The One and Only Zoe Lama (11 page)

I have a word for the chalkboard.
Involuntary.
Which means I so didn’t mean for anyone to hear the low-pitched growl that came scrabbling and churning up from the underbelly of my soul.

The Great Glue Gun Meeting
must be stopped. It’s Friday night and I’m home alone in my bear-claw slippers and pajamas. My mom went out for pasta with her best friend, Jane, and promised to be back before ten, which means I have to work fast or else Devon’s going to be welcomed into the bosom of Sylvia’s mother’s craft room. And one thing is certain—once Devon gets a look at the zillions of color-coded ribbons lined up like a rainbow in the Smye’s present-wrapping closet, I’m a goner. There isn’t a girl on earth who doesn’t want to receive a gift wrapped in those ribbons.

Through a little detective work—I spied Sylvia writing her address on Devon’s hand—I know exactly when the meeting is supposed to go down. Twelve-thirty tomorrow, just in time for Mrs. Smye’s famous smoked-meat sandwiches.

I pick up the phone and dial Sylvia’s number. There’s a bonus to having known Sylvia as long as I have. I know her weakness. Chocolate. I pour a pile of chocolate chips onto my mother’s bed and pop a bunch into my mouth. You know, for atmosphere.

Sylvia answers the phone. “Smye residence.”

I sputter a bit on melted chocolate, then say, “Hi, Sylvia, it’s Zoë.”

“I can’t really talk right now. It’s almost ten and I’m supposed to be in bed because I have a big day tomorrow…”

I try to sweep the chocolate from my mouth with my tongue, but there’s too much. “Mm, that’s exactly what I was calling about. Tomorrow. I found a new chocolate shop. It’s down by Bristol Street and they make chocolate-covered rice crackers. And I know how much you like rice crackers.”

“Wow. Do they make them fresh?”

I sit up taller. “Yes! But only on Saturdays. Which is why I’m calling so late. Tomorrow’s Saturday. I checked their Web site, they open at eleven. But I figure we should leave early so we can be the first ones there. That way we’ll get the freshest—”

“Oh, I can’t go tomorrow. Devon’s coming over to
finish her project. It’s going to look really good once it’s all sparkly.”

It takes a second for me to reload my brain. And my mouth, which is watering for more chocolate. “I’ve always believed that less is more when it comes to sparkles. In fact, it should be a rule.
Rule #18: Sparkles are for Good Witches of the North and LameWizard lovers. Everyone else should just back away from the sparkle jar.”

Sylvia says nothing. Little puffs of angry bird breath blow into the phone.

“Sylvia? Are you there?”

“
I’m
a LameWizard lover!”

I stop chewing. Crud! I forgot about Brandon! “Of course you are,” I say, real quick. “Which is why you are allowed unlimited sparkle access! Much more than the average person! Haven’t I always encouraged you to indulge your sparkle needs? I remember our class Halloween party, back in fourth grade, when you dressed as a princess and wore that shimmering tiara—”

“Zoë? I have to go now. See you at school.”

Click.

My head drops into my hands. Stupid mistake! Insulting her taste in boys
and
her love affair with glitter. All these years, I’ve done everything I could to build up Sylvia’s confidence. Like the time in kindergarten when she lost her first tooth. I helped her clean it up and polish it so the tooth fairy would be impressed by Sylvie’s attention to dental hygiene. Then there was the time her brother parked his gum in her cowlicks and I had to work it out with Caesar-salad dressing before her mother saw it and cut her hair into bangs—THE dastardly enemy of the cowlick. She smelled like garlic for weeks, but it was better than walking around looking like she’d been electrocuted.

I grab the phone book from Mom’s night table, then dial Devon’s number. A man with a nice voice answers. “Hello?”

“Is Devon there, please?”

He laughs. “She might be.” Then he just waits.

“Um, can I talk to her, please?”

“Su-ure.”

“Can I talk to her today? Please?”

