by Jackie Hirtz
“You have no business bothering these hardworking youngsters,” lectured Ruby Rhubarb. “I ought to report you to the commission on wishin’—since when is it a crime to wish you had enough money?”
“I wish you would stay out of this, lady,” said Mr. Stickle.
“These girls work hard for their money,” said Mrs. Garcia. “All they do is squirt, squeeze, pour, and serve. Please, señor, show the squirters some respect.”
“Respect? They’re sitting in my car without permission.”
“Your car?” asked Aunt Liza. “I don’t think so, repo man.”
While the crowd debated with Mr. Stickle over who owned the car, Lola searched for something to munch. Being hungry and nervous was a refrigerator-raiding combination, and Lola needed some nutrients to fortify her during this who-knows-how-long sit-in. Lola peeked in the glove compartment, but the only thing that stared back at her halfway edible was an old rubbery carrot stick.
“I’m starvin’,” said Lola, chomping on the carrot.
“Me too,” said Melanie.
“Want some sunflower seeds?” asked Buck, taking out a big bag from his pocket.
“I guess they’re better than nothing,” Lola said.
“Where should I put the shells?” asked Melanie.
Lola was about to suggest Melanie put them in her hand when Buck piped up, “Just spit them at Mr. Stickle.”
Melanie made a face. “That’s radically…”
“Rude,” said Lola. “Gross.”
Leave it to Slime to hatch a disgusting, unhygienic scheme. Leave it to Lola to help carry it out.
It was a three-part operation: open the shell; eat the sunflower seed; spit the shell at Mr. Stickle. First Buck fired away, then Lola followed with a seed bullet to the knee, while Melanie brought up the rear with a half-shell aimed at Mr. Stickle’s forehead. It landed on his nose.
“Stop it this instant,” yelled Mr. Stickle, his hands shielding his face from the barrage of seeds.
The onlookers tittered and though Lola’s parents disapproved of playing with food, they too found some humor in the situation and didn’t sound altogether serious when they ordered the trio to please refrain from such ill-mannered behavior.
“I forgive you,” Melanie whispered in Lola’s ear, moments before an unforgiving Mr. Stickle summoned for backup on his cell phone.
A few seconds later, the sound of a lone siren approaching caused heads to turn. A cop pulled up and parked. Things were getting serious.
“Lay down your seeds or else,” said the neighborhood police officer who had been around the corner when he got the call. He held up a pair of handcuffs to show he meant business.
The battle was over. Lola, Melanie, and Buck spit the remaining seeds out in their hands, climbed out of the car, and said good-bye to the Mustang. Game over.
*** *** ***
Chapter 14
“Prickle alert!” Lola told Melanie when the sandstorms arrived a week later during a slow, doodle-heavy sales period. “Grab the cash and run!”
“I can’t see,” cried Melanie, spilling a pitcher of pucker potion as she frantically packed up their lemonade accessories.
Bowzer had just finished bathing himself under the wobbly card table when the storm prickled him with sand.
Through a beige swirling haze, Melanie and Lola grabbed the card table, the beach towel umbrella, the metal cashbox—and started back toward the Zolas’ house with grains of sand stabbing their faces like a thousand pickup sticks. Bowzer power-pawed ahead.
“Good-bye, heat wave,” said Lola, already missing the one-hundred-degree temperatures that brought thirsty customers by the droves.
“Ouch,” Melanie said, rubbing the sand out of her eyes. “I can’t see where I’m going. It’s like a total sand blizzard.” Melanie, trudging up the Zolas’ driveway, was only a few feet behind Lola, who had draped a checkered tablecloth across her face to shield her from the sand bullets.
“We’re almost there,” said Lola, imagining she was Lawrence of Arabia, braving the windswept desert with her half-cat-half-camel leading the way. Speaking of her feline, where was the whiskered wonder?
Sitting impatiently on the front doormat, Bowzer yawned at Lola as if to say, “You guys are such slow pokes.”
Once safely inside, the Twister Sisters collapsed on the living room sofa, where Diane Zola, oblivious to the sand cyclone outside, sat entranced by a video on international cuisine. Michael Zola leafed through his music collection, looking for another song by Louis Armstrong, a jazz giant whose pipes sounded a lot like Bowzer’s deep tones.
As for the cat, he skedaddled over to the living-room window, where he waited for a gopher to pop its head out of the ground. One furry head sighting and Bowzer would emit a dragon-sized hiss.
