by Joanne Levy
But instead he said, “Is he a good kisser?”
ACK! MY FATHER KNOWS ANDY KISSED ME!
I held my breath, not sure what to say. But the way dad glanced over and smirked, I figured it out.
“Yeah, but don’t worry, he doesn’t use his tongue.”
Dad did another double take.
“Oy,” said my grandmother.
“Oy,” said my dad at the same time.
But it was all good. Yup, everything was very all good.
Epilogue
One day, a surprise FedEx envelope showed up, addressed to me. Inside were tickets and backstage passes to the hottest concert of the year.
Dad said getting tickets like that meant we had to rent a limousine for the night. I wasn’t about to argue; limousines are way cool.
The limo let us out in front of the stage door. I was so pumped that I could barely contain myself as I dragged Andy up to the huge security guy who stood guard at the door.
“Come on!”
“Lilah, we’re coming,” Alex said as she piled out of the limo, leaving only Dad and Andy’s mom to climb out behind her. Dad and Rachel were our chaperones, but they were such a fun couple, it wasn’t so bad.
I showed the security guy the badge that hung around my neck, and he checked my name against the list on his clipboard. He was pretty diligent about checking all of our badges, but in only a few minutes, he waved us all in. “You’ll want the fifth door up on the right,” he said as we filed past him.
I grabbed Andy’s arm. “Do you believe we’re here? This is SO cool!”
He peeled my fingers off him. “Ow, Lilah!”
“Oh, sorry! I’m just SO excited.”
“I’m not sure why you’re getting so worked up.”
“Are you kidding me, Andy? This is everything. This is a dream come true.”
He leaned down and gave me a quick kiss on my cheek, keeping his eyes on my dad. “Have I told you lately how incredibly cool you are, Lilah Bloom?”
I smiled up at him. “You are the epitome of cool, you know that, Andy Finkel?”
“Epitome? Good Scrabble word,” he said. “Anyway, come on.”
We got to the green room and I knocked hesitantly on the door. Even though we had the passes, it still felt odd.
The door opened into a room full of people.
“Uh, hi, I’m Lilah Bloom,” I said, holding up my badge and suddenly feeling a lot smaller than usual.
The man who’d opened the door stuck out his hand. “Phil Rivers, the band’s producer. Nice to meet you, Lilah.”
“Is that Lilah?” a voice yelled from the back of the room. And then before I knew it, I was being hugged by my music teacher. Excuse me, my former music teacher.
“Hi, Mr. Robertson,” I said, my heart pounding with excitement.
“Oh, Lilah, I’m not your teacher anymore. You can call me Frankie.”
It felt weird, but I nodded. “Okay, Frankie. Um, well, you know Andy and Alex.” I pointed over my friends’ heads. “And back there, that’s my dad and Rachel, who’s Andy’s mom.”
“Hi,” he said, smiling at everyone in turn.
“Yeah, uh, thanks for the tickets,” Andy said, sounding a bit funny. I wondered if he was starstruck all of a sudden.
Even I was totally starstruck!
Like the polite guy he was, Mr. Rob… Frankie invited everyone into the room and introduced us all to the band.
Right after that, I cornered him at the fridge. “I just wanted to thank you for the passes. You totally didn’t have to do this. I mean, we really appreciate it, but when I opened the envelope…” My throat closed up around my words.
“Lilah,” he said, putting his hand on my shoulder. “If it wasn’t for you, Jet Black Wig wouldn’t exist. You made this happen.”
I looked down, fighting tears. You weren’t supposed to bawl at a rock concert, and here I was on the verge of blubbering like a two-year-old.
“Lilah?” he said, his tone making me look up at him. “Did she ever come back to you? I would have thought she would have wanted to thank you.”
I knew he meant Serena, his former bandmate and girlfriend, the one who had died.
I shook my head. “Sorry. Just the one time.”
He didn’t hide his disappointment, but nodded before he said, “How’s everything going for you?”
I shrugged. “Okay, more or less. I mean, I hear dead people, but that’s same-old, same-old for Lilah Bloom, right?”
He snorted. “You’ve got a great sense of humor, Lilah. I always thought you were something special.”
“Yeah, and not an ounce of drumming talent.”
“That’s not true. I hope you’ve been practicing.”
“Yeah, although I’m not sure what good it’s doing.”
“I’m sure it’s doing a lot of good. Keep at it. Skill doesn’t come overnight, you know. So, what’s the name of your band?”
“We’re not exactly sure. Maybe Medium or Psychic Phenomenon. But I think we have lots of time to figure it out before we’re actually good enough to play any gigs.”
He gave me a huge smile. “Well I look forward to hearing about Medium or Psychic Phenomenon hitting it big. Please keep in touch, Lilah. Maybe down the road we can send you to Phil over there at Sony.”
And he seemed to really mean it, too. I looked over at Phil and the rest of the band. “I should let you get back to them. You go on soon.”
“Thanks again, Lilah. For everything.” He gave me another hug. “And I hope the seats are okay.”
