Lola Zola and the Lemonade Crush

by Jackie Hirtz

  “Hey, knuckleheads, put the canvas over there,” Buck said, pointing to the buffet table.

  Meanwhile, Mr. Wembly negotiated a business deal on his cell phone, the chauffeur polished the limo, and Buck went back to his video game.

  As Lola stirred a pitcher of lemonade, cars arrived full of people Lola recognized, sort of—Lawrence of Arabia fans, silver-haired ladies from the beauty salon, meditators from the Unity Center, and thermal springs die-hards who whizzed by the previous weekend en route to the natural mud spa on the edge of town.

  “Beat the heat! Try Lola’s magical mixture!” shouted Melanie, over the din of retro pop songs.

  “Buy a cup from Buck,” rapped Hot Dog and Max. “And meet the adrenalin gremlin.”

  Buck paraded up and down his yellow carpet runner, balancing a cup of lemonade on his head, lip-synching the words to his blasting techno-tune.

  Not to be outdone, Lola and Melanie flung open the doors of Lola’s mother’s Mustang, as Mrs. Zola started the ignition so she could, as instructed, play an instrumental version of “The Lemonade Crush” on the CD player. Adrenalin pumping, lungs bursting, the Twister Sisters sang and danced all around the Mustang while Bowzer sat on the hood of the car thumping his invisible tail to the upbeat music.

  “Beat the cactus heat with a brand new notion.

  Come on, desert dancers, do the pucker potion.

  Feel the mighty magic when you give it a sip.

  Its hot lemon zing tastes better than catnip.

  Yes, do the pucker potion and squeeze, squeeze, squeeze.

  Yes, do the pucker potion and twist, twist, twist.

  Yes, do the pucker potion and crush, crush, crush.

  Yes, do the pucker potion with us, us, us.”

  Cars pulled up and parked on the crowded street. Doors slammed. Hibernating neighbors left air-conditioned homes to venture outside and gawk at the dynamo sales team dancing, Lemonade Crush-style, around the Mustang.

  Ruby Rhubarb watched from the sidelines, until Lola spotted her and waved her over to join in the dancing.

  “If you insist, child,” said Ruby, who hadn’t danced since her Harry had passed. “It’s been a long time since my sweet husband and I used to tear up the dance floor. Let’s make like a line, ladies—and do the Lemonade Crush.”

  Side by side, Lola, Melanie and Ruby swung their hips, took three steps forward and three steps back, turned around full circle, then stretched their arms out in front of them and made like they were squeezing lemon halves. All the joyful singing and dancing stirred the crowd’s curiosity.

  “Where’s the fountain of youth dew?” asked an older woman.

  “Right here,” said Lola, handing the woman a cup of lemonade.

  “Where’s the disc jockey?” asked a teen with purple hair.

  “Right here,” said Buck, pointing to himself.

  “Where’s the energy-enhancing soul-purifier?” asked a meditator, carrying a book of affirmations.

  “Right here,” said Buck and Lola simultaneously.

  Confusion reigned. People didn’t know which side of the street to choose. Which lemonade was the authentic one, the best one, the one with healing properties and fountain of youth promises? Some chose sides, but others waffled back and forth, from Buck to Lola and back again, sampling lemonade amid the patter.

  “Did Lawrence of Arabia drink this on the set?”

  “What’s in the fountain of youth dew?”

  “Is there a difference between your wrinkle remover and his energy enhancer?”

  “Will this lemonade help me stop smoking?”

  “Which one of these lemonades purifies the soul?”

  *** *** ***

  After the first hour, Buck boasted he sold seventy-five cups of lemonade—whoop, whoop—but Lola had Melanie keep track of who made the purchases, and sure enough, his father had bought thirty of those cups. Melanie even observed Mr. Wembly instructing his chauffeur to pour the sweet stuff into a jug in the limo’s trunk.

  Melanie, meticulous at recording her freckle tab, kept a detailed log of “Cups Sold to Date” on a poster board that she periodically held up for the crowd to applaud. Lola sold one hundred and fifty cups of her magic pucker potion.

  Agitated by Lola’s lead, Buck’s father demanded a conference with his son, pulling him over by the shirt collar and spit-whispering in his ear.

  “Do something! On the double, son!”

  Buck saluted his father. “Yes, sir, Dad, Colonel.”

