Last-But-Not-Least Lola and the Wild Chicken Read online

  “Hi, Lola,” she says, upside-down. “Did you get yelled at?”

  “No. Principal McCoy let me sit in his cat seat. You were wrong.”

  Jessie’s face looks happy. Except she’s upside-down. So I guess it looks sad. “Sorry,” she says in a sorry-but-not-really voice.

  “Where’s Savannah?” I say in my I-heard-you-but-I-don’t-forgive-you voice.

  She points to the swings. “Hogging Amanda,” she says. “But it’s more fun hanging on these super-deluxe monkey bars. You should try.”

  “No, thanks.” And I march over to the swings and as I’m marching Jessie runs by me. So I start running, too. Jessie and I race to the swings. I win and stop in front of Amanda. “Hi, Amanda!” I call.

  “Hi, Lola!” she sings out.

  “Hi, Savannah!” I say. I’m warming up to sorry.

  Savannah swings right on by. That Savannah swinger is swinging and singing. Amanda is singing, too.

  “We’re the swingers, we’re the swinging singers, the ding-a-ling swinger singers,” they sing. ’Cause Amanda’s really good at making up fun songs.

  The bell rings and Jessie yells, “Come on, Amanda! Let’s get in line!” She tries to wedge me out of the way so she can stand directly in front of Amanda.

  “I was here first,” I hiss at Jessie like a mean ol’ rattlesnake. And I dig my feet into the dirt. ’Cause I forgot that I came over to say sorry to Savannah for sticking out my tongue. Now I think I came over to fight with Jessie.

  “So?” she says. “It’s not private property, Lola! Come on, Amanda!” She shoves me out of the way. I lose my balance and grab her arm and we both go TIMBER! I fall to the ground. WHOMP! She goes straight into Savannah.

  THWACK! Savannah’s purple Goshdango metal-tipped cowboy boots kick Jessie right in the chin. Savannah’s sparkly purple glasses land next to me and then Savannah warbles, “My glasses!” She jumps out of her swing and—CRUNCH—steps right on them.

  Amanda Anderson plants her feet on the ground and stops. “LOLA ZUCKERMAN!” she yells. “JUST LOOK WHAT YOU DID!”

  7. THIS MIGHT STING A LOT

  I PERCH ON THE HIGH- UP TABLE in the nurse’s office. Jessie and Savannah sit there, too. Savannah is holding a little plastic baggy that has her sparkly purple glasses. Now one of the lenses looks like a spider web.

  “Jessie!” Nurse Ramirez says. “If you don’t stop screaming, I won’t be able to clean you off.”

  “IT HURTS! IT HURTS REALLY BAD!” Jessie yells. “LOLA SHOVED ME! SAVANNAH KICKED ME!”

  “No, sir, I never did,” I say. “You pushed me and I fell down.”

  Nurse Ramirez has her hands full. That’s what she keeps saying: “Boy oh boy, I’ve got my hands full.” Now she mutters, “I think she’s going to need stitches.” Mutter is when you whisper with spit in your mouth.

  “STITCHES!” Jessie cries. “WAH! WAAAAH!”

  “Hold still, Jessie!” Nurse Ramirez says sternly. “I won’t know if you need stitches until I clean you off. Maybe you don’t.”

  Jessie quiets down. Nurse Ramirez soaks a gauze pad with cleaner. She swipes it across Jessie’s chin.

  “OW! OWOWOWOWOW!” Jessie yells. “That stings!”

  “Okay, okay,” Nurse Ramirez says in a bedtime voice. She pats Jessie on the back.

  Nurse Ramirez cleans off all the blood. There’s a gross cut underneath. Savannah squints. Lucky for her, she can’t see without her sparkly purple glasses. She can’t see Jessie’s chin.

  Jessie’s lips go wobbly.

  “Okay, then,” Nurse Ramirez says loudly. “Let’s get a butterfly bandage on this to close it up.”

  A lady in a pink velvet outfit jogs old-people-style into the room.

  “Bammy!” Jessie cries. “Oh, my poor Jessiekins!”

  I look at Savannah. Savannah looks at me. It’s sad that Jessie is hurt. But it’s funny that Jessie is Jessiekins.

  “How did this happen?!” Jessie’s grandma ask-yells at Nurse Ramirez.

