Last-But-Not-Least Lola and a Knot the Size of Texas Read online

  “What’s wrong, Amanda?” I ask. I pat her on her head real careful so I don’t give her a hair knot.

  But Amanda just shakes her head. “Nothing,” she says, and it sounds like she forgot how to say “everything.”

  Gwendolyn Swanson-Carmichael comes in. “Lola, your dress has too many pockets,” she tells me.

  “No, sir!” I say. “This is my brand-new Lola dress my mom made me with deluxe pockets.” Deluxe means you wish you had one. Mom made twenty-eight for those people in California and one extra special one for me. It’s got every color in the rainbow ’cause I don’t like to play favorites.

  “Well, I still think . . . ,” Gwendolyn Swanson-Carmichael says.

  I growl at her like Patches ’cause I ran out of nice. She runs away.

  Harvey Baxter hangs off the back of his chair, and Ari Shapiro falls flat on the carpet ’cause he got shot by the Green Lord.

  “Good morning, Gumdrops!” Mrs. D. calls. “Harvey, Ari, up.” She gulps coffee from her travel mug.

  After morning meeting, it’s time for Math, which means time for the Tally Mark Activity. My leg is going jigger jigger jigger ’cause it’s ready for recess even though the rest of me can’t wait for tally marks.

  On one side of the chalkboard, Mrs. D. writes, “Traveling for Thanksgiving.” On the other side, she writes, “Staying Home for Thanksgiving.”

  I can’t wait to add my tally to the side that says, “Staying Home for Thanksgiving.” But with the name Zuckerman, I will go last. Dead last.

  Mrs. D. stands there with a piece of chalk ready for action. “Amanda, you’re first.”

  “We’re going to Cancún, Mexico,” Amanda says. Amanda’s eyes get all shiny. Mrs. D. makes a tally mark under “Traveling for Thanksgiving.” A tear leaks right out of Amanda’s eye.

  “What’s wrong, Amanda?” I ask in my loudest whisper.

  “Nothing,” Amanda whispers back. But it’s something all right ’cause Amanda says, “I don’t want to go to Cancún for Thanksgiving!” loud enough that the whole class hears her.

  “You don’t?” Jessie says. “But that’s a deluxe vacation destination.”

  “Oh, dear!” Mrs. D. says. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  Before I can holler, “There, there,” like a grown-up, Amanda runs right out of the room. And it wasn’t even my fault.

  “Lola, go follow her!” Mrs. D. tells me, even though Mrs. D. loves people sitting down. I spring up from my desk and zip after Amanda.

  4. STALL NUMBER THREE

  I RUN OUT INTO THE HALLWAY. I look right. No Amanda. I look left. No Amanda.

  I run-skip down the hall. Here comes Señora Weinstein.

  “Lola, ¿cómo estás?” Señora Weinstein asks. That means, “How are you?” in Spanish.

  I pause. I wish I knew how to say in Spanish, “I’m fine except I’m looking for my friend Amanda, and she’s not fine. She’s sad about Thanksgiving. She doesn’t want to go to Cancún.”

  “Estoy bien,” I say instead.

  “Blah, blah, blah,” Señora Weinstein says in Spanish.

  I curtsy. That seems like a Spanish thing to do. “Adiós, amiga,” I say. I hurry on down to the girls’ bathroom and swing open the door wide.

  “YOO HOO?” I yell in there. It’s okay to yell ’cause I’m looking for somebody.

  Drip-drip and clank-clank. And that’s it. Not even a flush.

  “Amanda?” I call out. “Amanda?”

  No answer.

  “Amanda, we might be missing Tally Mark Day.”

  No answer. Fishsticks. Maybe Amanda isn’t in here.

  I crouch and look under Stall Number One. No Amanda there. I look under Stall Number Two. No Amanda. I lean under Stall Number Three. There’s Amanda, sitting with her feet pulled off the ground.

  I smile up at Amanda. “Hi, Amanda!”

  “Hello.” Even when Amanda is sad, she’s polite.

  “Amanda, are you coming out of there?”

  Amanda shakes her head no.

  “Amanda, aren’t you afraid to miss Tally Mark Day?”

  Amanda’s feet plunk down, and I scooch out of the way. She opens the stall door, and I stand up. I’m glad she came out. I was getting a crick in my neck.

  But Amanda looks funny. Not ha-ha funny. Mad funny.

