What Zola Did on Tuesday

by Melina Marchetta

  About the Book

  Zola loves living on Boomerang Street with her mum and her nonna. Every day of the week is an adventure. But Zola has a problem. No matter how much she tries, she can’t keep out of trouble! Like on Tuesday, when Zola tries to help Nonna knit a scarf . . .

  Collect all seven stories in the series. One for every day of the week. From the bestselling author of Looking for Alibrandi.

  Contents

  Cover

  About the Book

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  About the Author

  About the Illustrator

  Imprint

  Read more at Penguin Books Australia

  To Tina, who would have loved to be part of Zola’s knitting group. – MM

  To my husband Mike, and our children Willby, Georgie and Tom.

  Thanks for being my models for some of the illustrations. – DH

  Zola Angelica lives with her mum and her Nonna Rosa.

  They live in a little house, in a little street, in a little suburb, in the middle of a big city.

  But you already know that, don’t you?

  Do you remember that her cousin Alessandro lives in the house behind Zola’s?

  He’s the one with the cheeky dog named Gigi.

  Nonna Rosa says that sometimes Zola and Gigi are mischievous in the same way.

  Not like Nonna’s dog, Monty.

  He’s the best-mannered dog in the whole of Boomerang Street.

  These days, Zola is trying very hard to do the right thing. She’s spending more time with Nonna Rosa learning to listen.

  They’re both members of the St Odo’s community garden project.

  Zola is also helping Alessandro give Gigi obedience lessons. Nonna has given Gigi permission to play in their backyard if she’s well-behaved.

  It looks like Zola’s doing a great job keeping out of trouble.

  Well, sort of, anyway.

  Until she meets the kids next door.

  Zola’s neighbours have lived at number ten Boomerang Street for a month now.

  She is very curious about them.

  ‘My mum says there is no harm at all in being curious,’ she tells Alessandro.

  With his help, Zola begins to collect some information.

  There’s a girl named Bianca and a boy named Omar, as well as a mum and dad.

  Do you know how she knows this?

  Every morning, Zola hears the mum say, ‘Bianca, I’m waiting in the car!’

  Every night Zola hears the dad say, ‘Omar, take the plates out of the dishwasher!’

  Then the mum again. ‘Bianca, don’t let Tim Tam near Teta’s knitting.’

  ‘Who do you think Teta and Tim Tam are?’ Zola asks Alessandro on Tuesday after school.

  They’re trying to catch a glimpse of their neighbours through a crack in the timber fence.

  ‘Maybe they have a baby brother and a big sister,’ Alessandro says.

  Zola shakes her head. ‘I've seen their car. There are only four stick figures on their back window. One dad. One mum. One boy. One girl.’

  Suddenly they hear a noise.

  Zola is sure someone is on the other side of the fence lurking in the leaves.

  Gigi barks with great excitement.

  Monty is being a bit more polite.

  It sounds like this.

  Zola tries very hard to talk Nonna into meeting their neighbours. ‘Can we go over and say hi?’ Zola asks.

  ‘I think they like to keep to themselves,’ Nonna Rosa replies, removing a ball of wool from her knitting bag.

  Nonna is trying to make a scarf.

  Mummy says she should join a knitting group.

  Mummy is always trying to find a way for Nonna Rosa to meet new people.

  Nonna doesn’t want to hear any of it.

  ‘I have the St Odo’s community garden group. I don’t need anything else.’

  ‘But that’s only on Mondays,’ Mummy says. ‘How about you find an activity group for Tuesday?’

  Zola gets a great idea.

  ‘There’s someone next door called Teta,’ Zola tells Nonna Rosa. ‘She can knit. Maybe she can help every time you want to change the colour of the wool.’

  Nonna Rosa is not interested.

  ‘I can do it myself,’ she says.

  Zola isn’t too sure of that. Nonna’s knitting is beginning to look very very crooked.

  That night, before Zola goes to bed, she places her lantern at the window to signal Alessandro.

  Suddenly, there’s a flicker of light in the trees. She peers out to see where the light is coming from. It’s from a room upstairs at number ten.

  Could Omar and Bianca have torches? Are they trying to make contact?

  Zola spends the next morning trying to think of ways to meet Omar and Bianca.

  But at school Ms Divis is teaching them about people who don’t have homes or shelter, so Zola thinks it’s important to listen.

  ‘They have to live on the streets,’ Ms Divis says.

  ‘Why?’ Zara asks.

  ‘It doesn’t matter why,’ Ms Divis says. ‘It matters how 2B can help them.’

  Sophia puts up her hand.

  ‘We can collect warm clothes,’ she says.

  ‘Or have a gold-coin casual clothes day?’ Antonio suggests.

  ‘My Nonna Rosa is knitting a beautiful pink, blue and grey scarf,’ Zola says.

  ‘Maybe she can make one for the homeless people.’

  ‘What great suggestions!’ Ms Divis says. ‘Zola, perhaps your nonna can begin a knitting group.’

