The Invisible Rules of Zoe Lama

by Tish Cohen

  Handsome Mr. Lindsay flies back into the room, plops his coffee cup onto the round table, and rubs his hands again. “All righty. Let’s see what you’ve all come up with.”

  Everyone reads their lists. Smartin wants an electric bull. Which is idiotic, but Handsome Mr. Lindsay pretends it’s not the lamest answer in the world and asks Maisie what she’s come up with. She says she likes streamers, especially when they’re twisted, and could the punch please not be red, because she saw the movie Carrie and gets freaked out by red liquids at school dances.

  I couldn’t care less about the color of the punch. I’m just happy she doesn’t say balloons. This kid can’t possibly be mean if she decorates with streamers.

  Susannah wants to have queen and king elections. She says it’ll give the dance some real class. Everyone knows she’s planning to be the queen, since she’s the most famous. Sort of.

  When he gets to me, I slip my paper into my pocket and explain that I was too busy managing everyone else to dream up any good dance stuff of my own. Handsome Mr. Lindsay gets this weird grin on his face and says, “Zoë, you’d make a great chairwoman of the dance committee, since you won’t hesitate to throw your weight around to keep everybody in line.” Since I weigh about as much as a wiener dog, everyone laughs. But I know he really means I’ll get results.

  “If it’s all the same to you, I prefer chairgirl,” I say.

  Handsome Mr. Lindsay laughs. “Then chairgirl it is.”

  I assign people their duties; Maisie gets “decorations” because of the streamers, Susannah gets “theme” because she owns a tiara, Laurel gets “food” because she’ll need some color control, the LameWizards get “ticket sales,” and Smartin gets “music” because Mr. Lindsay insisted he be included. I, of course, will have my hands full making sure they do everything deliciously perfect. Handsome Mr. Lindsay agrees with all my decisions.

  All his agreeableness needs to be added to my list, so I pull out my paper and hide it under the table. I cross out the title and change it to say, The Four Things that Make Handsome Mr. Lindsay Perfect.

  “Wait, Mr. Lindsay,” says Maisie. “What about a name for the dance?”

  “Ah! Good point. Any ideas?”

  Susannah sits up tall. “Moonlight Delight!”

  “Snowball City,” says Smartin.

  “Snow Snow Snow,” Maisie says.

  What are these people thinking? “The Wondrous Winter Ball,” I suggest.

  “Magic at Midnight,” says a LameWizard. Personally, I doubt he’ll be having any midnight magic. He’ll be tucked under his Lord of the Rings comforter, wearing headgear.

  “Magic at Midnight?” squeaks Susannah. “The dance ends at nine!”

  “Good ideas, folks!” says Handsome Mr. Lindsay. “But I’m sort of leaning toward Martin’s name. Why don’t we just call it the Snow Ball?”

  “Yes!” shouts Smartin, clenching his dirty hand into a fist and punching the air.

  So that’s how our dance gets the worst name possible for a winter dance. The Snow Ball.

  I can see the food fight already.

  Sometimes Death by Puckered Parrot Is Worth the Risk

  “She flinched,” Susannah says as we step onto the elevator.

  She and Laurel are coming over to watch The Garage Girls Behind-the-Scenes Sneak Peek. For three weeks, ever since it was first advertised on TV, we’ve been planning this. Mom is taking Grandma for her annual physical and won’t be home till after dinner, so we are going to watch it at my house. We pooled our allowances on the way home and bought two chocolate bars, a bag of ketchup chips, nine Gummi Sharks, and a bottle of 7-Up, the most easy-to-dye-blue soda we could find.

  All three Garage Girls are going to be interviewed in their very own houses. We’ll get to see their real-life boyfriends, best friends, even their dogs. I could barely sleep last night, I was so excited. Devon, the tall skinny one with the long black hair, is supposed to have a bed that hangs from the ceiling by chains.

  “Who flinched?” Laurel asks Susannah.

  “Maisie,” says Susannah. “Did you see her when I asked her about the meanest thing she’d done? Did you see how freaked out she got?” Laurel and I race to push the number eight button and then stare at Susannah, who is clearly beginning to lose her mind. “No,” we both say.

  “Oh, come on,” Susannah moans. “Her eyes darted around and she got all fidgety.”

