Last-But-Not-Least Lola and the Cupcake Queens Page 2

  Then she comes around the corner with Gwendolyn Swanson-Carmichael and she’s got on a Ye Old Cap from Old Sturbridge Village.

  “Hi, Savannah!” I holler down the hall. She and Gwendolyn amble up to our classroom. Amble is when you walk so slow you might as well just sit down. “Savannah, have you ever wanted a puppy?” I ask Savannah when she gets close, but she’s too busy talking to Gwendolyn about apple pie recipes from the olden days.

  “There’s apple-custard pie and cheesy-apple pie and green-apple pie and candy-apple pie and cran-apple pie and apple-meringue pie and caramel-apple pie . . .”

  Finally, and that’s a really long time so that you could go back to bed and wake up again and you would still have to wait, Savannah is done telling Gwendolyn about all the different apple pies there were in the olden days.

  “How about apple cakes?” Gwendolyn asks. She rubs her tummy. “I bet they had some tasty apple cakes.”

  “Well—” Savannah says.

  “Speaking of dogs . . .” I interrupt.

  “Huh?” Savannah says.

  “Well, how do you feel about dogs?”

  Savannah smiles. “I like hot dogs with loads of ketchup and mustard.”

  “I mean hairy dogs. The kind that bark and jump up on your bed.”

  “Oh. I like cats. I have a cat named Arthur who we rescued from a shelter. Arthur sleeps on my bed and purrs me right to sleep.”

  Fishsticks.

  “I don’t like dogs or cats,” Gwendolyn says. “I’m allergic.” And she flounces off. Flounce is when you bounce away with flair.

  “Wouldn’t Arthur like a puppy friend?” I ask Savannah.

  Savannah opens her mouth. But before she can tell me Arthur would LUH-HUV a puppy friend, I see Amanda and Jessie barreling right for us. It’s the Miss Mary Mackers Attackers. Uh-oh.

  Lickety-spit, I change the subject.

  I pat Savannah on the back. “That IS a good-looking pilgrim cap. Maybe you could be a pilgrim lady for Halloween. Isn’t that a great idea?”

  Savannah shakes her head. “Oh, no. I want to be Strawberry Sweetie Pie, the Cupcake Queen. She’s my most absolute favorite.”

  I feel my mouth plop open. “But . . .”

  “And I’m going to ask my mom if I can order the costume after school today, too! I’m going to wear it trick-or-treating. And I’m going to love it because I watch Cupcake Queens all the time and I did in California and it’s my favorite.” Savannah says all those words in one big gasp.

  “But—”

  “I had a real Strawberry Sweetie Pie cake for my birthday. And one more thing. Last year I got to meet all three Cupcake Queens at Sweet Surprises Play Park.”

  I stare and stare at Savannah because that’s the most words she’s ever said in a row.

  “How about you, Lola?” Savannah asks. “What do you want to be?”

  “Er . . . ”

  Amanda and Jessie nestle right up to us.

  “Poor, poor Savannah,” Jessie says. “Are you mad at Lola? So, so mad?”

  “Are you sad?” Amanda asks.

  Savannah peers out of her jumbo-sized glasses. “Why would I be mad or sad?”

  “Because of Jessie,” Jessie says.

  “Jessie-the-dog.” Amanda helps out.

  “Your dog,” I explain. “The one I lost and then you had to get a puppy. A really cute puppy.”

  “Oh,” Savannah says. “And did I lose the puppy, too?”

  “Nope,” I say. “You still have the puppy.”

  Jessie folds her arms up tight. “Hey, what’s that all about? How come you don’t know if you have your own puppy or not?”

  RING!

  “Candy Corns, take your seats,” Mrs. D. calls. “We have a LOT to cover today.”

  “Well?” Jessie leans in close to Savannah. “Is Lola lying?”

  “Lola,” Amanda says in the most Who-Made-This-Mess Parent Voice you ever heard, EVER. “You pinkie-promised!”

  Savannah looks at me, then at Jessie, then at Amanda.

  “GIRLS!” Mrs. D. holler-reminds us.

  “I did get a puppy,” Savannah zaps out. Then she hurries off to her seat. And guess what color her face is? Liar-Liar-Hot-Sauce-Fire Red.

  3. YES, THEY ARE SO REAL GHOSTS

  “CLASS!” MRS. D. CALLS. WE keep talking.