  “A playground accident,” Nurse Ramirez explains. “Here are directions to the emergency room.” She sticks the paper in Jessie’s grandma’s hand.

  My face locks down. Is this all my fault? I wish I was the one with the cut. Then it wouldn’t be my fault.

  “I swung into her, ma’am,” Savannah says in her soft voice.

  “Well, that wasn’t very nice, was it?” Jessie’s grandma says in a you-already-know-the-answer way.

  Poor Savannah. Her eyes water up. “I want my mom,” she squeaks like a baby koala.

  Jessie says, “It’s not your fault, Savannah. It’s yours, Lola Zuckerman! You got in my way!”

  “Now, now,” Jessie’s grandma says. “Let’s not get upset.” But then she shoots me a Death Glare. “We’ll let your teacher handle this, Jessiekins.”

  And they march right out the door.

  Oh, boy.

  Nurse Ramirez pats Savannah and me on our heads. “Toots, we’ll have to be a little more careful, that’s all,” she says to Savannah. “And no more standing close to the swings,” she says to me. I nod my head up and down so hard my brains scramble around.

  “Now, what hurts?” Nurse Ramirez asks us.

  “You first,” Savannah tremble-says.

  “No, you first,” I say. I smile with all my teeth.

  “Okay. My ankle hurts.” Savannah puts down her sparkly-purple-glasses baggy and takes off a boot. “My gIasses came off and then I jumped out of the swing and my ankle twisted.”

  “Can you stand on it?” Nurse Ramirez asks.

  Savannah stands. “Now it doesn’t hurt,” she says.

  Nurse Ramirez helps her back up on the high bed. “I don’t think it’s broken or sprained, but we’ll wrap it up just to be safe.” She takes a big bandage and wraps it around Savannah’s ankle. “And here’s an ice pack for it.”

  I say, “You look like a mummy.” I smile so Savannah knows I mean a nice mummy.

  Savannah sticks her arms out. “I am coming to get you,” she moans in a mummy voice.

  I laugh it up big, bigger than normal.

  “What happened to you?” Nurse Ramirez asks.

  “Jessie knocked me to the ground.”

  “Does anything hurt?”

  “Just my feelings because I was standing there trying to say sorry to Savannah and Jessie shoved me and …”

  “All right. I’ll be right back,” Nurse Ramirez says. “I need to get forms for you two to bring to your teacher.”

  As soon as she leaves, I say, “Savannah, I’m sorry I stuck my tongue out at you.”

  “That’s okay, Lola.”

  Savannah takes off the ice pack. I spy sideways at her. “Want to play hot potato, only frozen potato?”

  “Yep,” Savannah says.

  She tosses me the ice pack, and I throw it back to her. Back, forth, back, forth.

  Nurse Ramirez comes in with the forms. “Well, it looks like you’re both well enough to return to class.” She hands us each a form. “Make sure you give these to Mrs. D. And I’ll be calling your moms and dads to let them know about the accident.”

  Suddenly Savannah starts to cry. First she cries a little. Then a lot.

  8. 66 ¾ HOURS

  “WHAT HURTS?” NURSE RAMIREZ asks. “Your ankle?”

  “I want my mom!” Savannah yowls.

  “You’ll get to see her in three and a half hours,” I say, trying to keep the grouch out of my voice. “See the clock?”

  “I can’t see anything without my glasses. And I still can’t tell time,” Savannah says through her tears. “And even if I could, I still wouldn’t get to see her. She’s in California. She’s packing up our old house. She won’t be here until tomorrow.”

  “My mom’s in California, too. I won’t get to see her until Friday morning, because she’s coming home way after my bedtime on Thursday night.”

  Savannah sniffs. “She is?”

  “Yep.”

  “Poor you. Are you sad?”

>   I sit up straight and stick out my chin. I don’t need Savannah Travers feeling sorry for me! “I can tell time. I can tell when she’s going to be home.” I look at the clock. “She’s going to be home in 67 hours.”

  Savannah’s mouth drops open. “That’s a LOT of hours.”

  I feel my lips puckering. But not for a kiss.

  “No, sir. I’ll be sleeping for a bunch of them. And I’ll be on the Kookamut field trip for five of them.”

  “Nurse Ramirez,” someone calls over the intercom. “Kindergartener down in the cafeteria!”

  She grabs her black bag. “Gotta go. Come along, kids. Lola, can you make sure Savannah gets back to class safely?”

