Last-But-Not-Least Lola and a Knot the Size of Texas Page 3

  I forget all about being sad until Jessie says, “Thank you for watching Maizy. Bammy and I will bring her over later, okay?”

  “Okay,” I say.

  Sal rumbles up to Jessie’s stop. There’s her grandma, all right, with Maizy wagging her tail. I can’t let Maizy down.

  “Bye, Lola!” Jessie calls out.

  Sal pulls the lever to shut the doors. He turns onto North Avenue.

  It’s the stop before mine. Four noisy boys get off and suddenly the bus is quiet. Too quiet.

  Sal is so lucky. He’s bald. He’s never going to get a hair knot EVER.

  “Sal, do people go bald from brushing knots out of their hair?”

  “No,” Sal says. He pulls away from the curb.

  The next stop is mine. Sal pulls up and opens the door.

  Oh no. There’s Dad, holding on tight to Patches’s leash. Now what? Dad never forgets anything and I bet he’s just waiting for me and my hair knot.

  “Lola,” Dad says as soon as I get off the bus. “Why is your school bag on your head?”

  I think fast. “It’s hot out here.”

  “Lola, my dear, darling daughter, I remember that you have a tangle of hair. We’re going to need to brush it.”

  “But that’s going to kill my head,” I say.

  “I highly doubt that.”

  Dad and Patches and I walk up the road, and I think about running away to a town where nobody combs their hair. But then I’d have to come back in time for Thanksgiving. Patches lifts his leg up right on Mrs. McCracken’s rosebush. She sure won’t like that and neither will Dwight White. Dad says, “No, Patches!” But Patches doesn’t speak good English.

  Seeing Patches makes me remember that I have to ask Dad about hosting Barkley and Maizy. I’ll ask him when he doesn’t look so out of breath.

  Dad pulls Patches back. “Patches sure is a handful! We have to make sure we keep him calm during Thanksgiving.”

  “He’ll be calm,” I say. “He’ll probably sleep through the whole thing.”

  Dad snorts, and that’s not nice.

  Jack is shooting hoops in the driveway. Dad hands me Patches’s leash and grabs the ball away from Jack. He tosses it towards the hoop. It misses by a mile.

  “Try again, Dad! Like this!” Jack sinks it.

  Dad tries to throw the basketball in again. ZLOOP. It pops right in. Dad high-fives Jack.

  “Here, Lola,” Jack says. I hand Patches’s leash back to Dad, and Jack tosses me the ball. “You try.”

  I throw the ball. It misses by two miles.

  “When you’re a big kid, you’ll be better,” Jack says.

  “I am a big kid,” I say.

  “No, you’re not.”

  “YES, I AM!”

  “If you were, you wouldn’t be screaming.”

  I’d better practice acting like a big kid since I’m going to be in charge of a whole bunch of dogs. I try to go in the back door first. I read that you should show the dog you’re the boss. You should go through the door first. But Patches goes in first anyway.

  Dad puts out bowls of popcorn and cups of cider. “Lola, after this snack, we’re going to work on that knot.”

  Oh no. That’s bad. Special Brush bad. Poodle Into Collie bad.

  “Why are you eating your popcorn one kernel at a time?” Jack asks me.

  “Yes, Lola, why are you?” Dad asks. Then, the phone rings.

  “Hello? Yes, this is Mr. Zuckerman. Hello, Mrs. Chavez. Lola told Jessie what?” Dad gets a big, black storm cloud right on his face. He holds up one finger and leaves the kitchen.

  I decide that I’m going upstairs and getting that knot out by myself.

  But Patches whines right at the door.

  “Patches! You have to go AGAIN?” I ask.

  Patches says yes in dog.

  “Your turn,” I say.

  “You said you could handle Patches,” Jack says. “Just like a big kid.”

  “I can!” I grab Patches’s leash and we head out the door.

  I’ll take care of my knot as soon as I get back to the house. Maybe.

  8. DOG-GONE IT!

  RIGHT IN THE DRIVEWAY, Patches pees by our mailbox.

  “Good dog!” I pat him. He sits down next to me and his tongue hangs out.

  Jeremy Squirrel darts down a tree. Patches yanks the leash right out of my hand and takes off after him. He disappears into a bush.

  “No, Patches! Come out of there, you bad dog!”

  Suddenly, Patches bounds through the branches. His tail is wagging hard.