  Clap, clap, clap-clap-clap. Mrs. D. is trying to get hold of our attention. But even Gwendolyn Swanson-Carmichael is yakking away about her Halloween costume.

  TWEET! TWEET! Mrs. D. blasts a whistle. Harvey grabs his ears.

  Whoo-whee. We all shut our traps at the exact same moment.

  Mrs. D. says, “I know that everyone is VERY excited about Halloween on Friday.”

  She smiles and has a dreamy look on her face. I know she’s imagining all the candy she’s going to get when she goes trick-or-treating. ’Cause she luh-huvs candy.

  “Gumdrops, what are some of the things you think of when I say the word ‘Halloween’?” Mrs. D. asks.

  “Candy!” we shout.

  Mrs. D. writes candy on the board.

  “Pumpkins!”

  She writes pumpkins on the board, right underneath candy.

  “Ghosts!” I say.

  Now Mrs. D. starts another column on the board and she writes ghosts.

  “Werewolves,” Harvey says.

  She writes werewolves right under ghosts.

  We also tell her “witches” and “goblins” and she puts those right under werewolves.

  Finally, we have two really long columns.

  Mrs. D. asks, “Who can tell me what the difference is between these two columns?”

  Timo Toivonen shoots up his hand. “In Finland, we do not celebrate Halloween.”

  “Thank you, Timo. Can you tell me the difference between these two columns?” Mrs. D. has her Waiting-For-Toast-To-Pop-Up look.

  “No,” Timo says. “They both contain Halloween items. In Finland, we dress up and trick-or-treat on Easter.”

  “You’ve got that wrong!” Harvey bursts out. “Easter is for chocolate bunnies.”

  “I don’t celebrate Easter,” Ben Wexler says. “I celebrate Passover.”

  “I celebrate Día de los Muertos and Halloween,” Jessie says.

  Mrs. D. takes a swig of coffee from her travel mug.

  Ruby Snow shoots up her hand. “In the first column, it’s all stuff to eat.”

  “What about the black cat?” Gwendolyn Swanson-Carmichael points out. “You can’t eat a black cat.”

  “Unless it’s a cookie shaped like a black cat,” John Carmine Tabanelli says.

  I think I know the answer. I shoot up my hand. “In the second column, that’s all the stuff that scares the living daylights out of you.” I smile my I’m-Right Smile at the whole class. “That’s the really true stuff about Halloween. The other stuff is just food.”

  “Actually,” Gwendolyn says in her You’re-Not-Right Voice, “the first column is things that are real. The second column is things that are made up. Right, Mrs. D.?”

  “Yes,” Mrs. D. says. “Ghosts and goblins and witches are make-believe.” She writes Make-believe over that list. She writes Real over the other list.

  Harvey asks, “What about werewolves?”

  “Make-believe, too,” Mrs. D. says. “It’s nice to have fun on Halloween with costumes and candy. But it’s also nice to remember that it’s make-believe.”

  Humph. Mrs. D. is always right. But I know what I heard last night. And what I saw. It was a spooky, scary, ding-dong dead ghost.

  Mrs. D. just called me a ball-face liar, teacher-style.

  3½. LOLA PUMPKINMAN

  MRS. D. POINTS TO THE CHALKBOARD where she wrote ONCE UPON A PUMPKIN. “Lollipops, this is the play we’re going to put on for the Second Grade Play Festival.”

  “Ooh! Ooh!” Harvey yells. “I want to be the pumpkin!”

  “Harvey,” Mrs. D. says, “Hand, please. And inside voice.”

  She lifts up a black witchy cau
ldron from her desk. “In this cauldron are scraps of paper. On them are the names of the characters in the play. I’m going to walk around the class, and you will reach into the cauldron and pull out a name. Do NOT unfold your scrap of paper until everyone has one. Also, remember, you get what you get . . .”

  “And you don’t get upset!” we yell.

  One by one, everyone pulls out a piece of paper. “Okay, go ahead and look!” Mrs. D. says.

  I read: The Pumpkin. Fishsticks. I wish this play was called Once Upon a Turnip. ’Cause the pumpkin has got to be the main guy. And I don’t want to be the main guy. I raise my hand.

  “Do I have to be The Pumpkin?” I ask.