  “Sure.” I tuck my arm in Savannah’s. She picks up her sparkly-purple-glasses baggy and we walk down the hall. At Mrs. D.’s classroom, I look at the clock.

  Still 66 and ¾ hours to go. For me.

  Only one more day for Savannah.

  She’s lucky. She gets to wear a mummy bandage and she gets her mom and Amanda Anderson isn’t mad at her even though Savannah kicked Jessie right in the chin with her metal-tipped, ultra-pointy purple cowboy boots.

  Fishsticks. Some of me likes Savannah and some of me doesn’t, and the some of me that doesn’t is arm-wrestling the some of me that does.

  9. THE WORST PERSON ON PLANET EARTH

  IT’S QUIET READING TIME BACK in the classroom. Everybody stares when we walk in. Except Amanda Anderson. She glares and grimaces. Her name should be Grimanda Growlerson.

  “Girls, where’s Jessie?” Mrs. D. asks.

  “Jessie went to the emergency room,” I explain and hand her the nurse forms. “She’s getting stitches.”

  “Cool!” Ari Shapiro says. “One time my brother got five stitches. He walked into my sword.”

  “My sister broke her arm once,” Ruby Snow says. “She fell out of our tree fort.”

  Mrs. D. makes a shuddering sound. “How awful.” She looks at the forms and then at Savannah. “Where are your glasses, dear?”

  Savannah holds up the baggy of glasses and squeaks something. So I say, “She broke them.”

  Amanda looks over her book, Princess Power. “YOU broke her glasses!”

  she yells out from a beanbag on the floor.

  “I DID NOT!” I yell back.

  “You did, too!

  You shoved Jessie right in front of Savannah.”

  “No, I didn’t,” I say. “I never did that. She shoved me! Then I fell over. And I grabbed hold of her. And …”

  And that’s mean of Amanda to say because sometimes I’m lying about being bad, but this time I’m not. I didn’t mean to fall down.

  “Why can’t you be nice, Lola Zuckerman?” Amanda says.

  “I AM nice,” I say.

  “Not to Savannah. And not to Jessie.”

  “Amanda! Lola! That’s enough! What has gotten into you two?”

  Amanda goes back to reading her book. Her face pinks up. I blink my eyes, one, two, three times.

  Savannah squints out at the class.

  “Is your book on your desk? I’ll get it for you,” I tell her, extra loudly so that Amanda can hear how helpful I’m being. And then she’ll believe me. We’ll be best friends again, and I’ll have a sleepover at her house. After we go out for Italian food, she’ll tell me haunted stories of the Wild West, and we’ll watch Cupcake Queens because being a friend means doing boring stuff the other person likes some of the time. And we will only paint our fingernails with adult supervision.

  I rush over to Savannah’s desk and give her Your Pet Gerbil.

  Then I hurry back to my desk and open my book. But every time the story gets good, I think about poor Jessie getting stitches. I wonder if they use a sewing machine like Mom’s.

  “Quiet reading time is over,” Mrs. D. says. “Time to find your seats and take out your Kookamut Farm vocabulary sheet. Oh, Lola, come up here, please.”

  I go up there even though I want to keep walking past her desk and right out the door.

  “Lola,” Mrs. D. says. “Is there anything you want to tell me about the playground incident?” Mrs. D. looks right at me through her rectangles.

  My knees sweat in the back. “Nope.”

  “Nothing at all?”

  I’m sure she wants me to tell her something and I’m sure I don’t want to. It’s a tug-of-war. Her eyebrows are stuck in I think you’d better and my face is frozen in No thanks.

  She keeps looking at me.

  My eyeballs swing this-a-way and that-a-way.

  “Okay,” she says, and I know I’ve won. She slides an envelope across her desk. “Would you please give this to your grandmother?”

  I take it. Maybe I haven’t won after all.

  10. A (NOT VERY) BRIGHT IDEA

  I SEE GRANDMA THROUGH THE bus window. She’s got a big smile on her face. It’s a few teeth past happy.

  “Lola!” Grandma cries when I step off the bus. “Are you okay, bubelah? The school called to say you’d had a minor accident.”

  “I’m fine, Grandma,” I say, and I shake all my parts so she can see.

  “They assured me you weren’t injured, but how I worried, Lola! I was simply frantic.”

