”

  Grampa Ed stuck his head out from under the covers and raised a fuzzy eyebrow. He looked at his granddaughter’s smile, with its missing tooth on top and dimpled cheeks, and almost smiled too. “This better be good,” he said as he moaned and pushed up from his bed.

  Lola held out her pink hairbrush and the plastic bag full of colored elastic bands.

  “Can you make pigtails?” she asked.

  Grampa Ed sighed. He wore a white sleeveless T-shirt and Mickey Mouse pajama bottoms. His head was bald on top, but he had white hair on the sides of his head and a thick white mustache and beard. His arms were covered with tattoos, including a big one on his left bicep that read, Whatever Lola Wants.

  “Do I look like a guy who makes pigtails?” Grampa Ed scratched both armpits at the same time and then sniffed his fingertips. “What’s a pigtail, anyway?” he asked.

  “Grampa! You know!”

  “Why would I ask if I knew? Anyway, make me some coffee or get on your way to school.”

  Lola loved making coffee. She put a scoop of beans in a grinder and poured water into Grampa Ed’s electric kettle.

  “Your feet smell, Grampa,” she said.

  “I thought my nose smelled,” he answered with a shrug.

  Lola laughed.

  “You’re good at jokes, Grampa,” she said. “And you could be good at pigtails, too. You could be really good. Didn’t you tell me you learned to tie fancy knots when you were in the gravy?”

  “Navy.”

  “Whatever. Can you make a fancy knot or not?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Plus, you’re an artist. And that means you like colors. And look how many colors of elastic bands I have!”

  Lola pointed to the bag of elastic bands on Grampa Ed’s night table. She went back to making coffee. Lola put coffee grinds in a paper cone, put the cone over a cup, and poured water into the cone. She turned water to coffee like magic!

  “Here,” she said, handing her grandfather the hairbrush and the big bag of brightly colored elastic bands. “While the coffee’s dripping, part my hair, and put each side in an elastic band. Twist the band around the hair until it’s tight. It’s simple.”

  “Why didn’t you say so? I could have finished this conversation a long time ago and gone back to sleep.”

  “But then we wouldn’t have had all this fun!” Lola said.

  Grampa Ed took a big breath, in and out, but he didn’t speak. He took the brush in one hand and a handful of elastic bands in the other. While he worked, Lola silently read Charlotte’s Web. Maybe she could have a pet pig someday. And a pet spider too.

  Several minutes later, Grampa Ed was done.

 
“There,” he said. “Best I can do.”

  Lola closed her book, picked up the coffee cup, handed it to her grandpa, kissed his cheek, and skipped out of the room.

  “Don’t you want to look at my work?” Grampa Ed called after her. “There’s a mirror in the bathroom.”

  “No thanks,” Lola said. “I trust you. Anyway, it’s late. I have to go. See you after school, Grampa. Love you!”

  Grampa Ed lifted his coffee cup to his lips and took a slurpy sip. Lola went back upstairs to her apartment. As she walked in, her mother came from the kitchen holding a waffle and a backpack.

  “Let’s go, sweetie,” she said.

  “Do you like my pigtails, Mom?” Lola asked.

  “Uh-huh, they’re adorable,” her mother said without looking. Lola knew her mother was a little nervous because it was her first day on a new job. Lola’s mother used to be a police officer, but now she was one of the people who told other police officers what to do. She was a supervisor. Even though the title had the word “super” in it, Lola thought the new job sounded boring. Driving around in a police car was much more fun than sitting at a desk and going to meetings.

  Lola and her mother held hands as they walked. When they got to school, Lola kissed her mother goodbye. Mom made a funny face when she finally looked at Lola’s hair but didn’t say anything. Lola’s friends Maya and Fayth ran to greet her.

  “Whoa!” said Maya.

  “Whoa! Whoa!” said Fayth.

  Both girls giggled.

  “What?” asked Lola.

  “What happened to your hair?” Maya and Fayth asked at the same time.

  Lola put one hand on each of her pigtails. “I need a mirror,” she said.

  Lola ran into the school building as fast as she could and slipped into the nearest girls’ room. She rushed to the sinks, looked up, and froze. There, staring back at her in the mirror, was Lola, eyes wide open, mouth making an “O,” with two pigtails sticking out as straight and stiff as the handlebars on a bicycle. Both were wrapped so heavily in red, white, and blue rubber bands that only the tips of Lola’s brown hair poked out from the ends.

  A smile crept across Lola’s face.

  “Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!” she said as Maya and Fayth stood there grinning. “Cool!”

  At dinner that night, Lola still had her red-white-and-blue pigtails.

  “These things are unbelievable!” she told her mother and grandfather as they ate spaghetti with garlic bread. “They never even came loose! I did monkey bars. I wrestled in the dirt with that mean boy James. I got my whole face wet in the third-floor water fountain that sprays a mile high! But these pigtails never got messed up!”

  “When I make a knot, it stays a knot,” Grampa said. “That’s what they teach you in the gravy.”

  “Thanks, Grampa. I got sooo much attention today!”

  “And that’s a good thing?” he asked.

  “Of course!”

  Lola looked at her mother. “Mom,” she said, “may I be excused for a second?”

  “But you haven’t finished your dinner,” her mother said.

  “I’ll be right back, I promise!”

  Lola’s mother nodded, and Lola jumped up from the table. She ran to her room and came back with a sheet of paper. She read it out loud. “From now on, every Monday I want these American flag handlebar pigtails. On Tuesdays I want a high ponytail. On Wednesdays I want a side pony. On Thursdays I want front pigtails. And on Friday you can do whatever you want.”

  Grampa Ed had his face two inches from his plate, slurping up a strand of spaghetti that had escaped his fork.

  “Who can do whatever who wants?” he asked, looking up.