  Trying to hide his anxiety, Buck sauntered over to Lola’s lemonade stand.

  “Lola Zola, may I please try a cup of your lemonade,” he said in a voice dripping with honey—a very non-Buck-like voice.

  “Beat it, Slime,” Lola said under her breath.

  “Please,” said Buck, not budging. “All I’m asking for is one little sip.”

  With the crowd’s eyes upon them, Lola had no choice but to pour Buck a cup of her secret-power pucker potion.

  “You can have a whole cup,” said Lola, trying to out-sucrose Mr. Faux-Honey.

  Buck took a sip, swooshed the lemonade around in his mouth, gulped hard for dramatic effect, and then went bananas—swaying from side to side, doubling over onto the street, clenching his belly, and moaning something about liquid poison.

  “I’m sick,” Buck groaned. “My guts are exploding. I feel like I’m going to barf.”

  The crowd backed off, out of vomit range.

  “Oh, my stomach, it hurts,” gasped Buck, looking around to see how many people were watching him.

  “Knock it off,” said Lola. “You’re acting like a dweeb.”

  “A total nut,” shouted Melanie.

  “I’m not a nut and I’m not acting,” whined Buck, keeling over in the middle of the street, lying there, writhing in pucker pain.

  “My intestines are unraveling. I could be dying,” he groaned.

  Bowzer trotted over to sniff Slime’s nose and make sure he was still breathing.

  “Help me,” moaned Buck. “Lola’s lemonade is killing me.”

  The crowd stirred, though Mr. Wembly, still in his limo, forever on his cell phone, barely paid attention. Meanwhile, a young woman pressed her hand to Buck’s forehead. “He feels hot,” she said to no one in particular, to everyone. “Maybe we should call an ambulance.”

  Lola imagined Buck rushed to the emergency room, where he would convince the doctors Lola had poisoned him and should be reported to the beverage police.

  Lola eyed Bowzer sniffing Buck’s armpit, looking for a cozy place to nap. The cat, who often parked himself in Lola’s armpit, must have smelled a foul odor (BO!). emanating from the Buckster, because he forsake Buck’s pit for a spot on the writhing boy’s chest—a purrfect perch for a closer examination of the suspicious bellyacher. Bowzer, the cat detective, tickled Buck’s nose with his long whiskers, presumably to see if the ailing boy was too sick for a tickle giggle. Slime, not sure what to do about the cat and his wild whiskers, couldn’t suppress a smile, which soon turned into a laugh, which proved to be slam-dunk evidence that Buckster was a faker.

  Once Buck’s silliness was exposed, the crowd became Lola supporters, muttering…

  “Now we know who’s a fraud and who’s real.”

  “Imagine lying in the middle of the street and trying to pull a stunt like that!”

  “He must think we’re all fools.”

  “Lola’s got the real lemonade, the one with all the magical powers, and that’s the lemonade we want,” shouted the same woman who just moments ago had put her hand on Buck’s forehead.

  The crowd swelled, and people, waving dollar bills in their hands, swarmed Lola’s lemonade stand chanting, “LO-LA-LO-LA-LO-LA.”

  Seconds later Lola ran out of lemonade, so she darted back inside her house to grab more pitchers from the fridge. On her way to the kitchen, she almost crashed into her parents, who were slow-dancing in the living room. What were they doing acting mushy at a time like this? Could it be
that her lemonade had Cupid powers too?

  *** *** ***

  Maybe with her parents falling back in love and lemonade sales skyrocketing, the worst was behind Lola.

  Maybe not.

  From inside the kitchen, Lola heard a buzz in the street—a bouncing ball, excited voices.

  “Is that him? In person? Do you think he’ll give me his autograph? He’s so handsome—so muscular—so friendly. I watch him on television—never miss a game—can’t believe he’s here.”

  What was all the commotion?

  She peered through the kitchen window to see her neighbors crowd around a tall—never seen anyone so tall—guy wearing a sports jersey and bouncing a basketball.

  Sonny “The Rising Sun” Wilkerson—the best basketball player in the entire history of Mirage and the star of an upcoming Boingo Bits video game—had arrived to endorse Buck’s brew as a favor to Slime Bucket’s dad. Awestruck fans quickly switched lemonade sides to join The Rising Sun and his dribbling ball.

  By the time Lola raced back outside, there wasn’t anyone interested in her magical pucker potion.