  “Lola Zuckerman! You just said what YOU care about. I don’t care about tally marks!”

  “Oh,” I say. I didn’t know that.

  “Do you even KNOW why I’m sad?”

  I nod really hard. I hope I have the right answer. “You don’t want to go to Cancún for Thanksgiving.” That is the right answer because Amanda stops crying. Or at least she slows down her crying.

  “That’s right. And last year we went to—”

  “The Bahamas,” I say.

  “And the year before we went to—”

  “Florida.”

  “That’s right. You have a good memory, Lola. And I really want to just stay home and make pumpkin bread in—”

  “Your deluxe new kitchen?”

  “I don’t care about the deluxe part, Lola Zuckerman,” Amanda says kind of huffy. “I care about never getting to have Thanksgiving at home. I want to set the table with special napkins and make a big centerpiece that looks like a turkey.”

  I’m about to say that I picked out flowers at Swirlys for our centerpiece. But a lucky stop sign in my head shuts my trap up. “What’s a centerpiece?” I fib-ask.

  “You put it on your table to make it look nice. I want to make everything look fancy like in Cozy Home magazine. I want to hang up an autumn wreath and put a bowl of cinnamon-scented pinecones at the front door.

  “Oh.” I scratch my head and try to look like that sounds fun.

  “But I can’t because my mom and dad always want to go on vacation to some place where it’s hot and there are beaches and drinks with umbrellas.”

  “I only go to the beach in the summer,” I say. But then I think of something terrible. Something worse than Grandma’s goulash. “You’ll have to keep Barkley at the dog hotel while you’re gone,” I blurt. “He won’t get any scraps at all. That’s what happened to Patches, and boy was he lonesome.” My mouth keeps going on even though my eyeballs see Amanda’s face getting kind of squinched.

  “I never thought of that,” she says in a whisper like an old dead leaf blowing in the breeze. She starts crying a little. And then she starts crying a lot. Amanda’s crying gets really loud like a blow-dryer.

  I feel more rotten than the banana Mom found in Jack’s sock drawer. (And how it got there, she’ll never know.)

  “Don’t cry, Amanda! I know! Barkley can stay with us,” I say. “We’re hosting Thanksgiving this year.”

  Amanda sniffs. “He can?”

  “Sure! He and Patches will have a blast!”

  “Your mom won’t mind?” Amanda has part of a smile on her face. She knows, and I know, all about Mom. Mom cares about animals. She cares about hugging, and flowers, and sewing up Lola dresses and other stuff on her sewing machine. She even sewed up a dog bed for Patches two whole times ’cause he ate the first one.

  I remember what Mom said about walking Patches. I can barely hold on to Patches. How am I going to hold on to two rascal dogs? I think of all that dog doo Jack will make me clean up.

  But I have to make Amanda’s half smile a whole one. “Mom loves dogs,” I say. I make a panting dog face. Amanda laughs.

  “She’ll probably make Barkley his own dog bed. And matching outfits for Patches and Barkley!” I smile big at Amanda. Amanda smiles big at me. Amanda and I jump up and down ’cause we’re so excited about those matching outfits.

  “Do you feel better?” I pat Amanda on the back. Amanda nods.

  “Well, except that I won’t get to decorate the table like in Cozy Home.”

  Ding-dang quick, I say, “Christmas is just around the corner. You’re not going away for that, are you?”

  “Oh no!” Amanda says. “My grandparents are c
oming, and we’re going to make a gingerbread house!”

  “Just think of how fancy you can set that table,” I say. “I bet you will make the most loveliest centerpiece.”

  And do you know what Amanda does? She grabs a hold of me and gives me the biggest hug a friend ever got.

  “You’d better rinse your face off,” I tell her. Amanda goes to the sink, and so do I. Above my head is a kind of hat. Made out of hair.

  “Oh!” I say.

  I turn sideways. In the back of my head the knot is sticking straight out.

  “Wow,” Amanda says, her face dripping wet. “How did you do that?”

  “It’s easy,” I say. “I haven’t brushed my hair for thirteen days.”

  And only I know why I haven’t brushed my hair for thirteen days.

  4½. WHY I HAVEN’T BRUSHED MY HAIR FOR THIRTEEN DAYS

  OKAY. I’LL TELL YOU.

  Amanda brushes her hair every single night. She washes it with Love A Lot Apricot Shampoo and conditions it with Mango Fandango Conditioner.

