by Jackie Hirtz
“Ouch,” said Lola in a super-secret whisper, audible only to the sanctuary feline. She wondered where the heck that came from. When Lola looked around, she saw the kid she and Melanie used to babysit when Melanie was on a mission to earn enough money for a freckle-removing procedure. Was the kid to blame for the dome-bonker, or was Slime-Bucket hiding in the hipster temple?
Thrown off guard by the lemon seed missile, Lola hemmed and hawed at the podium and clenched her sweaty palms. She felt awful, like the time Hot Dog launched a spitball at her during the class presidential campaign.
“Help me, Mel,” she mouthed to her best friend. “I can’t talk.”
Melanie, unsure of the best talk-triggering strategy, did what she did best and took out a little mirror. Pointing her right index finder at the spots on her face, she began to silently count her freckles. When Melanie counted her fourteenth freckle, Lola forgot all about the cat who got her tongue, and the shock of the spitball ambush vanished.
“Fifteen,” she screamed.
The congregation didn’t know what to make of Lola’s outburst, but Melanie did. She gave Lola a thumbs-up and all was right with the world.
Lola regrouped. “I’ll explain why I shouted ‘fifteen’ in a minute (Lola needed at least a minute to figure out how she would explain the “fifteen” outburst), but first let me ask you this. Aren’t you sick of your old mantras?” Lola asked the practiced meditators who often repeated syllables like “ohmmmm” during their meditation sessions. “I think it’s time to bag the ohmmm and update the mantra.”
Holding up the biggest lemon she had in her backpack, a freakish grapefruit-sized ball of pucker power concentrate, Lola whispered, “Lemon, lemon, lemon,” and then exhorted the crowd to, “Say the word lemon fifteen times to make it a mantra habit.” Then she paused for dramatic effect, took out the pocketknife her father had given her for Wilderness Day, cut the lemon in half, and squirted juice over her head.
“Ladies and gentlemen, dreamers and doers, I am here today to talk about the power of lemons to help us center on our navels, unite with the world, and…”
Lola folded her pocketknife and flung it into a nearby wastebasket to punctuate her next point, “…promote world peace.” Holding up a clear plastic pitcher, Lola mimicked the ministers she had heard on television. “I am talking about the power of lemonade, a magical mystical drink, to open our eyes to divine truth and healing. I am talking about…”
What was she talking about?
“Love,” said Lola, “…for mankind, dogs, cats, birds, toads, and all the fish in the sea.”
“Amen,” responded the congregation in unison; the sanctuary cat, balanced on a pew, mewed approval too. Yes, the desert crowd, both human and feline, was loud and engaged, leaning forward, first whispering the new lemon mantra, then shouting it to the high heavens, eager for sips of the beverage that would bring peace and happiness and love.
Soon the crowd erupted into a lemonade squeeze-a-thon. People passed lemons, cut them open, and inhaled the lemon air to purify their souls while chanting the sacred word for nearly half an hour.
“Lemon, lemon, lemon, lemon,” came the chorus.
“Yes, that’s right,” said Lola, her hands outstretched, holding sliced lemons, squeezing them occasionally for effect. “Let us spread the lemon mantra from Mirage to Machu Picchu (squeeze), from Palm Desert to Palm Beach (squeeze), from the mountains to the molehills (squeeze), to every man, woman, and tailless cat (squeeze).”
Ouch. She wiped the lemon juice sting from her eye.
Distributing her business cards like a professional, Lola grabbed Melanie’s hand and headed for the exit before the excitement died down. “Boogie time, Mel,” she said.
Somewhere between the duck pond and the gift store, Lola and Melanie thought they heard a beeping sound as they passed a bulky, sheet-covered stone with a sign that read, “Under Construction.” Thinking only of the looming lemonade street battle, Lola failed to look back at the statue and missed the fact that peeking out from under its sheet was a pair of tennis shoes. Wiggling.
Little did Lola know, one of the Unity congregants had been tailing her all day—and he wasn’t a duck.