  Mrs. D. takes a swig from her travel coffee mug. “Lola, what did I just say?”

  Savannah raises her hand, and Mrs. D. gives her The Nod.

  “Lola, you should be the pumpkin because you have pumpkin-colored hair,” Savannah says.

  Somebody in the class snickers. Somebody else laughs. Then somebody else. Pretty soon everyone in the class is laughing.

  Everyone but me.

  “CLASS!” Mrs. D. bellows. “That will be enough!” Mrs. D. smiles at me with her Butterscotch Smile.

  My self is on fire like a mean ol’ jack-o’-lantern.

  And I am mad mad mad at that Savannah Travers.

  “Candy Corns, I’m asking that we memorize our lines by next Wednesday so that we’ll be able to perform the play next Friday.”

  “Friday!” Harvey squawks.

  “Yes, a week from Halloween. That way we spread out the fun.” Mrs. D. takes a sip from her travel mug. “We will use class time and home time to memorize our lines. Everyone has no more than seven lines. And if you get stuck during the play, I will be right there to help you.”

  “But that will be REALLY embarrassing,” Jessie says without even raising her hand.

  And then I have a not-so-good feeling in my stomach like the time Jack talked me into going on the Raging Waters Roller Coaster.

  ’Cause I remember standing up at my Uncle Charlie’s birthday party and all I was supposed to say was a poem. I knew it by my heart. But when I saw all those people, I just forgot every single word. I forgot my uncle’s name and I forgot how to take a breath.

  It was bad enough at a restaurant in Manhattan with all of Chuncle’s friends staring at me.

  But it will be a whole lot worse when I can’t remember in front of THE WHOLE SCHOOL.

  And it’s all Savannah Travers’s fault. Maybe.

  4. I AM RED AND PINK AND A LITTLE BIT GREEN

  WE HAVE SPANISH, AND WE learn how to say “Where is the library?” (¿Dónde está la biblioteca?) and some other stuff, and Charlie Henderson gets a nosebleed and goes to the nurse. But I have pumpkin on the brain.

  Mrs. D. starts talking about Halloween all over again.

  “Today we’re going to share what we’re going to be for Halloween. But instead of telling the class, we’re going to describe our costume and the class will guess!” Mrs. D. says. “So take out your writing journals and write a description of your costume without naming what it is.”

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

  “Oh, one more thing,” Mrs. D. says. “Today we’re going from Z to A. So we’ll begin with Lola, and whoever guesses Lola’s costume will go next.”

  Me first? Z first! Yay!

  But my yay sputters out. Grrr sizzles inside me.

  Pumpkin hair?

  Fishsticks to that.

  I write and write and write.

  There. That was easy. Maybe. But what about poor ol’ Savannah Travers?

  Poor ol’ pumpkin-caller.

  After a while everyone is done scratching away.

  “All right, Lola, come on up,” Mrs. D. says.

  I march up to the front of the class.

  “Amanda and I already know what Lola’s going to be for Halloween,” Jessie says. “Because my mom is getting her a super-deluxe costume. And one for me and one for Amanda.”

  “Thank you for sharing that,” Mrs. D. says in an I-Mean-The-Opposite Voice. “In that case, you and Amanda should not guess what Lola’s costume is.”

  Poor Amanda gets all red in the face like she did something wrong.

  Not Jessie. She says, “Well, fine.”

  “I infer that Lola, Jessie, and Amanda will be dressed in similar costumes,” Jamal Stevenson says. Jamal uses words like “infer” that you have to guess at to know what they mean.

  “Hey, you’re not playing the game right,” Gwendolyn says. “You have to wait for Lola’s description.”

  “Carry on, Lola,” Mrs. D. says. She takes a swig from her travel mug.

  I look at all the faces waiting for me to talk. One of them jumps out at me. On account of giant eyeglasses. And behind those giant eyeglasses is a droopy face. My sizzle kind of drizzles.

  “I am red and pink and a little bit green. I wear a crown because I rule a yummy world. I can frost a hundred cupcakes in a minute—”

  Savannah Travers jumps up and runs right out of the room.

  Without even asking permission.

  And now my sizzle goes splat.

  I made Savannah sad.

  5. LOLA ZEROMAN

  MRS. D. CALLS OUT, “SAVANNAH!”

  But Savannah keeps right on going.