  “Good dog! Here, Patches!” I smack my hands on my legs in a come-here way.

  Patches comes running. “Good boy!” He runs right on by me. “Bad boy!” I chase after him. “Get back here! Now!”

  Jack comes into the driveway, twirling his basketball.

  “Jack, help me get Patches!”

  Jack drops his basketball. “Patches!” he yells, waving his arms around. Patches stops. His tail is wagging even harder. Jack sneaks forward.

  Jack jumps, but Patches jumps too.

  Now Patches runs straight towards me. This time I stand like a statue. Patches stops and looks at me with his big brown eyes.

  “Ground to air, I repeat, ground to air, we have almost reached the dog,” Jack says. He is creeping toward Patches. Patches is crouching just a little, getting ready to zip away. I leap and land right on him.

  But Patches wiggles out. He darts all the way down Cherry Tree Lane.

  Jack and I race after him, and we keep hollering. Patches stops at the end of our street. Then, just when we’re closing in on him, he streaks right past us!

  We turn around and go chasing in the other direction.

  The new neighbor with a baby waves from her front porch. “Hi, Jack!”

  “How do you know the new neighbor?” I huff out.

  “I’m going to rake her leaves and make money to help out Mom and Dad,” Jack huffs back.

  “But you’re already babysitting. No fair!” I wheeze. “I want to help Mom and Dad.”

  “You can’t. You’re a little kid.” Jack pants. “You don’t mean to, but you just cause a lot of trouble.”

  “I do NOT!”

  “Look at all the trouble we’re in right now.”

  “But half is your fault.”

  “Three quarters is your fault, because you were watching Patches. One quarter is mine, because I should have been watching you.”

  “No, sir, you shouldn’t have,” I holler at Jack.

  We whiz down to our end of the block just in time to see Patches zip into Mrs. McCracken’s yard. “Patches, you bad dog!”

  Jack and I chase after Patches. “Not again!” Dirt comes flying out of the bush. Patches is digging a hole.

  A screen door slams. Mrs. McCracken stands on her back porch, holding Dwight White. “Kids!” Mrs. McCracken calls. “Can you please tell Patches to stop that digging!”

  “I’m sorry, Mrs. McCracken!” I call, ’cause Patches can’t talk.

  Just then Patches darts out, right into me. Oof!

  “Oh, you bad dog!” Patches doesn’t look sorry one bit.

  Jack grabs hold of the leafy leash. “Got you!” Patches wags his tail like he just did something really good.

  “Sorry, Mrs. McCracken. My sister let Patches get loose.”

  Mrs. McCracken gives Jack a sweet ol’ smile. “Well, aren’t you a wonderful big brother to help her?” She makes Dwight White give Jack a wave goodbye.

  Fishsticks.

  “And what happened to your hair?” Jack says as we walk home.

  I pat my head. Hmm. Jack and I keep walking and then he says, “See what I mean, Lola? Trouble.”

  9. DINNER OF DOOM

  “WANT TO PLAY BLANKET OF Doom?” I ask Jack.

  “That’s for little kids,” Jack says. “Anyway, the guest bed is covered with Mom’s stuff. And anyway, I have to go rake Mrs. Osborne’s leaves.”

  “Can I at least help you? Please? O
hpleaseohpleaseohplease. I’ll be grown up.”

  Jack thinks about it.

  “Okay,” he says.

  Just then, who should come winging back into the kitchen but Dad. Dear old Dad. And he’s carrying Building Codes Illustrated, his most favorite book. He’s got a big black ink mark on his face and a pile of tracing papers under his arm.

  I head for the door. “Bye, Dad. I’m going to help Jack.”

  “Lola, come here right now,” Dad says.

  “But Dad . . . I want to help Jack.”

  “Gotta go!” Jack hollers and bounces out the door like a runaway basketball.

  Fishsticks. It’s a lot more fun being a grown-up–style kid than a regular one.

  “Lola, did you tell Jessie Chavez that we would watch their dog during Thanksgiving break?”

  I hang my head ’cause it weighs me down like a heavy pumpkin. “She asked me, and I wanted . . .”

  Dad sighs. “Oh, Lola. We have so much going on at home. All the relatives coming. Mom’s rush project. And I have a new job.” He waves Building Codes Illustrated around.

  “I promise I’ll be a big kid and take care of Maizy and Barkley.”