“Uh, are you kidding, Mr…. Frankie? These are front row.”
He smiled and handed me the drumsticks out of his back pocket. “Here. Keep these.”
How cool is that? Frankie Robertson’s drumsticks.
He turned to join his bandmates.
But there was one last thing. “Hey, Frankie?”
He turned back. “Yeah?”
“She’s really proud, you know. I don’t have to hear her say it to know it’s true.”
Frankie smiled and nodded before returning to the rest of Jet Black Wig.
The crowd screamed for the band to come out for a second encore. And I’m pretty sure my screams were the loudest. It wasn’t even just because the drummer used to be my music teacher, either. The truth was Jet Black Wig was an awesome band.
It was no mystery why they were at the top of the charts and selling tons of records. And I had listened to their songs so many times, I knew every one by heart.
So when they came back out, picked up their instruments, and began to play, I was surprised to not recognize the tune as one of theirs.
The lead singer, Stella King (Serena’s replacement), leaned into the mic as the guys behind her looped the opening bars of the song.
“We’d like to play a special song to end the show tonight,” she said, her voice reverberating through the huge amps.
The crowd cheered.
“This song,” Stella said as she strummed a chord on her guitar, “is by a little band called Oasis and it’s called ‘Lyla.’” She looked down into the audience right into my eyes. “And it’s for you. Thank you, Lilah.”
I swear, I almost passed out from the shock. I looked up at Frankie behind his drum kit, and he was looking right at me. He smiled and winked and then started drumming like the rock star he was.
Yeah, being a medium was going to be all right, after all.
Acknowledgments
They say it takes a village to raise a child. Well, if that’s true, this baby took an enormous metropolis to feed, change, discipline, educate, and dress to get it ready to go out in the world. It’s been a long journey and I know I’m going to miss thanking people who helped shape me and this book, so if you are reading this and think you should have been mentioned here, but weren’t, you’re probably right; please accept my apologies AND my thanks.
My first thank-you goes to Lynda Simmons and Rachael Preston—two great authors and writing teachers who h
elped me realize even at the very beginning that maybe I could do this.
I’ve had the good fortune to have had many readers for this and my other works. Thank you for your honest feedback, encouragement, and support: Christine Carleton, Sarah Goodhope, Amanda Morgan, Carrie Grosvenor, and Kay Chornook.
To the excellent writer friends who read, encouraged, picked me up and dusted me off, and have been endless founts of support, help, and love: Lisa McMann, Eileen Cook, A. S. (Amy) King, Robin Brande, Bev Katz Rosenbaum, Danielle Younge-Ullman, Maureen McGowan, Lauren Baratz-Logsted, and Jenny Gardiner. Thank you!
Thank you to Janet Reid for your ongoing support and education of writers. Cupcakes are always on me.
A big shout-out to the groups of which I’m a member—you are filled with awesome: The Debutante Ball (http://www.thedebutanteball.com), The Class of 2012 (www.classof2k12.com), The Apocalypsies (http://apocalypsies.blogspot.com), and Backspace (www.bksp.org).
Huge thank-you to the funny, encouraging, and eternally level-headed Michelle Humphrey. May there be an endless supply of mashed potato–topped cornbread cupcakes on your desk, even if I still think they’re wrong.
To Margaret Miller goes another big thank-you, for seeing the diamond in the rough and taking a chance on me. Also thanks to Caroline Abbey, who took over this project and made the transition seamless. You’ve been awesome from the get-go and I so appreciate you! Thanks to the rest of the team at Bloomsbury Kids who made sure this book was not just readable, but beautiful and shiny and worthy of slipping under my pillow at night.
Thank you to my parents, Dan and Marcia Levy, for teaching me to love books and encouraging me to follow my dreams. And I would be remiss if I didn’t thank my brothers for rounding out my rich childhood and providing almost endless material for future books.
And of course, I must thank my husband, Deke—Team Snow cocaptain. I love you more than every letter, comma, and period in this book.
And to the rest of the readers of this book—YOU—my friend, family member, or the person I may not yet know, but who plunked down your money to be entertained by the story I made up in my head: THANK YOU and I truly hope you enjoyed reading this book as much I enjoyed writing it.
Copyright © 2012 by Joanne Levy
First published in the United States of America in July 2012
by Bloomsbury Books for Young Readers
www.bloomsburykids.com
This electronic edition published in July 2012
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.
For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to
Permissions, Bloomsbury BFYR, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10010
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Levy, Joanne.
Small medium at large / by Joanne Levy. — 1st U.S. ed.
p. cm.
Summary: After being hit by lightning, twelve-year-old Lilah, who has a crush on classmate Andrew Finkel, discovers that she can communicate with dead people, including her grandmother, who wants Lilah to find a new wife for Lilah’s divorced father.
[1. Mediums—Fiction. 2. Dating (Interpersonal relations)—Fiction. 3. Jews—
United States—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.L58323Sm 2012 [Fic]—dc22 2011034463
Book design by Donna Mark
ISBN 978-1-5999-0879-3 (e-book)