  “Mrs. D., can I go get her?” I ask. “Please? I’ll bring her right back.” I put five extra pleases on my face and a beg in my voice.

  Mrs. D.’s forehead wrinkles up. Then she nods. I walk out the door and skip-run down the hallway just in time to see Savannah zip into the music room.

  But when I look in there, I don’t see anybody. I just hear some huffy-style breathing.

  There’s a row of music stands and a piano and a whole pile of instruments. But no Savannah. Maybe my eyes trick-or-treated me and it was a trick.

  CLANG CLANG!

  GACK! I jump straight up in the air!

  “Savannah?” My voice comes wobbling out.

  Was that a ghost?

  “How could you, Lola?” Savannah pops out from behind a tuba. “When I’d just told you that I want to be Strawberry Sweetie Pie. How could you get up in front of that class and tell everyone that YOU’LL be Strawberry Sweetie Pie? That’s NO FAIR!”

  I stare at Savannah and—fishsticks! That’s the second time today she’s set a world record for Savannah Travers talking.

  “Well, you said I’m a pumpkin-head,” I say, but her mad squashes my voice right down to a squeak.

  “No, I did not. I said you have that color hair.”

  “Well, that’s not nice.”

  “I like your hair. My hair is mouse-brown. That’s what my Great-Aunt Prudence said.”

  I look at Savannah’s hair. “No, sir. It’s brown-sugar brown.”

  “Brown-sugar brown,” she says.

  And even though Savannah’s face is scrunchy with sad and mad, she smiles.

  “Now I’m going to have to be the great big pumpkin and I don’t want to. And I don’t really like Strawberry Sweetie Pie, ’cause that show is not my favorite,” I say in a ripple like the bunch of papers that got blown off Mrs. D.’s desk when I accidentally turned the fan on. “It’s just like Jessie said. Her mom got three fancy costumes and that’s what happened.”

  “But Strawberry Sweetie Pie is my absolute favorite.”

  “Well . . .” Lola Gooderman is having a fight inside of me with Lola Badderman. And Lola Badderman doesn’t want to lose. I never wanted to be a Cupcake Queen in the first place. But now that Amanda and Jessie are being Cupcake Queens, I want to stick to them like frosting.

  “And one more thing,” Savannah says in her whispery voice that sounds like a single leaf blowing all by its lonesome self. Then she stops.

  “One more thing . . . what?” I ask.

  “Well, you told a lie about the dog. And I could have told on you but I never did.”

  I don’t know what to say to that. So I stomp over to
a tuba resting all by itself. I put my lips on the tuba and BLOW!

  Savannah jumps back. Then she stomps over to a drum set. She picks up the sticks. WHAM!

  HONK! I blow.

  WHAM! She smacks.

  The door flies open and bangs on the wall.

  Uh-oh. It’s Dr. Witherspoon, the music teacher. BLAM! She drops a whole box of kazoos right to the floor. And wouldn’t you know they go flying everywhere like kazoo airplanes?

  “GIRLS!” Dr. Witherspoon belts out—WASSAH—just like a karate chop. “What in the WORLD are you doing here in the MUSIC room? Why aren’t you in CLASS?”

  6. A GLOB OF MUD

  SAVANNAH AND I SIT OUTSIDE Principal McCoy’s office. We’ve been waiting so long we probably missed Halloween. And maybe the Second Grade Play Festival. It must be Thanksgiving already.

  “You may now go in,” Mrs. Crowley, the secretary, says.

  “You may go first,” I tell Savannah.

  “No, you may go first,” she says.

  “Fine,” I say. “I’m friends with Principal McCoy anyway.”

  He’s standing at his door. And guess what? The cast on his arm is off! It’s just in a nice soft sling.

  “Howdy there, Principal McCoy!” I say, extra-friendly.

  “Hello, Lola,” he says.

  I waltz right in and plunk down in the fuzzy orange cat chair. ’Cause I know Principal McCoy likes me when I’m sorry and I mean it. And I’m always sorry and I always mean it.

  But I turn around in the chair to see what’s taking Savannah so long to get on in here. And there she is standing in the doorway and her eyes are wetted up and she’s chomping on her lip. Principal McCoy is crouching down and talking real soft to her.

  I hop out of the cozy chair and hurry on over. “What’s wrong with you?” I ask. “Did you stub your toe?”