  I wash and condition my hair, too. But when it comes to brushing it, my arm goes wobbly like an old tired snake. I’ve got a big mess of curls on my head that I’ll be glad to have someday. But not today. And not yesterday or the day before.

  One time, Mom was in a hurry and she took her special brush and raked right through a knot in my hair. It hurt really bad, and I screamed my head off and I had to go sit in my room and write I WILL NOT SCREAM IN MOM’S EAR ten times.

  That was thirteen days ago.

  Ever since then, Mom hands me the brush after my bath and says, “Now, Lola, it’s time for you to brush your hair.”

  I brush my hair. I DO! But the brush only works on the outside. The brush doesn’t go inside to the really bad hair. It stays bad under there. And no one can tell.

  So I don’t mention it.

  But now I have a knot in the back of my head the size of a biggish fruit. Not a cantaloupe, but maybe a navel orange.

  5. TALLY HO!

  “GOOD, YOU’RE BACK,” MRS. D. says. “Did you solve the problem?”

  “Yes, we did,” Amanda says. “Lola made me feel better. She reminded me that Christmas is just around the corner, and I’ll get to set the table really fancy and hang a wreath and trim the tree. And she said my dog can stay at her house for Thanksgiving.”

  “Oh. Did you say that, Lola?”

  “Yes,” I say.

  “Wonderful,” Mrs. D. says. But the wonderful doesn’t sound so wonderful. It sounds worryful.

  “Lola, you’ve got a hair knot,” Timo Toivonen calls down from the reading loft.

  Amanda grabs two colored pencils and sticks them right in my hair knot. “In America, we call it a hair bun,” she says.

  “Now let’s come together, Candy Corns,” Mrs. D. says. “The class wanted to pause the tally mark activity so that everyone could participate.”

  Inside I’m doing cartwheels ’cause I LUH-HUV tally marks.

  Everyone takes a seat. On my way, Savannah shows me her book about fairy people with wings. I say I like the bald, green fairy. Bald fairies don’t get hair knots.

  Mrs. D. says, “Now, Harvey, how about you?”

  “I’m going to Ohio,” Harvey says. “I wish I was going to Cancún.”

  Mrs. D. puts his tally mark on the board. Dilly is next, and she’s traveling to Chinatown in New York City to be with her grandparents.

  Jessie stands up to make her Tally Mark announcement. “I have a spectacular surprise,” she says. “My parents, and my grandma, and even my brother, Dustin, are all traveling to—” she smiles at the whole class, “—Barbados. That’s a tropical paradise.”

  The whole class oohs and ahhs. “Yay,” I say, only my yay ran out of fizz like flat root beer. Amanda’s going to Cancún, Savannah’s going to California, and Jessie’s going to a tropical paradise. All I’m going to is the kitchen to help load the dishwasher.

  But then I remember how I love can-shaped cranberry sauce from scratch. And just like that I cheer myself up.

  I daydream of cranberry sauce through a bunch of the alphabet.

  “In Finland,” Timo Toivonen says, “we don’t celebrate Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is an American holiday.”

  “So you won’t celebrate?” Sam calls out.

  “Hand, Sam,” Mrs. D. says.

  “We will celebrate our Finnish version at home,” Timo Toivonen says. “We call it Kiitospäivä.”

  The whole class repeats it: KEY TOES PIE VA. Mrs. D. makes a tally mark under “Staying Home for Thanksgiving.”

  Savannah Travers gets up. She waves to me and I wave to her. “I’m going on an airplane to Manhattan Beach, California, and I’m going to play with all my cousins!”

  She gives me a big smile. I stretch one across my lips. Something in me feels wince-y. But then I give myself a pep talk because I’m going to be happy making cranberry sauce from scratch. I’m going to be happy eating two pumpkin pies. I’m going to be happy as a kid on a beach. A warm beach where kids are building sand castles right in the middle of November. Fishsticks.

  Ben Wexler is traveling all the way to Lewiston, Maine.

  Finally, Z! Finally me!

  Mrs. D. stands up straight and puts Ben’s tally mark on the side of “Traveling on Thanksgiving.” But when she turns around, she has a big white chalk mark across her rear end.

  We burst out laughing. Mrs. D. looks over her shoulder. “Oh, my!” she says, and gives her rear end a good dusting off.

  I glance at the clock. It’s time for Snack. Mrs. D. will have to hurry.

