Lola Levine and the Halloween Scream
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Text copyright © 2017 by Monica Brown
Interior Artwork copyright © 2017 by Angela Dominguez
Pumpkins by Tatiana, SK
Cover design by Marcie Lawrence. Cover art copyright © 2017 by Angela Dominguez. Cover copyright © 2017 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.
Hachette Book Group supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.
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First Edition: July 2017
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ISBNs: 978-0-316-50642-7 (hardcover), 978-0-316-50643-4 (pbk.), 978-0-316-50640-3 (ebook)
E3-20170522-JV-PC
CONTENTS
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter One
Boo!
Chapter Two
Leaf Art
Chapter Three
Zombies and Llamas
Chapter Four
Apples and Pumpkins
Chapter Five
The Parade
Chapter Six
Trick
Chapter Seven
Treat
Chapter Eight
Strong Bodies
To Nikki Garcia, with joy and gratitude
Dear Diario,
Yay! It’s almost Halloween! And since Halloween is on a Sunday this year, it’s going to be a Halloweekend! I am so excited. Halloween is one of my favorite holidays, and not just because I love witches and ghosts and monsters, but also because I love candy! And I really don’t get to eat a lot of candy, except for Halloween. My parents don’t let me. Mom says that candy doesn’t help build strong bodies. When we want something sweet, she sometimes suggests raisins, which she says are “nature’s candy.” About two days after Halloween, Mom always has the idea that we should trade what’s left of our candy for something else, like a new book or toy. It’s her idea, not ours, but it seems like we always end up agreeing to Mom’s ideas. I’m getting sleepy now, so…
Shalom and good night,
Lola Levine
Chapter One
Boo!
On Monday morning, I wake up extra early because I have a plan. My plan is to scare my little brother, Ben. He’s okay most of the time, but he also bugs me. He likes to make jokes, and sometimes they are about me.
Last week, he kept saying “Dolores is a brontosaurus! Dolores is a brontosaurus!” because he likes rhymes. Dolores is my first name, but I go by Lola.
“I’m NOT a brontosaurus!” I tell Ben. “Dinosaurs have small brains, and mine is big!”
Ben might be good at rhyming, but guess what? I’m good at scaring people, and since it’s almost Halloween, I’m going to scare Ben this morning. I wait outside his door until I hear my dad call up the stairs like he does every morning before school.
“Kids! Wake up! Breakfast in fifteen minutes!”
I hear some mumbles and grumbles, and then I hear Ben get up. I know he’ll come out of his room soon, so I pretend to be a ghost and throw on a white sheet with holes cut out for the eyes. I crouch and wait, and when Ben steps into the hallway, I jump out in front of him and say, “Boo!” Ben jumps back and trips over his own feet. “Gotcha!” I say, and start laughing.
Ben does not think this is as funny as I do.
“You scared me, Lola! And it’s not even Halloween yet,” he complains.
“Well, it’s Halloweek,” I say, and pat him on the head. Then I go back to my room to get ready for school.
“I’ll get you back!” Ben says.
“I hope so!” I say. I like surprises.
Dad makes us pumpkin pancakes for breakfast. Not only do they have pumpkin flavor, but they are shaped like pumpkins, too! It’s going to be a great day.
When I get to school, I run over to Josh Blot and Bella Benitez, my super best friends.
“What are you going to be for Halloween?” I ask.
“I’m going to be a firefighter,” says Josh.
“That’s awesome,” I say. “How about you, Bella?”
“I’m going to be a fairy,” she says.
“How cool!” I say. “You’ll be a great fairy. When you dance ballet, it sometimes looks like you are flying.” Bella loves to dance.
“How about you?” Bella asks.
“I’m not sure yet,” I say. “I might be a zombie—or a vampire. It has to be something really scary. We always make our costumes, because my dad believes in ‘creative expression,’ but we did buy lots of black and white makeup and fake blood at the store this weekend.”
Alyssa Goldstein and Makayla Miller must be listening, because all of a sudden Alyssa says, “Gross. I don’t know why you’d want to wear fake blood or look like a monster.”
“I happen to like monsters,” I say back. “What are you going to be for Halloween?”
“Princesses,” Alyssa and Makayla say at the same time. Somehow, I’m not surprised. They sometimes act like they rule the school, but they really don’t. They like to tease me, and other people, too. The bell rings, and we all walk into Ms. Garcia’s second-grade classroom and sit down.
“Good morning, students!” Ms. Garcia says.
“Good morning, Ms. Garcia!” we answer back.
“Is everyone excited for the Fall Festival?” Ms. Garcia asks.
“Yes!” the whole class says at once.
“We are going to have so many fun events this week,” Ms. Garcia says. “There are lots of celebrations during the fall, all over the world. For example, Chinese people celebrate the Moon Festival in mid-autumn. They gather with friends and family for parades under the moonlight, carrying lanterns and dancing. They celebrate, give thanks, and eat mooncakes.