  “You!” Lola said. “Friday’s your day to be creative.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “This is a list of the ponytails and pigtails I want every day,” she said. “But on Friday you get to do whatever you want.”

  Grampa Ed wiped his mouth. He turned to look at Lola’s mother first, and then at Lola.

  “No,” he said. “Uh-uh.”

  “Please?” Lola asked.

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Lola,” Mom said, “Grampa said he doesn’t want to.”

  “But why?” Lola asked.

  “First of all,” Grampa said, “I don’t take orders from little people, even if they’re cute little people who make good coffee. Second of all, I’ve got better things to do.”

  “Like what?” Lola asked.

  “Lola,” Mom said, “that’s disrespectful.”

  “Sorry, Mom. Sorry, Grampa.”

  Everyone chewed in silence for a few minutes. But Lola was thinking as she chewed. She was thinking of Charlotte’s Web—of the little girl in the story, Fern. Fern was eight years old, just like Lola. In the story, Fern was determined to do what she felt was right, and she came up with a way to convince her father to see her point of view. If her father allowed her to have her way, then Fern would take on the extra responsibility that came with it. Maybe Lola could convince her grandfather to see her point of view. Maybe she could offer a trade.

  “Grampa?” she said.

  “Yeah?”

  “Grampa, you’re really, really good at pigtails. You could be, like, famous or something.”

  Grampa made a scraping noise in his throat that wasn’t pleasant.

  “Here’s a deal: If you make me pigtails every day, I’ll make you coffee every day.”

  Grampa Ed shook his head.

  “Wait!” Lola said. “I’m not done with the deal! How about this? I’ll make you coffee every day before you wake up. And I’ll make you more when I get home from school.”

  Grampa Ed smiled. “I want scrambled eggs every Monday, oatmeal on Tuesday, pancakes on Wednesday, biscuits and gravy on Thursday…”

  “OK, Grampa,” Lola said, “I get it.” She thought for a few seconds and then she said, “How about this? You can make me any kind of pigtails you want.” She crumpled up her list. “And only on school days.”

  “Lemme think about it,” he said. He took a piece of garlic bread bigger than Lola’s hand, used it to swab up the last of his spaghetti sauce, and shoved the whole thing in his mouth. “I don’t know if I’m ready for this kind of responsibility,” he said with his mouth full.

  “You don’t have to do it forever,” she said.

  “That’s a relief.”

  “Just until summer.”

  Mom said, “How about you both try it tomorrow and see what happens?”

  Lola thought about it. Grampa thought about it too.

  “Is it a deal?” Lola asked.

  Grampa made a grunting sound.

  “OK,” Lola said. “We’ll try it tomorrow.” And then she whispered so no one could hear: “Tomorrow infinity.”

  The next morning, Lola got dressed while her mother was in the shower, tiptoed down to Grampa Ed’s apartment, and made coffee. She looked at the clock on the wall, and when it was almost time to leave for school she woke him with a hug.

  “I’m ready for my pigtails, Grampa,” she sang happily.

  Lola loved her pigtails. She loved joking with her grandpa in the mornings as he brushed her hair and complained and twisted it into all kinds of shapes.

  Every weekday, as soon as she got dressed, she made Grampa Ed’s coffee and woke him with a hug and kiss. Every afternoon, she made him another cup of coffee and told him all about what her friends had said about her hair.

  Lola’s school had a dress code: white shirts and navy pants or skirts. Everyone looked plain and looked the same, which was OK with Lola. She didn’t care much about clothes. But for the first few days of Grampa’s pigtails, she felt a little special. Maya and Fayth couldn’t wait to see what Lola would look like each morning.

  Because it was fun and because Lola liked routines, she never looked in the mirror at her pigtails until she got to school. She liked to let Maya and Fayth see first. Together, the girls would run to the bathroo
m, giggling all the way. After Lola looked in the mirror, the three girls would decide on the best name for that day’s hairstyle. The first day was American Flag Handlebars. The second day was Pink and Purple Waterfalls. The third day they called it the Three Little Pigtails. On the fourth day, Grampa Ed stuck green gum wrappers beneath the hair ties to make tiny bows that smelled like spearmint. They called that one Minty Green. On the fifth day, he wrapped Lola’s pigtails around pipe cleaners to make heart shapes. The girls called that one the Heart 2 Heart. On the sixth day, Grampa gave Lola pigtails that looked like they were shooting from the top of her head like the crazy third-floor water fountain at school. That one was named The Fountainhead.

  One Friday morning, as Lola sat down at the first row of desks in her classroom, the children behind her were unusually loud.

  “Quiet down, please, children,” said Mrs. Gunderson, Lola’s teacher, who had curly silver hair and a big, wide smile.

  The room only got louder.

  “Children, please!” Mrs. Gunderson said. “You’re noisier than my grandchildren, and they’re only in preschool!”

  The room got even louder.

  Lola turned around and saw that some of her friends were pointing her way.

  “Lola!” said Maya. “There’s a flashing light on your head!”

  Lola turned but couldn’t see it.

  Mrs. Gunderson walked over, looked at the back of Lola’s head, and said: “Oh, my!”

  In the back of Lola’s head, wrapped firmly between two pigtails, was a round, red light the size of a quarter. It was the kind of blinking light people used when they rode bicycles at night, and since Mrs. Gunderson was an expert bicycle rider, she knew exactly how to turn off the light without messing up Lola’s hair.

  “That will do,” she said. “Children…please calm down.”

  At lunch and recess, almost everyone in Lola’s class asked for a chance to turn Lola’s light on and off. She let them. But after recess she kept the light off the rest of the day. When the final bell rang and it was time to go home, Mrs. Gunderson stopped Lola at the door and handed her an envelope.