  Dad’s eyebrows fly up. And I notice one’s got ink in it.

  “Did you say Barkley, too? The Andersons’ dog?”

  My face gets hot as popcorn oil. “Well . . .”

  Dad’s face must be hot also. It turns red. Real red, like beets.

  “Dad, I promise I will take care of those dogs and they won’t get in your way ONE BIT. And guess what? It’s only dogs, not cats.”

  “That is not an excuse, young lady. You should have asked.”

  Oh no. “I’m sorry, Dad.” I feel some tears stinging away in my eyeballs. I stare at the floor. There goes an ant. Poor ol’ ant. Maybe it ran away from home.

  Dad sighs. “Okay, Lola. Let’s take care of that knot. That’s one problem you can solve right now.”

  BRRRING! That phone is sure loud.

  “Stay right there,” Dad says in a yellish voice to me. “Hello? . . . Oh, hi, Penny. Happy Thanksgiving to you, too. . . . Yes, yes, it’s fine. . . . Yes, we’d be delighted to take care of Barkley. . . . No, no, it’s not a problem. . . . All right, then. Bye, now.”

  Dad turns to me. “Well,” is all he has to say. Except: “Upstairs!”

  I march up the stairs with Dad right behind me like Weirdo Wolf who lived under Jack’s bed only not really.

  “All right, where’s your hairbrush, Lola?”

  “I lost it.”

  “Then we’ll use Mom’s.”

  Fishsticks. I drag my feet into their bathroom and open Mom’s drawer. And there it is. Mom’s mean ol’, bright blue, turn-a-poodle-into-a-collie brush. I unloose my hair from the ponytail, take the brush, and glide it over my curls. The underneath part is still all tangled up. And the knot is hiding in there like an escaped criminal.

  “Are you sure you’re brushing it well?” Dad gives me a crooked eye.

  I brush it more and more and more on the top. And guess what? My hair starts going wild! Even from my own eyeballs I can see it sticking up.

  “Okay, okay, that’s enough brushing,” Dad says. He grabs the brush right out of my hand and that’s bad manners. After he sticks it back in the drawer, he takes a look at my head. “Does Mom spray it or something?”

  “Nope. Hairspray is for adults because Lord knows it stings when it gets in your face.”

  Dad’s cell phone starts ringing. He answers. “Hello? Oh, hi, honey. No, everything’s fine here. Okay, three hundred and fifty degrees for an hour? All right. Love you, too.” “BYE, MOM!” I holler.

  Dad rushes out of the bathroom.

  “Lola, maybe you could get your head wet or something?”

  “But Dad, I’ll catch my death of a cold!”

  “Then the baseball cap, Lola. Your mother will be home in an hour, and . . .” Dad gives me an Out of Gas look.

  “Don’t worry, Dad!” I say. I race past him down the hall and I find my baseball cap in my room. It’s kind of tight on account of my pile of hair.

  Downstairs, Dad is chopping vegetables at the counter. He looks at my head, but I think he sees carrots or cucumbers because he keeps chopping away.

  “Want me to set the table?” I ask, helpful as I can be.

  “That would be terrific, Lola,” Dad says. And then he sings,

  “When I see you walking in the sunshine, my dear, everything is absolutely, perfectly clear.

  I love you. Yes, I love you.”

  Ding dong. I run to the door to get it. It’s Amanda, Jessie, and her Bammy, along with Maizy and Barkley, two bags of dog food, a stack of dog food cans, two bowls, two leashes, and a whole lot of barking. Oh, and a long list of dos and don’ts.

  “Let’s just bring them around to the backyard,” I say, lickety-quick. “Patches is already back there.”

  “Are you sure they’re ultra-safe?” Jessie asks.

  “Sure, I’m sure.”

  After I say goodbye, I run back into the kitchen. Dad is still singing. He glances up and sees the dogs running around in the yard but he just keeps singing.

  One whole hour later Mom comes bustling in with a bolt of fabric, and then Jack comes home, too. Mom has a piece of glittery thread hanging from her shoulder. Jack has leaves stuck in his hair. And they both look tired out like old bunnies. The dogs were asleep under the kitchen table. Now Patches thumps his tail, Maizy barks, and Barkley trots over to sniff Mom’s hand.

  Mom stares at them. “What?”

  “I’m really sorry, Mom,” I say. “I promised Amanda and Jessie that I would watch their dogs during Thanksgiving break.”