“Mexicans and Mexican Americans like me celebrate Dia de los Muertos, the Day of the Dead, at the start of November. We create altars for our loved ones who have passed. Many in the United States celebrate Halloween.”
“We celebrate Dia de los Muertos, too!” says Bella.
“That’s wonderful!” says Ms. Garcia. “Fall is an important time of year for many people. Here at Northland Elementary we will have the Fall Festival this week to celebrate the transition of summer into winter during the season of autumn.”
“I know a girl named Autumn!” says Juan Gomez. “She lives on my block.”
“That’s a nice name,” says Ms. Garcia. “What do we know about autumn, the season also called fall?” I raise my hand, and Ms. Garcia calls on me.
“It’s the time of year when trees’ leaves change color and then fall off,” I say.
“That’s right, Lola,” says Ms. Garcia. “We have four seasons: summer, fall, winter, and spring. We call trees
that lose all their leaves seasonally deciduous trees.” Then she writes the word deciduous on the board. It sounds like dee-sid-you-us. “Autumn is also the time when some of the food we eat is harvested, including apples.”
“Yum!” I say. “Do we get to visit an apple orchard, Ms. Garcia? Because I know last year’s second graders did.”
“Yes, we do,” says Ms. Garcia. “On Wednesday, we will go to Feliz Manzana Farm and pick some apples. Can anyone tell me what feliz manzana means in English?” I raise my hand, but Bella is quicker. “What does it mean, Bella?”
“It means ‘happy apple,’” Bella says with a smile.
“I speak Spanish, too,” I say.
“We all know that,” says Makayla, rolling her eyes. I roll mine back.
“Tomorrow, we’ll collect leaves and decorate the classroom with leaf art. We’ll visit the farm on Wednesday, and Thursday is Pumpkin Day! Each of you will bring a pumpkin to school. We’ll weigh, measure, and describe the pumpkins. After that, you’ll get to paint them. And then, finally, we are going to have a school parade on Friday during lunchtime recess. Each of you will get to dress as one of your favorite characters from a book or from history.”
I already know who my favorite book character is. I’m going to dress up as Marisol McDonald from my favorite picture book, Marisol McDonald Doesn’t Match. Marisol is bilingual, just like me. She likes to mismatch on purpose. Best of all, she’s always true to herself, even if it means people tease her sometimes.
“Hooray! Hooray! Pumpkin Day!” I say, and everyone laughs. It feels nice—not like they are laughing at me, but like they are laughing with me.
Chapter Two
Leaf Art
When I come home from soccer practice, I can smell my mom’s Peruvian chicken—yum.
Mom calls us to the table, and as I sit down for dinner, I notice a rubber spider on my plate. It’s ugly and rubbery, and it doesn’t fool me for one minute.
“Nice try, Ben,” I say. “This isn’t scary at all.” He just sticks his tongue out at me.
“I have the best idea in the whole wide world!” he tells us.
“Really?” I ask. “I don’t believe you.”
“Lola,” Mom says, “listen to what your brother has to say.”
“Well,” says Ben, “you know how we have a Fall Festival parade at school?”
“Of course I know,” I say. “We get to dress up as a book character or a historical figure.”
“My idea is that we have a pet parade, too!”
“At the same time?” I ask Ben.
“Yes!” he says.
“It’s during lunch, right? I was planning on coming,” says Mom. “I could always stop by the house and pick up Bean.”
“That’s actually a great idea, Ben. I love it!” I say, giving him a high five.
After dinner, I help Ben write a letter.
Dear Principal Blot,
My mom says it’s good to try new things. So when we have our parade on Friday at lunch recess, I think we should have animals, too! Parents could bring their pets.In costumes! Mom says the pets would be on leashes.
Why? Because pets make people happy!
Please.
From,
Ben Levine
P.S. I helped.
—Lola Levine
After we finish morning lessons the next day, Ms. Garcia asks us the question we’ve been waiting for. “Are you ready to go on a leaf walk?”
“Yes!” we say.
“Then it’s time to bundle up,” she says. We are so excited. We hold hands and walk in two lines toward a park near school.
I like the way the leaves sound when they crunch beneath our feet. When we get to the park, Ms. Garcia gives us each a plastic bag and lets us go leaf hunting in pairs. I’m with Josh. We are about to start collecting when I notice something.
“Look, Josh!” I say, and point to several big piles of leaves at the edge of the grass.
I’m about to tell Josh that we should go jump in them when Ms. Garcia says loudly, “One more thing, students! Don’t jump in or climb on the piles of leaves because someone worked hard to rake them up.” I frown. Sometimes it seems like Ms. Garcia can read my mind. She and my mom have the same superpower, I think!
“But it sounds fun to jump in the leaves,” I whisper to myself. It feels like the pile of leaves wants me to jump on top of it. But I don’t want to get in trouble, so I walk away from the piles and start looking for pretty leaves on the ground. When I find ones I like, I put them into my bag.