*** *** ***
Chapter 9
“Thief!” seethed Lola when she saw Buck’s new neon flyers tacked on telephone poles throughout the neighborhood. “Slime stole my idea,” she told Melanie, pointing to the words “Buck’s Purifying Brew” on one of the leaflets featuring a computer graphic of Slime, the lemonade czar, serving up cups of “energy-enhancing” lemonade to famous and sweaty basketball jocks. “If I wasn’t a nonviolent, spider-saver lifesaver, I’d strangle him,” Lola told Melanie as the two roller skated back up Salt Flat Road early in the morning. It was only a few hours before the thirsty hoards seeking purification were expected to arrive.
“I can’t figure it out,” said Melanie. “How did he know your plan?”
“He spied,” said Lola, putting the puzzle pieces together. “He was the kid who complained to the usher at the movie house.”
“The rat,” said Melanie.
“And let’s not forget the lemon-seed missile.”
“Uckbay?”
“That’s ightray,” said Lola. “Buck, the King of Limesay. She paused, then said, “Do you remember hearing beeping at the Unity Center?”
“I thought it was a signal, from the Palm Tree God,” said Melanie.
“No, just Slime Bucket’s cell,” clarified Lola, adding, “He forgot to turn the sound off…in church, no less.”
“No respect.” Melanie scowled.
“That word is not in his vocabulary,” said Lola, narrowing her eyes into little beads.
“What are we going to do now, Lo?” asked Melanie.
“Squeeze on,” said Lola, opening the front door of her house and heading straight for the kitchen. She passed Bowzer snoozing on the sofa, her father cruising for jobs on his laptop, her mother practicing her spreadsheet skills on the computer in the den. Diane Zola would start working for Slime’s father on Monday. It was Saturday and Lola was beginning to panic.
“How’s the business world, girls?” asked Lola’s father, smiling.
“It’s gopher-eat-gopher,” said Lola, walking with Melanie into the kitchen.
Bowzer lifted his head long enough to hiss at the mention of the word gopher. The cat held a grudge.
Lola, her stomach growling, told herself she wasn’t hungry. First of all, there wasn’t time for breakfast. Second of all, her mother’s budgeting combined with the space-hogging lemons left the fridge almost empty.
“Have you seen my chili peppers?” asked Lola’s mother from the living room. “I’ve been looking all over for them.”
“I’ll explain later, Mom,” said Lola, standing on a stool in the kitchen. She reached up high and opened a cupboard, grabbing a can of peppers hidden behind a ceramic bowl.
Diane Zola stopped typing, leafed through the Cactus Springs News, and immersed herself in an article on unusual second careers. She had never thought about becoming a singing telegram.
As the two girls squeezed lemons and chopped chili peppers, the Wemblys’ stretch limo pulled up in front of Hot Dog’s house across the street. Buck’s voice could be heard over the car’s speaker system.
“Mighty Miragers, try my lip-smacking, thirst-packing lemonade—the only lemonade in the land worth sipping,” he pronounced.
“Burp alert, burp alert, burp alert,” announced Agent 002 to her ZIA (Zola Inter-Spy Agency) confidant, burping three times to officially mark the arrival of the most despised slab of slime.
Lola quickly surveyed the scene from the window and gasped in outrage when she saw that Buck had brought his army general, his “on the double” dad to oversee his lemonade takeover. There, in the front seat, right next to the chauffeur, was Mr. Wembly, blabbing on his cell, wearing dark sunglasses and a madras shirt. Very sporty.
Less than a minute later, just as Lola was cranking open the
window so she could hear what was happening outside, Hot Dog and his baby brother, Magic Max, emerged from their house, flying down the front steps.
“Aye-aye, sir…” said Hot Dog, racing his brother to the front passenger door of the Cadillac.
“Double-trouble reporting to work,” shouted Magic, reaching the car door first and gloating, “I won!”
What exactly Magic had won, Lola wasn’t sure. Dibs on grunt work?
The Twister Sisters watched in horror as Buck’s father commanded the kids to construct a giant yellow sun umbrella next to the Caddy.
“Careful,” Mr. Wembly told his “soldiers” as they fiddled with the heavy umbrella, trying to get it to stand up straight in its base. “I don’t want that umbrella to fall and make us look like amateurs.” Buck’s father patted the hood of the car. “Don’t scrape my baby.”
Baby? Lola wasn’t sure she heard right. Sure, the Caddy was only a year old, but baby? Really?
“Am I making myself clear?” asked a tense Mr. Wembly.
“Yes, sir,” mumbled Buck, conking himself on the head with the tail end of the umbrella, after almost decapitating Hot Dog and Magic Max.