  “She was opening her lunch bag,” I say.

  “She knows I’m onto her.” Susannah, as usual, starts pushing on the door-open button about three floors too early. Laurel and I should really thank whoever designed the doors to refuse to open between floors. Because you truly cannot trust people to not do moronic things like that.

  “Maybe she forgot about that whole summer and recognizes you from TV,” Laurel says. Then she grins. “Maybe she wants your autograph.”

  Susannah fake-laughs. “Ha ha.”

  Laurel shoulder-bumps Susannah. “Come on! Love ya like my number two.” I love it when my BFISs share the love. It’s good for business.

  Susannah smiles. A bit. “All right. Number two right back at ya.”

  Okay. Enough love. The elevator doors heave themselves open and we step into the hall. “I’ve been watching for signs of meanness,” I say. “The kid’s clean. It’s possible that Nicholas really did write that note. Maisie might not have known what she was handing you and simply went on an innocent canoe ride with Nicholas.”

  Susannah looks shocked. “But that would mean I got dumped. I can’t have been dumped. I’ve got a reputation for never having been dumped and I plan on keeping it squeaky-clean until I die. Maybe even longer. It’s very important to me.”

  Okay. Time to change the subject. “You know what else I heard about Devon from The Garage Girls? I heard she has a tiger pit in her backyard with seven white tigers.” We stop in front of my apartment. I turn the key in the lock and poke my head inside before we go in—just to be sure no one’s on the couch watching Jeopardy! because her physical got canceled or something.

  Laurel shouts, “That’s animal cruelty! What tiger wants to sit around watching Devon sunbathing and drinking champagne coolies all day?”

  We plop ourselves on the couch and lay out all the treats. And while Laurel drops blue food coloring into the soda, I divvy up the candy. Only I give all the chocolate to Susannah, who is clearly worried about Maisie’s possible truthfulness.

  Suddenly Susannah brightens up. Chocolate can do that. “Oh! I have major news and it’s about you, Zoë.”

  Major news is always delicious, but especially delicious when it’s about me. I drop my candy and slide closer. “What?”

  Susannah scrunches up her nose and bites her bottom lip. “It’s about a certain boy who wants to ask a certain girl a certain question.” Then she sits back, confident that everyone gets what she means. Which we so don’t.

  Laurel takes a huge sip of blue pop and says, “Huh?”

  I ask, “Would you mind translating? And this time, could you please leave out the word certain?”

  Susannah’s head rolls a bit, which really means she’s rolling her eyes behind her sunglasses. “Riley is planning to ask you to the dance.”

  “Really?” I hug my knees and smile like crazy.

  “Yes,” she says. “But he doesn’t want to ask like any other boy would. He wants it to be special. I heard from a certain source—”

  “Hey,” I warn. I thought I’d been very clear about the word certain.

  “Sorry,” she says. “I heard he’s going to get down on one knee in the cafeteria. And that he’s going to do it on hamburger-and-french-fry day so he can share his fries!”

  Outrageous. I love fries. Riley’s pretty good, too.

  Then Laurel picks up the remote and points it at the TV. “How do you work this thing, anyway?”

  I grab it and turn on the set. But no show comes on, only fuzzy gray stuff and fuzzy gray sounds. I try to turn the channel, but every sin
gle channel has the same picture: nothing but electric lint.

  “It’s broken?” wails Laurel. “The Sneak Peek starts in exactly seven minutes!”

  “We can’t even get to my house in that time,” Susannah says.

  “Hang on.” I turn the set off, then on again. Same gray fuzz. This is bad. Very, very bad. I run into the kitchen and call my mom on her cell phone.

  “Jocelyn Costello here,” she says in her office voice, even though she’s in the car. I can hear Grandma singing along to Harry Connick Jr. in the background.

  “Mom. Emergency!” I say. “It’s six and a half minutes till Garage Girls Behind-the-Scenes Sneak Peek and the TV isn’t working! What button do I press to get the picture back?”

  I really don’t like what she says next. “Uh-oh.”

  “What? Uh-oh?”

  All I hear is Grandma blowing her nose.

  “Mom, we’re down to five and a half minutes.”

