The One and Only Zoe Lama (18 page)

Monday morning
is my first day back at school after moving to the new house. We’re celebrating Devon’s Icktopian leadership by having juice boxes and pizza crusts at our desks. Mrs. Patinkin accidentally ordered less than half the number of pizzas that would normally feed a bunch of creatures like us. So we’re all nibbling on crusts and dying for someone else to put theirs down so we can snatch it. At least Mrs. Patinkin said that if we’re extra good about not stuffing pizza crusts into the heating vent, she’ll bring out the special island-shaped cake she bought us.

We’re also celebrating Boris and Doris’s blind date, which began with her biting him in the shoulder and has moved on to the two of them disappearing behind the haystack to snuggle and poop.
Everyone is congratulating Devon and asking her if her plans for Icktopia will ever appear in print.

Devon still hasn’t told anyone about moving. But when Alice asked if island leadership was for life, Devon tilted her chin in the air and said, “Whether I rule for ten minutes or ten years isn’t important. My friends believing in me is all that really matters.”

Susannah rushes in, late. Today was the big day. The day she was supposed to get cast in her major motion picture. She hangs up her cape and slides into the seat beside me, pushing her sunglasses farther up her nose. Then she disappears behind a wall of Queen-of-the-Perfects hair.

Laurel and I push back the hair and peer at her. “So? Can we start shopping for a real loft now?” I ask.

“Hardly.”

“You didn’t get the part?” asks Laurel.

“Oh, I got the part all right. I play the ‘before’ role. Before the face cleanser. I saw the script. You know what my part is called?”

I shake my head.

“Pimple Girl!” She pulls her hair curtain shut and disappears.

Just as I’m thinking I could probably do a better job than her crummy agent—and for much less money—Riley grabs a chair and swings it over to my desk, then plops himself on top of it. He reaches up to brush pizza crumbs
off my shoulder. “You did good yesterday, Monday.”

Normally, I’d thump any kid who calls me Monday, but this is Riley and I can smell his shampoo. “Whatever. I just said what I felt.”

He smiles with his eyes. But sad. “I’ve missed you.”

“Me, too.”

“Maybe you could come over after school today. Meet my new pets.”

I grunt. “More hairy fish?”

“No. Two golden retrievers.”

My eyebrows shoot up to the ceiling. “You mean, that really was dog hair?”

He nods, laughing. “What else could it have been?”

“I thought, since you kept going places with Devon, that it was…”

“You thought Devon was shedding on me?”

“Kinda.”

Riley leans in to me with his very unhairy shoulder. “Zoë, my mom is friends with Devon’s mom. I know all about…everything. Her family had to give away their dogs. We adopted them. I went to her
house once to meet them. She came to my house one lunch to say good-bye to them. That’s it.”

My insides feel all chocolaty delicious. Devon didn’t take Riley away from me! I blush and bump against his shoulder. “Golden retriever fur, huh?” I laugh. “That must be what I found in my new bedroom. The house we just moved into used to be Devon’s.”

Riley grins. “Seriously? Maybe I can bring the dogs over to visit after school. To see their old place?”

“That could be arranged,” I say.

“You gave her a pretty awesome gift the other day,” he says quietly.

I just shrug. Maybe I did, maybe I didn’t. But one thing I know for sure,
Devon needs every bit of awesomeness she can dig up right about now.

He gets up and bops me on the chin as he turns to go. Which is a little piece of awesomeness I very much adore.

“Psst, Zoë,” says Sylvia from two seats behind me. She’s holding her pizza crust, which looks like she’s been pecking away at it without much luck. “I have a question for you.”

“What’s up?”

“I, um, I was wondering if you have any room on your client roster. For a new client.” She blushes. “Or maybe more of an apologetic old one.”

I think about this for a second. What Sylvia doesn’t know is that Devon is about to disappear from all of our lives. And that, like it or not, I’ll be forced to take on her entire client list and add it to mine.
What else is a Lama to do? Leave gaggles of innocent friends to fend for themselves? It’s a very complicated world out there.

She needs me now more than ever. Not only to undo Devon’s canine damage, but to help her with that nasty rash that seems to be developing on her chin. But somehow, I like that this is all her own doing. She’s coming back to me because she wants to; she has no clue whatsoever, that as of tomorrow, she’ll have no other options.