  Oops. Maybe Zola was exaggerating about how beautiful the scarf is.

  ‘I’ll ask her,’ she says, swallowing hard. Zola doesn’t want to disappoint Ms Divis.

  Zola is even more determined to find out about Teta next door.

  She knows that if Teta visits their home, she’ll teach Nonna Rosa how to knit a scarf. One that is straight and without holes!

  Then Nonna Rosa can teach Ms Divis and 2B to knit for the homeless people.

  ‘Can we go next door and introduce ourselves?’ Zola asks that night while they’re playing Scrabble.

  ‘Hmm,’ Mummy murmurs, frowning because Nonna has just made a word that’s worth twenty points.

  ‘Who would think that the word quack would add up to so much,’ Mummy says.

  Nonna Rosa looks very pleased with herself.

  ‘Your turn, Zola,’ she says.

  Zola tries to concentrate but can’t keep her mind off the promise she made to Ms Divis and 2B.

  Perhaps the best she can do is help Nonna finish the scarf herself.

  The next afternoon, while Nonna Rosa isn’t looking, Zola and Alessandro take the knitting into their secret business tent at the back of Zola’s garden. Zola has watched Nonna knit for long enough to know what to do. She makes sure Alessandro is paying attention.

  ‘Knit. Pearl. Knit. Pearl,’ she says, repeating the pattern.

  ‘It doesn’t look right,’ Alessandro says, holding up the scarf.

  It looks even worse than when Nonna was knitting it.

  Before Zola can agree, she hears Monty barking.

  It’s not a woof woof woof, but a woof woof woof.

  Zola and Alessandro crawl out to see what’s going on.

  For once, Monty isn’t trying to have a conversation with Gigi through the back fence. Instead, he’s barking at the side fence that separates Zola’s house from number ten.

  ‘Sshh,’ Zola says, putting
the knitting down on their trestle table. Monty listens, of course, and stops.

  ‘There’s something in the tree,’ Zola says.

  They hear a rustle come from the branches overhanging the side fence. Suddenly a bundle of fluff the colour of honey leaps out at them.

  ‘Of course,’ Zola says. ‘Why didn’t I think of that? Tim Tam is a cat!’

  She reaches out and picks up the cat, stroking its fur.

  ‘She’s ours,’ a girl’s voice says from behind the fence.

  Zola’s heart is beating with excitement. Finally!

  ‘My name is Bianca,’ the girl says.

  ‘I know,’ Zola says. ‘I can hear your family all the time. They’re very loud.’

  ‘So is yours,’ Bianca says.

  ‘Not as loud as yours,’ Zola says.

  ‘Yes, they are!’ a boy says. ‘We know that your name is Zola.’

  Zola thinks the voice must belong to Omar.

  ‘We know that your cousin Alessandro has to go inside at 5.30 every night,’ Omar says.

  ‘That’s me,’ Alessandro says.

  ‘We know that your teta doesn’t want you to poke twigs where she’s planted the tomato seeds,’ Omar says.

  ‘She’s not our teta. She’s our nonna,’ Zola says.

  ‘She’s your grandmother,’ Bianca says. ‘That’s the same thing.’

  Zola strokes the cat in her arms and it purrs.

  ‘Why haven’t you come over to play?’ she asks.

  ‘Teta says we need to be invited,’ Omar says.

  Zola wishes that Teta and Nonna Rosa would introduce themselves to each other.

  ‘Does your cat really get into your grandmother’s knitting?’ Alessandro wants to know.

  ‘All the t–’ Before Bianca can finish, Tim Tam leaps out of Zola’s arms onto the trestle table, close to where Monty is watching on.

  There’s hissing and barking and barking and hissing. Tim Tam’s tail looks like a fan of ferocious fury. Monty charges towards her. Tim Tam’s paw catches the wool of Nonna’s knitting, and then she’s racing after Monty.

  The scarf begins to disappear. Right before Zola and Alessandro’s eyes. Slowly at first, and then faster.

  One stitch, two stitches, three, four, five! More! Then one row after the other.

  Tim Tam, still tangled in Nonna’s wool, continues to race after Monty.

  She leaps up onto the clothesline, down under the table, over the chair, through the laundry window, out the door. Monty can’t catch up. Tim Tam races across the garden to the back fence and disappears into Alessandro’s backyard.

  Where Gigi is waiting!

  It’s so loud that even Monty is lying down with his paws over his ears.

  But Zola and Alessandro aren’t listening. They can only stare at the wool zigzagged across the backyard.

  ‘Zola!’ Nonna calls out from the back door.

  ‘Oh no,’ Alessandro says.

  ‘Bella, do you know where my knitting is?’ Nonna asks.

  That night, there is a knock on the door.

  Mummy gives Zola a stern look.

  ‘Stay there. I’ll get it.’

  Zola tries not to look at Nonna whose shoulders are sad and saggy.

  Moments later, Mummy walks in with Bianca and Omar. He’s holding the hand of a little lady, who is even older than Nonna.