  “I’m back,” she announced, holding two more pitchers of her peppery beverage.

  No one cared. Bowzer yawned.

  Melanie whispered to Lola, “I’ve never seen a real live basketball star before.”

  “Not you too, Mel.” Lola snapped her fingers. “Snap out of it, Mel, you’re starstruck.” Wide-eyed, Melanie gazed at Sonny Wilkerson, while Lola hissed at the Buckster and vowed to beat her lemonade blues.

  *** *** ***

  Chapter 10

  “Melanie Papadakis,” said Lola, roller skating across Lemonade Gulch in her orange shorts and lemon-yellow T-shirt. She stared at Melanie (a sudden traitor?), standing in line for The Rising Sun’s autograph. “If I weren’t your best friend, I might tell the world how many freckles you have.”

  “Don’t you dare,” said Melanie, just one person away from actually talking to Sonny “The Rising Sun” Wilkerson. The athlete, in his team sweats, was leaning against the Cadillac limo-lemonade stand, high-fiving fans and urging them to shoot for their dreams.

  “My freckle tab is supposed to be a secret,” said Melanie.

  “And we’re supposed to be best friends,” said Lola.

  “All I want is an autograph,” Melanie said, turning to smile at the most popular sports star in town. She stepped up to the front of the line, ready to buy her token cup and get it signed.

  Figuring there was only one way to reach her starstruck friend, Lola linked pinkies with Melanie and said, “Pinky, pinky, never finky…”

  Would Melanie even remember their secret oath? A half a second crawled by on its way to a full second before Melanie uttered the words Lola was waiting to hear.

  “Knuckle, knuckle, always chuckle,” Melanie said, knocking knuckles with Lola and snapping out of her goo-goo-eyed trance.

  The Twister Sisters returned to their mini-outpost on the other side of the street to watch in horror as Hot Dog held up a sign that read, “300 Buck-Cups Sold.” Slime was ahead by fifty cups and now would surely win the lemonade challenge unless Lola thought of something fast.

  “Lola Zola, is this what you call a business?” asked Ruby Rhubarb, shaking her head in dismay and clutching her emerald-green pocketbook, which accented her designer attire—a purple and green sundress with a fitted jacket, matching heels, and a pair of real emerald earrings.

  Lola never dreamed her lemonade benefactor would enter the commerce zone. Yet there she was, standing haughtily before her, and tsk-tsk-tsking as Mr. Wembly shook hands with the crowd, nursed a cup of what must have been lemonade, and every once in a while slapped some cologne on his cheeks.

  “I think it’s time you turned this situation around, child,” said Ruby Rhubarb. “That’s what I told my Harry when our first business, Donut Delights, was on the brink of bankruptcy. People started counting calories, so we changed our business to Donut De Lites and just sold the donut holes, baked, not fried.”

  “Got any suggestions?” asked Lola.

  “Bluff it,” said Ruby Rhubarb. “Play it close to the vest and bluff. Never let the competition know what’s really going on.”

  That night Lola tossed, turned, and yearned for the answer to her citrus depression. What did Ruby Rhubarb mean when she said to bluff it? Lola prayed to the Spelling Bee God to spell out the solution to her family’s financial woes, but when morning came, her mind was a blur and Bowzer was a cranky sleep-deprived wreck, no longer chasing his missing tail but actually trying to bite it.

  Lola skipped breakfast. How many leftover casseroles could one girl swallow, even with salsa? Besides, she couldn’t stand to look at her mother parading around the kitchen in her navy-blue business suit, talking about how she hoped to project a conservative impression the first day on the job at Boingo Bits.

  “Lola love,” Diane Zola called from the kitchen.

  “What, Mom,” said Lola, who was hibernating in the bedroom, reading The Owl and the Pussycat to Bowzer, showing him the whiskered pictures.

  “Employees at Boingo Bits have to punch in a code,” said Lola’s mother. “Otherwise the door won’t open.”

  “So don’t open it,” shouted Lola, not wanting to hear one more syllable about Boingo Bits.

  “You’ll never guess what the code is, Lola.”

  “Lemonade,” Lola said, sarcastically.

  “Close,” said her mother. “It’s…”

  “It’s time for me to go to school,” interrupted Lola, having heard all she could bear about the Wembly’s video gaming com-puke-tor company.