  Mom closes her eyes.

  “Mom?”

  She keeps her eyes shut.

  “Honey?” Dad asks.

  “I’m too tired and hungry to think,” Mom says.

  We sit down at the table that looks great. Because I made it all look nice. Even Amanda would just love it.

  “Lola, please take off your hat at dinner,” Mom says.

  Fishsticks. I zloop it off. BOING.

  “That’s going to need a good brushing,” Mom says. “Right after bath.”

  “Hmm,” Dad says. “She did give it a good brushing. I watched her.”

  “That’s my hair,” Mom says. “There’s a whole curly layer underneath. Tangles galore.”

  Dad serves us some steaming zucchini soufflé that is my favorite food in the whole world. We also have salad, and I like the tiny bits of carrots even though Mom doesn’t cut them like that.

  “Can I go first?” I ask. Every night we play a game. We go around the table and say two things about our day. Everyone else has to guess which one is true and which one is a ball-face lie. The winner gets to go next.

  “I don’t want to play,” Jack says.

  “What do you mean?” Mom and Dad say at the exact same time. We all stare at Jack like he’s a big green bug that flew through the window.

  “I’m a big kid. I have a job to help out the family. And big kids don’t play games.”

  “Jack,” Mom says. “That’s very nice that you want to help our family. But why do you think you need to help out?”

  “Because you and Dad work all the time to make ends meet,” Jack says. “And Lola is always causing trouble. So that’s why.”

  Mom’s and Dad’s mouths drop open, plip, plop.

  “I am NOT just a little kid,” I say. “And I’m NEVER going to like you EVER again, Jack Zuckerman. You are the WORST brother in the world.”

  “Lola, upstairs, now,” Mom says. “And dessert is cancelled.”

  And that’s how I went straight to a bath and no dessert.

  I wash and condition my hair, and later I brush it with Mom staring her eyeballs right into my brain. Then she takes a turn with brushing but when she gets going good, I scream. Just a weensy ouchy-wa-wa scream.

  “Lola Katherine Zuckerman,” Mom says. And she wags her finger at me.


  “Don’t you understand? By ignoring a problem, you’re not going to make it go away.”

  “But it hurts!” I bawl.

  “Stop being a baby!” Jack yells outside the bathroom door.

  “John Anthony Zuckerman!” Mom hollers back. “That is NOT helpful.”

  Mom turns to me. “Lola, I simply don’t have time right now for this. I want you to take responsibility for your hair. If you can’t, we’re heading straight to the hair salon to get it cut short. AFTER I get this dress order finished.”

  “Okay,” I say in an eensy-weensy voice.

  And when it’s time for bed, I think that I don’t even like chocolate ice cream anyway. Maybe.

  10. HALF DAY OF SCHOOL, FULL DAY OF TROUBLE

  AS SOON AS I GET TO SCHOOL, I take out my sloppy ol’ braid that I gave myself at the crack of dawn this morning. BOING. My hair dances on my head on account of getting free. The morning bell rings.

  “Gobble, gobble!” Harvey Baxter yells. “Look at me! I’m a turkey!” Gwendolyn Swanson-Carmichael yells at him to stop. I wonder if I’m going to get a haircut like Harvey Baxter.

  “Harvey, Gwendolyn,” Mrs. D. says. Then she takes a swig from her travel coffee mug.

  BUZZ.

  CRACKLE.

  “Good morning, boys and girls,” Principal McCoy says. “Please remember that school will be dismissed at noon today. All after-school activities are cancelled. I want to wish you all a happy and healthy Thanksgiving!”

  I’m lined up, waiting to sharpen my pencils. I love a sharp pencil, even on a half day. Amanda and Savannah come rushing up.

  “Was your mom happy to see Barkley? What did your mom say about that?” Amanda chews on her lip.

  I cross my fingers behind my back. “She was one hundred percent happy to see Barkley. And Maizy.”

  “Whew! I thought she would say no more dogs!” Amanda grins.

  “My mom LUH-HUVS dogs,” I say. “And even if she doesn’t have time to come to our class party, that’s because she has eight and a half more dresses to sew.” And my whole face itches. ’Cause I’m a big ol’ liar and I’m probably going to get killed by Mom if she has time to kill me if she takes a sewing break. Maizy and Barkley barked all night long, and Patches howled back. It was kind of like a dog concert.