Finally, after the boys set the wobbling umbrella in its stand, securing a wide swath of shade, they rolled out a yellow velvet runner for their customers. Buck, who fancied himself an up-and-coming pop artist, had recorded his own voice to some sizzling electronic sounds he mixed in the Boingo Bits sound studio. Now he was blasting his peppy dance music tune via a state-of-the art sound system in the limo, complete with humongous mega-speakers on the Caddy’s roof.
“Awesome!” exclaimed Melanie, dancing to the music.
“Melanie Papadakis!” admonished Lola. “Whose side are you on?”
Melanie froze, embarrassed at her momentary lapse in loyalty. “Your side, Lola, Twister Sister, best friend in the Milky Way galaxy.” Still, Melanie stared in envy at the Buck Cadillac musical stealing the show across the street.
“So what if they have a limo-cruiser,” said Lola.
“We have a yellow Astroturf carpet that looks like it’s from Oz,” said Melanie.
“But,” said Lola, “Buck has brand new gorgeous beach umbrellas from that fancy store at the mall.”
“A rockin’ sound system too,” added Melanie.
“And Hot Dog and Magic Max, who work for a chance to hang around their pseudo-superhero, Slime Bucket,” said Lola. She was miffed. “Let’s not forget, Twister Sister, that we’ve got a secret recipe and…”
“Our slogans,” said Melanie.
“And,” said Lola, racking her brain for one more lemonade sales gimmick, “… a dynamite dance!”
“Huh?”
“Follow me, Twister Sister,” said Lola, racing to her bedroom.
Lola grabbed her MP3 player, while Melanie sat yoga-style on the sea-blue shag carpet. Lola thought sea-blue was exactly the right color to make her feel cool during sweltering desert days and nights.
When Lola turned ten, her mother allowed her to decorate her room, complete with a parrot phone and a kangaroo-shaped lamp. Photos of Lola’s friends and family, including Bowzer (before tail-chomp, after tail-chomp) plastered the sea-blue walls.
While Melanie searched Lola’s desk drawer for stray bubble gum balls (once she found one hiding behind an eraser), Lola scrolled down her play lists. What should she pick? Vampire Goth? Definitely not. Disco fever? Dweeb land. Heavy metal? Headache City. Golden Oldies? Purrfect—Bowzer’s fave music. Speaking of the angel…
A little paw opened the door wider, and Bowzer entered the bedroom, sauntering over to Lola before sitting on his haunches.
“He’s trying to tell me something,” said Lola, as Bowzer meowed to “The Lemonade Crush.” “You sing it, boy-cat,” encouraged Lola.
“Dance The Lemonade Crush with me,” sang Lola and Melanie, as Bowzer purred to the tune.
With a theme decided upon, the girls set to work choreographing the dance that would enhance their lemonade sales and rally the neighbors to Lola and Melanie’s stand.
Stomping three steps forward, then three steps back, twisting their hands back and forth in front of them (as though they were juicing lemon halves), then linking arms and twirling around and back, the Twister Sisters sang along to “The Lemonade Crush” as the music blared from mini-speakers perched next to the parrot phone.
“Beat the cactus heat with a brand new notion.
Come on, desert dancers, do the pucker potion.
Feel the mighty magic when you give it a sip.
Its hot lemon zing tastes better than catnip.
Yes, do the pucker potion and squeeze, squeeze, squeeze.
Yes, do the pucker potion and twist, twist, twist.
Yes, do the pucker potion and crush, crush, crush.
Yes, do the pucker potion with us, us, us.”
It was a matter of minutes before Bowzer had enough of the enthusiastic live musical and sought refuge among the lint balls under Lola’s bed.
“Are we really going to do this in public?” said Melanie.
“Sure thing. We’ll dance all around my mom’s Mustang, with the doors open, the music blaring, and Bowzer beating his imaginary tail-drumstick on the hood,” said Lola, revealing more of her plan—one she concocted on the spot.
“Your mom’s letting you do that?” Melanie seemed incredulous. “My aunt’s supersensitive about anyone messing with her motorcycle.”
“My mom will be cool,” said Lola.
A twinkle in her eye, Lola led Melanie into the living room to conference with the Mustang keeper.