  “Honey, you know how crazy it’s been…and that sometimes I forget to do things because I have to juggle a busy career, a boisterous daughter, an aging parent, and a household full of bills…”

  “Mom, no! Please say it’s not like that time you forgot to pay the phone bill!”

  “I’m sorry, honey. I meant to pay the cable, I really did. But I remember now—Grandma slipped and got jammed between the toilet and the tub. Remember we had to ask Mr. Flotsam next door to help?”

  I remember. I remember. But this should not prevent three girls from missing out on the most important television event of the twenty-first century! I glance over at Laurel and Susannah, who are eating their candy like there isn’t a worry in the world. How can I do this to them, my number one and number two BFIS? And with Susannah in a delicate mental state?

  I can’t.

  “What did she say to do?” Laurel asks. Blue Gummi shark fins are stuck between her teeth.

  I stand up and run to the door. “I’ll be right back!”

  As hard as I can, I pound on Mr. Flotsam’s door. “Mr. Flotsam! Emergency! It’s Zoë from next door!”

  From inside, he shouts, “Just soak her hips in olive oil and pull her forward.”

  “No! It’s not that. Do you have a TV?”

  “I told your granny I’m not going to snuggle with her anymore during Jeopardy! She shouts out all the answers.”

  “No, I need the TV!” There’s nothing but silence. “Mr. Flotsam? Are you there?”

  The Jeopardy! music blares through the door.

  Susannah and Laurel’s heads poke out from my apartment. “Zoë, come back. It’s starting in three minutes!”

  I race to the next door. Miss Carnegie hates me, but she’s got cable. Not only that, she’s got high-definition. I pound until my hands ache and yell into the door, “Miss Carnegie! It’s Zoë from down the hall! I need to borrow a TV.”

  “It’ll be a cold day in Tahiti before I lend you neighbors anything EVER AGAIN!” she says.

  “But we’ve never borrowed—”

  “That Flotsam character next door borrowed my hair dryer in 1999, and he still hasn’t given it back. I don’t know why—he didn’t have any hair then and he doesn’t have any now!”

  “But we don’t actually need to remove your TV…”

  “And Clara What’s-her-name borrowed two plums in July of 2004. Do you think she’s repaid me? Come around in fifteen years, I’ll probably still be waiting!”

  Actually, I don’t think I will come around anytime soon or in fifteen years. She’s too cranky.

  The next door is Mrs. Grungen’s. And I don’t know what she does in there, but the whole hallway stinks from it. I slow down and knock lightly. “Mrs. Grungen, are you in there?” I’m not really sure I want to know the answer.

  “Eh?”

  “It’s Zoë Costello from down the hall. I need to ask a favor.”

  I can hear her walker clop, clop, clopping toward me. Then the door bursts open and gets choked by the chain. One of her horrible yellowish bloodshot eyes peers out at me. “What is it?” When she talks, the prickly hairs on her chin scratch against the door frame.

  I blurt out, “Well, you see, the cable went out and it’s about thirty seconds till The Garage Girls Behind-the-Scenes Sneak Peek and my two best friends in the school are over and we’d do anything if you’d just let us watch your TV for just half an hour.”

  She goes silent. A floorboard squeaks.

  “Anything?” she asks.

  I wipe a spray of spittle off my cheek, forcing my brain not to think about what microbes might lurk in the saliva of a lady who smells like Mrs. Grungen. “Anything,” I say.

  The door slams shut, then a chain rattles and it creaks open all the way. Finally I can see what is causing all that stench.

  Right in the middle of the room is a giant parrot in a cage bigger than a fridge. And I’m not sure if he’s dead or alive, because half his feathers are gone and the skin where the feathers should be is all puckered and pasty. Eventually he coughs, which suggests that he’s alive, but the cough is so rattly and deep it makes me wonder for how long.

  After this, there’s some good news and some bad news. The good news is that within twenty seconds we’re watching The Garage Girls Behind-the-Scenes Sneak Peek. Alexandra, Devon, and Lucia are right now lying in the sun beside Lucia’s pool and a butler is serving them icy pink drinks and brownies. It looks like The Life, I’ll say that much.