  “Last but not least, we have Lola. What are you doing, Lola?”

  Fishsticks. I’ve been waiting all day and all night and part of another day to say, “Staying at home.” But now staying at home sounds bo-oring.

  “Staying at home,” I say in the world’s smallest voice.

  Mrs. D. wrinkles up her brow like a bulldog. Then she says. “Oh. Staying at home.” She adds my tally mark to the Staying At Home kids. I’m the brokenleg kid being carried by the other four.

  “Who would like to tally up the marks?” Mrs. D. asks.

  Hands shoot up. Not mine. Mine are two pieces of the most cooked-up spaghetti you’d ever want to see. Mrs. D. calls on Rita Rohan.

  “Fifteen kids are traveling and five are staying home,” she says.

  “My goodness! How exciting! Snack time!”

  6. STUCK LIKE A BULLFROG

  MISS NIMBY COMES IN TO MAKE sure we don’t get frisky while Mrs. D. leaves the room to refill her travel mug with coffee.

  “Remember to use your napkins,” she says. “I’ll be back in a jiffy.”

  Jessie skips on up to my desk. “Lola, can you watch Maizy, too? She’s supposed to stay at the dog groomer’s, but she would be so happy to be with her friends.”

  For a second (or one hundred seconds) I want to say no, sir because Maizy always gets playdates with Barkley, and Patches never does. But then I don’t, because Maizy will be lonesome, and I’ll have a sick, green heart.

  Mrs. D. sweeps back into the room with her travel mug. She writes, “Writers’ Workshop” on the board.

  “All right, Fruit Tarts, today we’re going to write Personal Narratives all about our Thanksgivings. We’re going to answer the question What are you thankful about at Thanksgiving?”

  Then Mrs. D. hands out one of her special writing rubrics. That’s a chart to show us how to do a good job. Mrs. D. says we need to have a main idea and at least three details.

  Gwendolyn raises her hand. “How many details do we need to do the best job ever?”

  Mrs. D. takes a swig of her coffee from her travel coffee mug. “Gwendolyn, try to choose the best details for your narrative. Are you thankful for your turkey dinner? If so, how would you describe a turkey dinner at your home?”

  Rita Rohan raises her hand. “Mrs. D., my family is vegetarian. We don’t eat turkey.”

  “We have turkey and pumpkin tortelloni,” John
Carmine Tabanelli calls.

  “We eat roast duck,” Olivia says.

  “It’s not Thanksgiving if you don’t have turkey,” Harvey belts out.

  “Yes, it is so,” I holler.

  “Is it Thanksgiving if you don’t serve turkey?” Mrs. D. asks us.

  I snap up my hand. “Yes, because last year we had Thanksgiving in Texas at a restaurant when Granny Coogan’s oven conked out. But it was still Thanksgiving.”

  “I see,” Mrs. D. says. “So whether or not we have turkey, we still have Thanksgiving—as long as we have things to be thankful for. And I believe we all have things to be thankful for. Don’t we, Sweet Tarts?”

  “You’re teaching us a lesson,” Harvey says.

  Gwendolyn raises her hand. “I have some details about turkey for my Personal Narrative because I’m thankful we have that for our Thanksgiving. Moist, tasty, juicy, delicious, flavorful, yummy, and tasty.”

  “She said ‘tasty’ twice,” Sam yells.

  “She took ALL the good details,” Madison cries.

  “Those details can be used by everyone,” Mrs. D. says. “Well done, Gwendolyn. Gummy Bears, let’s get down to business and start writing our Personal Narratives.”

  I get out my watermelon-smelling pencil and my purple notebook.

  I am thankful . . .

  But my tankful of thankful just ran out of gas.

  Jessie and Amanda and Savannah are going somewhere exciting and fun for Thanksgiving. I’m going nowhere but home, stuck like a bullfrog in a mud pond.

  With two dogs that Mom doesn’t know about yet. Two dogs that Mrs. McCracken doesn’t know about either.

  7. GLUM CHUM

  THE WHOLE CLASS SAYS GOOD-bye and Happy Thanksgiving to Jessie. That’s because she’s going to Barbados tomorrow. And not to school. Poor ol’ Amanda has to go shopping for bathing suits. Mrs. Anderson picks her up after school, so I get to sit with Jessie on the bus ride home. We play Miss Mary Mack and we do the Hand Jive.