He laughs a cozy, Christmas-morning-by-the-fireplace kind of laugh.
The kind where tinkly music is playing and outside it’s snowing, but you’re safe
and warm inside. With your dad. “Well, I guess that can be arranged. Are you a friend of Devon’s?”

No. “Yes.”

In the background I can hear Devon giggling and saying,
“Daddy, stop it!”

“Alrighty,” he says. “Let’s see if I can find her. Oh! Here she is, right under my armpit!”

There’s more tickling and giggling and Devon saying “Daddy!” a few more times. I’m just about to hang up, because all this father-daughter stuff is making my throat burn, when Devon’s voice comes on. “Hello?”

“Hi, Devon. It’s Zoë.”

“Hey. What’s up?”

The plan was to invite her for chocolate-covered rice crackers. Or, if she wasn’t into that, I was going to tell her I had top-secret news that she absolutely had to hear before noon on Saturday. In person. But the air went out of both those ideas.
Suddenly I’m too depressed to care much about the Great Glue Gun Meeting.
“Um…I was just wondering if you knew which questions we have to do for math homework.”

“Sure, just a second. I’ll go get it.”

The phone clatters and I hear Devon’s footsteps running off somewhere. Then I’m left with her father humming. It’s
a song I remember from when I was little. The Cruella De Vil song from
101 Dalmatians,
which used to be my favorite movie. I don’t remember much about my dad, but it’s possible that he might have watched it with me a few times before he…was gone.

Just then I hear the front door locks rattling, and my mother coming in. She drops her keys on the hall table and pops her head into her bedroom just as I hang up the phone and stuff it under a pillow. My mother has a few unwritten rules of her own. Like no phone calls after 9:30.

“Zoë, honey, are you okay?” She looks upset. “Did you hear what happened?”

“No.”

“There was a break-in two doors down. In Mr. Mason’s place.”

“Seriously? Did he get murdered?” Mr. Mason always yelled at people who held the elevator door open for other people. It wouldn’t surprise me if somebody offed him.

Mom gasps. “Murdered? Heavens, no! He wasn’t home. But money was taken. So was his stereo.”

“That crummy stereo?” I ask.

She sits on the bed and pulls me close. “That’s not the point. The point is, it could have been our apartment. And you would have been here. Alone!”

“Good thing it wasn’t,” I say, my face mashed into her shoulder.

She lets me go and stomps into her bathroom, where she pulls off her earrings and starts washing her face. “This building has absolutely no security!” she says with a face full of bubbles. “That lock downstairs doesn’t work at all anymore. Every lawbreaker in the city has access to us. Every thief, every drunk, every thug, every murderer—”

“Mr. Mason drives a fancy car. Plus he wears that fur hat. I bet that’s why they broke into his place. Our car’s a heap. We don’t ever wear fur. We’re totally safe, Mom!”

She spreads toothpaste on her toothbrush, then looks back at me. “I’m sorry, honey. I know you don’t want to hear this, but it’s time to call the Realtor.”

Monday morning.
And there really isn’t anything I despise more than Mondays. Unless you count balloons and usurpers. Not only did my mother spend the weekend looking through the paper for new, burglar-free places to live, but I have cold meat loaf in my lunch box and Devon accused me of hanging up on her on Friday night. Which I did, but only under the threat of an irate mother. Then Monday morning gets about ten times worse when I notice that Sylvia and Devon—by some fairy-dust coincidence—are both wearing red turtlenecks and jeans. The whole class keeps calling them twins.

I guess Devon’s rule book doesn’t have an entry about competing with your clients. While I don’t like to brag about it, it’s long been a belief of mine that a client is like a bride.
The client is meant to bask in the spotlight while I lurk behind the curtains and make them obey me.
Like a puppet master. Or Oprah’s best friend.

Poor little Sylvia doesn’t know it yet, but she doesn’t have thick enough feathers to be sharing the glow of the
spotlight with someone as attention-hungry as Devon.