  *** *** ***

  During recess Lola overheard Buck blabbing about office politics. “Truth or lie?” said Buck to a cluster of kids waiting to check out balls. “My dad is Lola’s mom’s boss.”

  “Lie,” said a student.

  “Truth,” said Buck, smirking.

  “Lie,” the kids countered.

  “Truth,” insisted Buck.

  “Who cares?” said Samantha Roberts, clearly irritated at Buck. “Mr. Power-Tripper, Mr. Yo-Yo Boy, listen here—what your daddy does and who he orders around is of no concern to me.”

  Just to spite Samantha—and Lola (who Buck could see was listening to their conversation), the Buckster pulled a neon-yellow yo-yo from his pocket, “walked the dog,” “went around the world,” and practiced a slew of impressive yo-yo tricks.

  Lola rolled her eyes in exasperation. What was she going to do with this yo-yo-ing blabbermouth bully show-off?

  Back inside the class, in the middle of a long division problem, Lola snapped her fingers and mumbled, “I’ve solved it!” No, she didn’t have the five-digit answer Mrs. Rosenberg was seeking, but she did have the solution to her lemonade dilemma. And she could thank Ruby Rhubarb and Slime Bucket for helping her figure it out.

  “We’re going out of business,” Lola told Melanie on the parrot phone later that night.

  “Going belly down?” asked Melanie. Another malapropism, oh well.

  “It’s ‘belly up’ and no, not really. Just pretend. We’re going to bluff it.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  “You’re going to work for Buck,” explained Lola.

  “No, I’m not,” said Melanie. “I don’t want to lose my best friend.”

  “Melanie, I’m the one asking you to work for him,” said Lola, exasperated. Melanie’s brain wasn’t on vacation. It was on sabbatical.

  “I still don’t get it,” said Melanie.

  “Agent 315,” said Lola, taking command, “I want you to infiltrate and agitate.” Those were a couple of ten-dollar words Lola had heard her father use when talking union strategy. “Turn Buck’s employees against him and then picket his Cadillac limo-lemonade stand.”

  “Just how am I going to do that?” asked Melanie.

  “You’ll see,” said Lola, fiddling with one of her walkie-talkies.

  *** *** ***

  As instructed, Melanie poke
d Buck on the shoulder the following day during recess, and with tears welling up in her eyes (thanks to a raw onion from Lola) complained to Slime that Lola had laid her off and was going out of business.

  “I’m unemployed,” said Melanie, chomping down hard on her grape bubble gum.

  “Really,” said Slime, picking a Jujube out of his back molar. “No more magical squirtin’ and slurpin’?”

  “It’s over, Lola can’t compete with you,” she said, “not with your limo, umbrella, yellow carpet, and crew of two worker bees.

  Buck expected to win, but not quite so easily. Something smelled fishy.

  “So now you can tell me what the secret recipe is?”

  Melanie, stalling for time, pulled the gum out of her mouth and stretched it as far as she could. When it broke, she popped it back in her mouth, chewed some more, then blew a giant purple bubble. Pop!

  “The secret,” Buck reminded her. “What’s the secret already?”

  “Can’t tell,” said Melanie.

  “She laid you off,” Buck reminded her. “You can tell me now.”

  “I can’t tell ‘cause I don’t know the secret. But when I find out, I’ll tell you if…”

  “If what?”

  “If you give me a job at the Cadillac limo-lemonade stand,” said Melanie.

  Buck hesitated. He didn’t know if he should trust Melanie, and now he had a more urgent matter on his mind, unsticking the candy that was glued to the roof of his mouth.

  “I, uh, already have a lot of lemon squeezers,” said Buck, finally dislodging the Jujube. When he popped another sticky candy, Melanie could see his tongue turn turquoise blue.

  “I don’t just squeeze,” said Melanie. “I schmooze. I have marketing skills.” Schmoozing was one of Mrs. Rosenberg’s favorite verbs for chatting with important people. “I talk to the customers.”

  Melanie had never seen Hot Dog or Magic Max talk to any of the customers—not in English, sign language, Pig Latin, or Morse code.

  “I’ll have to think about it,” said Buck, playing hard to get.

  “Take your time,” said Melanie. “I need time too.” Then, using a Lola Zola tactic, Melanie said, “Aunt Liza says I should go into the lemonade business with her. So maybe I’ll do that and share the secret recipe with her, once I find out what that recipe is.”