“I know what I want to do now,” said Lola’s mother, triumphantly.
“Circle the moon?” guessed Lola.
“No.”
“Direct an adventure movie?” asked starstruck Melanie, hopeful that Diane Zola would cast her as the heroine.
“No.”
“Organize a union?” suggested Michael Zola, needling his wife.
Lola’s mother sighed and proudly announced, “I’m going to become a gourmet burrito chef.”
“A burrito queen—I like that idea,” said Lola’s father, never one to rain on someone’s pepper parade.
“You do make yummy burritos,” seconded Lola.
“Almost as good as Aunt Liza’s peanut butter pancakes,” Melanie said.
“My restaurant menu will include Chinese burritos with water chestnuts and cashews, French burritos with fondue and fries, Japanese burritos with sushi and seaweed.”
“Who’s going to make the lemonade to wash the burritos down?” asked Lola.
“I haven’t a clue,” her mother teased.
Whether the burrito dream would ever come true was questionable, but at least Mom was thinking about new career possibilities. With Buck’s father on the verge of bankruptcy, who knew how long her mother could count on a Boingo Bits paycheck. She certainly couldn’t count on Lola’s father to pay the bills, or could she? Dad was in a surprisingly peppy mood.
“Anything new, Dad?” asked Lola, not wanting to be too direct.
“No.”
Lola frowned.
“Just the manager of the Mirage Twin Cinemas,” he said with a smile that turned into laughter.
“You’re the new manager?”
“Yes, and I’m going to book all the latest films and remakes too,” he said.
“Movies like Lola of Arabia?” asked Melanie with a giggle.
“Exactly,” said Michael Zola.
Lola put her arms around her father and planted a big kiss on his cheek. “Way to go, Daddeo!”
Bowzer, halfway through an “I spy a gopher” hiss, pulled himself away from the living-room window and, in a congratulatory gesture, rubbed his side against Michael Zola’s legs.
“I start work on Monday and I’ll get my first paycheck in two weeks,” said Lola’s father.
The word paycheck reminded Lola that there was someone she needed to pay.
“I think I owe you some money,” Lola whispered to Melanie.
“I thought maybe you’d forgotten,” Melanie whispered back.
“It’s time for a piggy bank raid. C’mon, follow me, Mel,” said Lola.
On the top shelf of her bedroom closet, hidden behind the cruise ship made out of old cracker boxes, stood Lola’s rotund piggy bank, a gift from her mother for her fourth birthday eons ago. While Lola had handed over most of the lemonade profits to Mr. Stickle, the car czar, she had managed to leave some money in the pig’s belly.
Jumping up, Lola grabbed the piggy off the shelf and presented it to Melanie, who was blowing gigantic violet bubble gum bubbles.
“Half of what’s in it is yours,” said Lola.
“That’s too much,” said Melanie. “I’m just an employee.”
“More like a partner,” said Lo
la, unplugging the rubber stopper under the pig’s belly. Removing a wad of cash, Lola counted out a hundred dollars and split it fifty-fifty.
“But…” Melanie protested.
“Don’t argue with a soul sister.”
Tucking the money into her T-shirt pocket, Melanie said, jokingly, “Maybe I’ll buy something frilly at Mrs. Garcia’s dress shop.”
Melanie and Lola giggled at the thought of Melanie roller skating around town in a lace gown. But underneath the laughter was the recognition that one day soon they might not be tomboys.
Melanie started for the door. “I promised Aunt Liza I’d read The Odyssey to the hamsters.”
“Wait,” said Lola, “let’s do a Twister Sister chant.”
Melanie nodded and the two girls sat down on the shag carpet, yoga-style. Snapping their fingers, cracking their bubble gum, and pretending to talk on the phone, they chanted, “Twister Sisters, lemonade hipsters, crackin’ gumballs, makin’ parrot calls, Lola Zola, Melanie Papadakis.”
*** *** ***
No sooner was Melanie out the door when Lola heard a chirp. Who could it be now?
“Zola Intelligence Agency,” said Lola, forever experimenting with her phone answering techniques. “ZIA.”
“I spy a hair bow,” came the strange voice on the other end of the parrot phone. It was a high-pitched voice, too high-pitched to be normal. The caller sounded as though someone had just goosed him.
“Which agent is this?” asked Lola, suspecting it might be Slime.
“The laser lizard,” said the voice on the line.
Only Buck would use the name of a video arcade to identify himself. Lola’s heart pounded like a conga drum.
“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 bangl
es 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.