And, just to make my Monday even crappier,
Laurel called me last night to say she saw Riley coming out of Devon’s house on Sunday
!
So, naturally, I dreamed about Riley and Devon all night. First I dreamed they shared a slice of chocolate cake and Devon started blushing because she got chocolate on her nose. Then Riley—because he’s a cutie-face gentleman—smeared chocolate on his own nose so she wouldn’t feel like a slob, and called her charming. And they went running around town with their chocolate noses and I didn’t catch up with them until they got to the gazebo in Hunter’s Park. Then I licked a chocolate chip from my pocket and smeared it on my nose so he could call me charming, too. But he didn’t. He turned around, narrowed his eyes at me, all annoyed, and said, “Your face is a mess.”

Today, in reality, he smiles at me as he walks into the classroom. He tugs my hair as he goes by. Which makes my insides go all chocolaty and warm. Until I realize something.

He usually tugs it twice.

Mrs. Patinkin raps her desk with a ruler. “Students, I
have in my hand what might appear to be twenty-eight squares of green paper.” She takes a deep breath and shakes her head. “But they are
so
much more. These tiny squares represent the will of the Icktopian people. They are your voting ballots. Today is the day you’ll choose two leaders—one from each team—and they’ll campaign against each other to see which party will rule the island. Today you’ll learn about real democracy.” Then, without even remembering to write
democracy
on the board, she starts passing out the squares.

Up goes Stewie Buckenheimer’s hand. “Mrs. Patinkin? Are we going to have a voting booth? Because Small Paul’s already trying to cheat off me.”

Small Paul moves away from Stewie. “I was not! I saw your retainer on the floor and I was watching to see if you’d step on it.”

Stewie snatches it up and sticks it into his mouth. The whole class groans in disgust.

Harrison Huxtable, who is closest to Boris’s cage, raises his hand. “I think something’s wrong with Boris. He isn’t scratching his neck today. And when I told him to squeak, he squeaked.”

Brandon says, “I noticed that, too! His rash is all cleared up and he let me rub his belly.”

“It’s a guinea-pig miracle,” says Laurel.

“Your
face
is a guinea-pig miracle,” grunts Smartin with his finger up his nose.

“Who said that?” asks Mrs. Patinkin, looking around.

Avery and Alice snicker.

Devon shoots her hand into the air. “Mrs. Patinkin,
I’ve been giving Boris supplements and teaching him a few tricks so he can be the best Boris he can be.
” She blushes and explains, “He’s never had a real master before.”

He would have if
I’d
ever been allowed to take him home!

“We’ll discuss Boris later, class,” says Mrs. Patinkin as she turns out the lights. “There’ll be no talking during the voting process. Your eyes will remain on your own ballot. And when you’ve written the name of your chosen leader, you’re to fold your paper in half and put up your hand. I’ll come around with a container to collect them. Then we’ll announce our leaders.”

Brianna puts up her hand. “Do they have to leave the island immediately?”

Mrs. Patinkin scrunches up her nose. “No one is leaving, Brianna. We’re choosing our leaders.”

“So we write down the names of the people we want to stay. Not the ones we want to vote off?”

Mrs. Patinkin drops into her chair and closes her eyes. She’s probably wishing she’d become a yoga teacher right about now because then her students would be meditating. In silence.

Once all the ballots are collected and Smartin’s is thrown out because he tried to swallow it first and it was too gooey to read, Mrs. Patinkin reads the names on the ballots out loud while Laurel and Avery tally up the votes on the chalkboard. Happily, my name comes up over and over. Unhappily, so does Devon’s. Homer Simpson’s name comes up a few times as well, which makes Mrs. Patinkin scowl. Once all the names have been read, Laurel and Avery add up the tally marks under the names. The final score is:

Devon, 12

Me, 11

Homer Simpson, 4.

Which means one thing. I better get busy.