  ‘This is our teta,’ Bianca says. ‘She doesn’t speak English, but she knows how to fix your grandmother’s knitting.’

  Teta says something to them in words Zola doesn’t understand.

  Omar nods and turns back to the others.

  ‘She also wants you all to come over to our house,’ he says. ‘It’s her birthday today and we’re having pastries.’

  Next door, Omar and Bianca’s house is decorated in the most perfect way. Hanging from the ceiling are cut-out paper moons and stars.

  ‘They’re from Ramadan,’ Omar says.

  Zola doesn’t know what that means, but she thinks the dining room looks magical and welcoming.

  ‘It’s been months since Ramadan ended,’ Bianca tells them. ‘But Teta says they remind her of home.’

  In the kitchen, Mummy is speaking to Bianca and Omar’s parents about their jobs in the city.

  In the living room, Nonna Rosa and Teta aren’t speaking at all. Instead, they sit together on the two-seater couch and knit.

  ‘Teta’s sad because she had to leave her country,’ Bianca says. ‘My mum says she needs to meet more people here.’

  ‘Or she’ll drive my dad crazy,’ Omar says.

  ‘They should start a knitting group,’ Bianca says.

  Zola exchanges a smile with Bianca.

  Great minds think alike.

  It’s what Zola does every Tuesday afternoon now. She joins Bianca and Omar and Nonna Rosa for their knitting lessons with Teta. Even Ms Divis comes along. They call themselves the Boomerang Street knitting club.

  Each week, someone new joins them. This week it’s Leo from next door and his mum, Caroline. She was taught how to knit by her aunty back in Darwin when she was a little girl.

  Teta and Leo’s mum are in charge of the patterns. Teta does those with the moon and stars. Every one of them knits a square in a different colour.

  ‘But how will you share the blanket?’ Mummy says one afternoon, when she comes home early to join them.

  ‘It’s not for us,’ Zola says.

  ‘It’s from us,’ Bianca says.

  ‘We’re going to ask one of the charities to give it to someone who needs it,’ Ms Divis says.

  Everyone agrees that’s a good idea, but Zola thinks she has a better one.

  ‘Ms Divis, do you think we can organise a community fete,’ she asks. ‘Just like the Sunday picnics you went to when you were a little girl.’

  ‘We can have food stalls,’ Omar says.

  ‘I think that’s a wonderful idea,’ Ms Divis says. ‘Let’s all write a letter to the council and ask if it’s possible.’

  ‘I work for the council,’ Leo’s mum says. ‘I’ll take care of the paperwork.’

  Zola loves the way everyone agrees on everything, including how yummy Nonna’s biscuits are.

  ‘Can Monty come over for the next knitting lesson?’ Zola says. ‘He feels lonely at home.’

  In the corner, Tim Tam hisses.

  ‘No!’ Nonna Rosa and Teta say together.

  Well, perhaps they don’t agree with Zola on everything.

  First, ask an adult to supervise. If they know how to knit it’s a bonus, but it doesn’t matter if they don’t. It’s easy to find a how-to-knit video on the internet that you can watch and learn from together. And don’t give up! Keep trying and you will develop the right skills.

  Take some short knitting needles that are thick and easy to use, and a ball of thick wool that's easy to handle and not too fuzzy.

  Hold one needle in your left hand and one in your right, tucking the right one behind the needle on the left. Together, start with casting off and knitting a row of stitches. Take turns with your adult if it’s tricky.

  If you enjoy knitting, you might like to keep going in your very own knitting group, just like Zola. Perhaps you have a grandparent or parent who knows how to knit and who could join in at school or at home. There are so many fun things you can make together!

  Melina Marchetta is the bestselling author of ten novels, which range from beloved young adult fiction and fantasy through to contemporary and crime fiction, and a book for younger readers. Her much-loved Australian classic Looking for Alibrandi was made into an award-winning film. She lives in Sydney with her daughter and her dog in a neighbourhood very much like Zola’s.

  Deb Hudson is passionate about drawing bright, happy and colourful images that evoke emotion and thought in the viewer – the dreamy, joy and wonder-filled moments of the everyday. She has been drawing and creating since she was a little girl and lives in the fabulous city of Melbourne with her husband, three kids, energetic border collie and
a bright yellow canary.

  What Zola did on Monday

  What Zola did on Tuesday

  What Zola did on Wednesday

  What Zola did on Thursday

  What Zola did on Friday

  What Zola did on Saturday

  What Zola did on Sunday

  Visit us at puffin.com.au for a Q & A with Melina, teachers’ notes and fun activities.

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  First published by Puffin Books, an imprint of Penguin Random House Australia Pty Ltd, in 2020

  Text copyright © Melina Marchetta 2020

  Illustrations copyright © Deb Hudson 2020

  Scrabble board and pieces © Mattel Australia, reproduced with permission.

  The moral right of the author and illustrator has been asserted. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, published, performed in public or communicated to the public in any form or by any means without prior written permission from Penguin Random House Australia Pty Ltd or its authorised licensees.