  The bad news is that the “anything” I agreed to is rubbing Mrs. Grungen’s foot lotion onto Pavel the parrot’s puckered and pasty skin parts. The lotion smells like moldy onions and feels like chunky peanut butter and is stuck under my fingernails, and every time I reach into Pavel’s cage I have to hold my breath or risk permanent lung damage from barely alive parrot stink.

  I gotta get my mom that assistant. Quick.

  Sixty Seconds of Happy Kicks Jeopardy!’s Butt

  “That’s why I put Laurel in charge of food for the dance,” I explain to my mother, who is lying in a bath full of bubbles for her nightly “half-hour slice of heaven.” She’s got candles lit by her feet, a pile of fashion magazines by her head, and a big glass of wine in her hand. It’s supposed to be her “me time,” but I haven’t seen her all day, so she changed it to “we time.” Just for tonight. “I knew Laurel would follow directions and I want the food to be perfect,” I say. “I want every single student at Allencroft to be happy with my selections.”

  Mom looks at me and blinks a few times. “Don’t you mean Laurel’s selections?”

  I laugh. “Yeah, right! We’d have all the blue food groups and nothing else. I’ve recommended we be globally conscious in every choice.”

  “Globally conscious?”

  “Yup. Every choice needs to fit within our special-needs specifications.”

  She flips through her magazine. “Which are?”

  “Lactose-free, diabetic, gluten-free, low-sodium, low-cholesterol—which, luckily, falls under the same guidelines as low-fat, Muslim, Hindu, kosher, vegetarian, and bland.”

  She looks up from her magazine. “Bland? Isn’t that a bad thing?”

  I know this one by heart. “No—bland is a category of foods that contain a low element of fat and fiber in order to ensure proper gastrointestinal balance.”

  “Well. Very impressive. Sounds like you’re a terrific chairwoman.”

  “I prefer chairgirl.”

  Mom squirts a little more bubble bath into the tub and swishes it around. Then she hands me her magazines, leans back, and folds a washcloth across her eyes. “Do you mind, honey? I just need five minutes to meditate.”

  “Whatever.” I stand up and start to leave, accidentally dropping the magazines onto the bathroom floor.

  “Be careful with those. There are some papers from Grandma’s doctor in there.”

  “I’m careful, I’m careful.” As I gather them into a pile, I sweep a thick brochure onto the top. But the model on the cover is no supermodel. She’s older than Grandma and she�
��s smiling like crazy at a nurse who is feeding her soup. And the nurse looks like she’s having the best time she’s ever had in her nursey life. She’s smiling so big, her bottom teeth are showing.

  Across the top it says Shady Gardens Home for Seniors.

  What?

  Quickly, I open the brochure to see pictures of old people sitting in dumpy beige flowery bedrooms, and old people sitting on dumpy brown flowery sofas, and old people leaning their heads together and smiling for the camera; like they’re so happy their families stuck them in this beige-and-brown flowery prison of dumpiness. What I want to know is what kind of flowers come in beige and brown anyway?

  “Mom,” I finally say.

  “Mm?”

  “Where did you get this?” I lift the washcloth off her eyes and hold out the brochure.

  She opens her eyes, looks at it, and sighs. “Oh. You saw it.”

  “Uh, yeah.”

  “Grandma’s doctor gave it to me. He said her Alzheimer’s is getting worse and that it’s time we start looking at our options.”

  There’s that word again. “Options like nursing homes?”

  She nods. “I’m afraid so, sweetie.”

  “Then look at other options, too. Like me staying home from school. I’ll quit and look after Grandma fulltime.”

  Mom just looks at me. “That’s not one of our options. Her doctor recommended a full-care facility.”

  “Then maybe a special nurse can come live with us and take care of her. That would work. We could give the nurse my bedroom—”

  Mom laughs sadly. “That’s far too expensive, and I don’t think you would like bunking with me. I snore.”

  “Then what about getting her another doctor? For all we know, Grandma’s doctor might have been the worst student in medical school. Somebody’s got to graduate at the bottom of the class, right?”

  “Zoë…”

  “Everyone always assumes every doctor is a genius, but there has to be one who was the idiot of all the geniuses. There has to be! Do we really know for sure it’s not him?”

  “Dr. Milner is not an idiot.”

  “I didn’t say that. I said the idiot genius.”