“No way, absolutely never,” said Diane Zola. “You girls better think up a better marketing strategy. My car is Double-O-B.”
“Out of bounds,” Lola translated for Melanie, in case she had forgotten the Zola family lingo.
“But, Mom,” pleaded Lola, “Buck’s got a chauffeur-driven limo and a crew of helpers and yellow shade umbrellas and…”
“Just because the Wemblys went off the deep end doesn’t mean the Zolas have to go crazy too,” said Lola’s mom.
“Diane,” said Lola’s father, “the kids won’t hurt the car.”
“Famous last words,” she said.
“Chili pepper please,” begged Lola. “Hot, hot chili pepper pleeeeeze.”
“Lola, I just don’t like the idea of kids too close to the car. You could hurt yourselves.”
Melanie snuck into the kitchen and returned with a new jar of chili peppers plucked from a secret space behind a bag of rice.
“Would you like a pepper?” Melanie knew how to put Lola’s mom in a good mood.
“Where did you find that?” demanded a suspicious Diane Zola. “I knew I had one more jar of peppers somewhere.”
Lola rolled her eyes at Melanie. Now the two of them would never dance in front of the Mustang. Lola’s mom was clearly miffed about her disappearing peppers.
“I hid the peppers because we needed them for our lemonade. It’s our secret ingredient,” admitted Lola.
“Peppers in lemonade?” said Lola’s parents in unison, their mouths agape.
“Just one per pitcher,” said Melanie, hoping to fix her blabbermouth mistake. Oh, why did she have to open her big trap? Lola had told her not to tell anyone about their secret recipe—not even nosy family members. Well, maybe if Diane Zola tasted the lemonade, she’d reconsider her hard-line, no-dancing-near-the-Mustang position. Melanie ran into the kitchen, poured a glass of fresh-squeezed pepper-spiked pucker potion, and hurried back to serve it to Lola’s mom.
“Wow!” said Diane Zola after downing a few sips of the strange concoction. She puckered her lips, then sat back and smiled as a citrus calm settled over her. “This is by far the best lemonade I’ve ever tasted.”
“Let me try some of this special lemonade,” said Michael Zola, stealing a sip from his wife’s cup. “It certainly wakes up the taste buds,” he said, taking another sip and savoring the zing. “I’ve never tasted anything quite like it.”
Bowzer, weaving in and out of everyone’s legs, yawned wide, bored with what was now, as far as he was concerned, old news. “I told you,” Lola imagined him saying, “It’s a winner, so cut the chatter and hit the street. There’s no time for dawdling. I’m the one with nine lives, not you.”
Lola packed up the pitchers, handed Melanie the cashbox, the MP3 player and speakers, and asked her dad to carry the card table outside. Then she sweet-talked her mom into backing the Mustang out of the garage and parking it in the driveway. It didn’t take much. Those peppers had worked their magic.
“I guess I’m doing the right thing,” said Lola’s mom, reading the “yes” message on her eight-ball fortune-telling key chain.
Minutes later, right after Buck tweeted “Best lemonade ever @Buck’s limo-lemonade stand” with a link to the address and a map, the battle of the bands began. On one side of the street, neighbors could hear Buck’s techno-dance music blaring from the limo’s speakers, while on the opposite side of Lemonade Gulch, Lola and Melanie danced to the catchy notes of “Lemonade Crush.” From under their improvised umbrella, the girls eyeballed Buck and his crew as the boys set up a long buffet table and placed an array of expensive crystal pitchers atop a yellow-and-white-striped linen tablecloth.
“Don’t break that glass, boys,” said Mr. Wembly, poking his head out of the car window. “That’s imported crystal.”
“How much did it cost?” asked Max, always curious.
“Not as much as this car, but more than the furniture in your house,” said Buck’s father, annoyed at being asked such a nosy question.
“Even more than my trunk of magic tricks?” asked Magic Max while trying to make some coins disappear up his sleeve.
“Yes,” said Mr. Wembly. “Now pick up those coins and get back to work.”
Hot Dog and Max took the not-so-subtle hint, retrieved a bulky package from the Caddy’s gigantic trunk, and unraveled a glitzy gold banner advertising “Boingo Bits,” Slime Bucket’s father’s company. While the two boys wrestled with the long canvas, they accidentally draped the banner around their bodies. Buck looked up from his comic book and smirked.