“Are you unhappy with your current representation?” I ask.

She tugs on her new necklace, which looks an awful lot like a dog’s choke chain, and shrugs. “Kinda.”

I try not to jumbo-smile while I reach for my client book and pretend to scan through an enormous list that isn’t nearly as enormous as it used to be. “Let’s see now. I think I might be able to squeeze you in. You’re absolutely sure about this?”

Sylvia nods and I jump up and shake her hand so hard, I’m afraid I might injure her delicate wing bones. “Welcome to Zoë Lama and Associates, Sylvia.”

“Um, Zoë?”

“Yeah?”

“If it’s all right with you, I prefer plain old Zoë Lama. I think I like it that way the best.”

I think about this for a moment. “You know what? Maybe I do, too.”

She pulls a carton of milk from her desk. Not her usual brand either. In fact, if I’m not mistaken, it looks very much like the milk Brandon drinks. She sees me staring and giggles. “Brandon brought it for me. In case I got thirsty during the Icktopia party.”

I glance over at Brandon, who’s waggling his worndown LameWizard fingers at her from the corner of the room. Sylvia waves back.

Just then, Mrs. Patinkin walks in the door with an island-shaped cake. The outside edges are blue frosting and plastic palm trees decorate the center.
ICKTOPIA
is written across the island in loopy pink icing. Smartin shouts,

“Cool! when he sees the plastic shark lurking in the northern waters.

She sets the cake down on her desk and hands a knife to Devon. “And now, if our new leader will do us the honor of slicing the Icktopian cake…”

Devon takes the knife and starts to slice off a surfer in a gnarly wave, but she stops and looks around, her face going red. “I can’t do this, Mrs. Patinkin. I think…I think I have to resign as leader.”

“If it’s because of our forbidden love,” says Smartin, “don’t worry. The Icktopian people are pretty cool about that sort of thing.”

She almost laughs. “No. It’s because I’m moving. Tomorrow. To Boston, and I’m not coming back. I was afraid to say anything because I wanted to win this election so very, very bad, but now I can see I ruined it. You’ve elected me and now you’re going to have no leader. The Icktopian people will be without the guidance they so richly deserve—”

“Devon,” Mrs. Patinkin said, “while we’ll all be very sorry to see you go, our government unit is now finished. As of tomorrow, we’ll begin to study weather patterns in the North and South poles. I’m afraid the Icktopian people will be no more.”

Up goes Alice Marriott’s hand. “Devon? Why do you have to move?”

For a second, Devon’s face looks strained. Like she’s been hit in the chest and is trying to pretend it didn’t take her breath away. Then it passes. “My father wants us to be close to Harvard,” she says. “It’s where he’s always wanted me and my sister to go to college. My father always says, ‘You can never plan too early.’”

It might be true. Devon didn’t actually say it was
the
reason. It’s very possible that being close to Harvard is something he’s always dreamed of. But what she’s not saying is that her father is having a lung transplant. And that he needs to get the very best medical care if he’s going to survive.

I hope that he does.

J
ust before 3:15 all the kids line up to get Devon to autograph her book. Maisie even said she was going to put hers away and sell it on eBay once Devon gets her own TV show. It would have to be a show on how to housebreak a Lhasa apso, but I don’t say a word. I’m last in line. When I slap my copy of “Devon Says” on her desk, she looks extra happy. “Seriously? I always thought you hated my written rules.”

“Nah. You’re a published author, Devon. A girl’s got to respect that.”

“Well, thanks.”

“No problem.”

After she writes “Devon,” she starts to draw a big swirling
s
but I stop her. “Can you do me a favor? Can you sign it ‘Devon Lama’?”

She smiles so wide, she squeaks.

Watching her sign “Devon Lama” just about knocks me sideways. But I can handle being knocked sideways now and then. My dad will always be with me, no matter what. I know that now. Devon will know it, too, someday. But for now, she really does need every speck of happiness she can get.

The One and Only Zoë Lama
Copyright © 2008 by Tish Cohen.

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First Canadian Edition

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Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Cohen, Tish, 1963–

The one and only Zoë Lama / Tish Cohen.—1st Canadian ed.

I. Title.

PS8605.O3787O54 2008 jC813’.6 C2008-901817-6