  The note from Mrs. D. crinkles in my pocket. When I give her the note, it will really ruin her day. She’ll know I’m a zhlub. That’s Jewish for bozo. Maybe I’d better not give it to her.

  Grandma holds my hand tight as we walk home.

  It’s a big mess in the backyard. Jack is shoveling. Dirt is flying everywhere. Jack loves a chance to go crazy.

  Jack steps on his shovel. He’s got a big load of dirt. He doesn’t notice Grandma, squatting down to pull up a weed. Jack throws it over his shoulder.

  Splat! Right on Grandma’s neck.

  “Jack!” Grandma yells. “Why on earth are you digging holes?” She takes a deep breath. “Please don’t do that.”

  “Sorry, Grandma,” Jack says.

  Grandma stands up and brushes herself off. “Jack, it’s bad enough that Patches is digging holes.”

  “But he dug up some carrots,” Jack tells us.

  “That’s a good dog,” I say and pat Patches on the back. He wags his tail.

  “I’m going inside to change my shirt,” Grandma says. “I’ll be right back.”

  After Grandma goes inside, I get a bright idea.

  “You dug a nice-looking hole there,” I say.

  Jack looks down. “Yep.”

  I hold up the envelope. Mrs. Zelda Zuckerman, it says. Jack opens his eyes wide.

  “I’ll do it, but it will cost you,” Jack says.

  “What?”

  “Whatever Grandma’s making for dinner tonight—you have to be the one to take seconds when Grandma says if we really loved her food, we’d take seconds.”

  “That’s not fair!”

  “She’ll be back soon. Make up your mind.”

  “Fine.” I point to the hole. Jack nods. I toss the note in and Jack dumps a big load of dirt on top.

  Jack and I give each other a high five. After a while Grandma comes clattering out and Patches scampers over. He tries to dig up the note but we give him a big dog hug. “It’s nice to see you two getting along,” she says. “My sister and I are the best of friends.”

  Patches barks and barks. He wants that note. Luckily, Grandma doesn’t speak dog.

  “Lola, go change,” Grandma says. “Then come right out. I want to get these vegetables harvested before sundown.”

  I run up to my room. I take off my Lola dress and put on shorts and a T-shirt. Outside, Grandma is reading a cookbook. She has a stack of books on the picnic table—more cookbooks, gardening books, and regular old books. Jack is lying flat on his back in the grass.

  “How come you’re not helping?” I ask.

  “I’m guarding Patches,” Jack says.

  “We’re going to have wonderful turnip soup,” Grandma says. She hands me a spade.

  “Turnips grow wild in Siberia,” I tell her.
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  “I grow wild in Connecticut,” Jack says.

  I look at the spade. “Grandma, what do I do?”

  Grandma says, “Find the turnips and dig them out.” She opens up a gardening book and flips through the pages. “Yes. That’s it.” She points. “See that row of green tops? Those are the leaves of the baby turnips. Dig them out. But be careful not to hurt them.”

  I kneel down and dig out each one of the baby turnips. They are tiny and white with green feathery leaves.

  “Good girl, Lola! We can even eat the top part of the turnips. See here?” She points to the page in her gardening book. “It’s high in vitamin C. Now, over there we’ve got a row of eggplant. Tomorrow night I’ll make eggplant parmesan.”

  I go to work on the eggplants. Jack and I give each other the talk-look. It says, “Do you remember the last time she made eggplant parmesan?” It also says, “We fed it to Patches and he got the runs.”

  At night, Dad calls us and guess what? It’s already tomorrow in Singapore. Dad is having oatmeal and black coffee at his hotel and I haven’t even gone to bed! Then we call Mom and her voice sounds busy. Grandma tucks me in. And she still doesn’t know about fluffing my pillow. Or about a kiss on my forehead and one on each cheek and one on my nose.

  Grandma tells me another story about Lola the Chicken. This one is about Lola the Chicken traveling to Brooklyn to visit her Grandma and enjoying some of the exciting places that Brooklyn has to offer. Not to mention getting to eat all the ice cream you can hold at Gottlieb’s.

  Grandma shuts off my light. Then she says in the dark, “Oh, Lola. Mrs. DeBenedetti called me.”

  “She did?” I feel all sweaty.

  “She said she sent you home with an extra copy of the permission slip. Do you have that permission slip for me, Lola?”