When we get back to the classroom, we get a leaf lesson from Ms. Garcia. We learn the different types of trees our leaves came from and write descriptions of each tree. We glue a leaf of each kind and color onto a page in a book Ms. Garcia calls The Northland Elementary Big Book of Leaves. Then the super-fun part. We get to make leaf art animals! Ms. Garcia gets out paper, glue sticks, and little googly eyes that can stick on the leaves.
“I’m going to make an owl!” says Josh.
“I think I’ll make a fox,” says Bella.
“Let’s make fish!” Alyssa tells Makayla.
“Hmmm,” says Makayla. “I think I’d rather make a turkey.”
“Fine,” says Alyssa, scowling. I don’t think she likes it when people don’t do what she wants.
I can’t decide what to make. I raise my hand.
“Can I make a leaf monster?” I ask Ms. Garcia.
“For this assignment, I’d like you to think creatively about an animal you can make from leaves, Lola,” Ms. Garcia says.
“Can my animal be scary?” I ask.
“Sure,” Ms. Garcia says. At first, I think I’ll make a lion because lions have loud roars, but then I think of something even better.
“I’ll make a mouse!” I say. “Lots of people scream when they see mice.”
“Why do you like to hear people scream?” asks Bella.
“Because it’s fun to scare people—isn’t it?” I ask.
“I don’t think so,” says Bella. Maybe she doesn’t like mice.
“You are SO weird,” says Alyssa, gluing a googly eye on her fish.
After school, I invite Josh, Juan, and Bella to trick-or-treat with me on Halloween.
“You can bring your parents, too,” I say.
“I know I’ll be able to come!” says Josh. We’ve been trick-or-treating together since we were little.
“I’ll ask my parents,” says Bella. “That sounds like fun!”
“I usually go with my cousins, so I don’t think I can,” says Juan.
“That’s okay,” I say to Juan. Then I turn to Josh and Bella. “Let’s meet at my house early. We can have hot chocolate.” I can’t wait until Halloween.
Chapter Three
Zombies and Llamas
While Ben and I set the table for dinner, he tells me one Halloween joke after another. He and his friends love jokes. Ben learns a lot of his jokes from his friends, from books, and, secretly, I think, from Dad.
“What do birds say at Halloween?” he asks.
“I don’t know, Ben,” I say. “What?”
“Trick or tweet!” he says. “And I have another one!”
“Okay, Ben,” I say, “just one more.”
“Why didn’t the skeleton go to the party?” Ben asks, and before I even have a chance to answer, he says, “Because he had no BODY to go with!” I just laugh.
After dinner, Ben and I brainstorm costume ideas with Mom and Dad.
“I could be a zombie,” I say. “We could paint my face white with black under my eyes and rip up some old clothes.”
“And we could rub dirt on them so it looks like you used to live below the ground,” Dad says.
“And I could walk like this!” I say, sticking my arms and legs straight out in front of me.
“I can walk that way, too!” Ben says, jumping up and following me around the living room.
“What do you want to be for Halloween, Ben?” asks Mom.
“Mir
a and I decided to be a wolf and a lamb,” he says. Mira Goldstein is Ben’s best friend. She’s so nice that I can hardly believe her older sister is Alyssa.
“That’s cool! You’ll be the wolf,” I say, and start walking on all fours.
“Actually, I’m going to be the lamb,” Ben says. “That’s okay, right?”
“Of course it is!” Mom says.
“Mira is going to be the wolf that chases me,” Ben says.
“It will be a fun costume to make, Ben—we’ll use lots of cotton balls,” says Dad.
“You’re going to be a lamb?” I say. “The one that gets scared?”
“What’s wrong with that?” Mom asks. “When we dress up in costumes, we are playing pretend. It’s not real.”
“I know,” I say, “but it’s Halloween! Don’t you want to be scary?”
“We all get to choose how to celebrate Halloween,” Dad says. “If Ben wants to be a lamb, then that’s his choice.”
“We are all unique, and we sometimes like different things,” Mom says. “If we were exactly the same, it would be pretty boring.” I get it.
“Ben, you are going to be one cute lamb,” I say, and my dad smiles.
“Well,” Dad says, “we’ve got a lamb and a zombie for Halloween trick-or-treating.”
“Now, what about the Fall Festival parade?” asks Mom. “I know Lola is going as Marisol McDonald. Have you thought about a book character, Ben?”
“Not yet,” he says.
“Well, what are your favorite books?” I ask.
“I have lots of favorites!” he says.
“What book did you have me read last night, and the night before that, Ben?” Dad asks.
“Maria Had a Little Llama!” Ben answers. Ever since we got back from visiting our tía Lola in Peru, Ben has been obsessed with llamas. He even has a stuffed llama named Lorenzo that he carries around everywhere.
“You know, Ben,” I say, “you can be Maria or the llama.” This time I want to make sure he knows he can be whatever he wants to be.