Lola Levine and the Ballet Scheme Read online

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  For super best friends Shannon, Mary, Annette, Leilah, Michelle, Lisa, Shawn, and Carrie, of course

  Dear Diario,

  During class today, I noticed that Makayla Miller, Alyssa Goldstein, and Olivia Lopez all had the same nail polish on. It seemed like every girl in my class did. They were whispering, but I heard them talking about a slumber party. I’ve never been to a slumber party, or even been invited to one.

  I like nail polish, too. I use it for what my dad calls “creative expression.” When I have a soccer game, I paint my nails orange to match my uniform. When I’m happy, I sometimes paint my nails all the colors of the rainbow. Once, when I was sad, I used a permanent marker to draw frown faces on each finger, but Mom said that wasn’t a good idea at all. How was I supposed to know that permanent marker was, well, permanent?

  I’m glad I have soccer practice tomorrow because soccer always makes me feel better.

  Shalom,

  Lola Levine

  Chapter One

  The New Girl

  “I wonder where Ms. Garcia is?” I ask Josh Blot as we walk into the second-grade classroom. Ms. Garcia is my favorite teacher ever. In fact, last week I wrote her an acrostic saying just that:

  Magnificent

  Smart

  Great

  Awesome

  Respectful

  Cool

  I can’t think of a word that begins with I

  Amazing

  A poem is acrostic when each letter of a word begins each line in the poem. Guess who taught me that? Ms. Garcia! I taught my brother, Ben, how to write an acrostic, but I sure didn’t like his very much.

  Loud voice

  Ogre

  Large ears

  Afraid of me on the soccer field

  Mom didn’t like it, either.

  “Words are powerful,” she told Ben. Mom is a journalist for the newspaper, so she knows words are pretty important. She sat down with Ben, and they made another acrostic for me.

  Lovely

  Orange Smoothies soccer team

  Lively

  Afraid of me on the soccer field (just kidding)

  That’s my brother.

  “I saw Ms. Garcia in the front office talking to my mom and some girl I don’t know,” says Josh. I sure hope that Ms. Garcia isn’t in trouble. I usually am when I talk to Josh’s mom. Josh is my best friend, but his mom is the principal. I seem to get in trouble with Principal Blot a lot.

  Ms. Garcia walks into our classroom just as the bell is ringing. She is not alone. She is walking next to a girl I’ve never seen before. The first thing I notice is that the girl is dressed in pink from head to toe. She has pink ribbons in her hair, a sweatshirt with pink slippers on it, and a skirt that looks sort of fluffy. Even her tennis shoes are pink! Her hair is long and black like my mom’s, and her eyes are brown like mine.

  “Class,” Ms. Garcia says, “I’d like to introduce you to Isabella Benitez, a new member of our class. Make sure you make Isabella feel welcome today!”

  “Ms. Garcia,” the new girl says, “would you mind calling me Bella?”

  “Of course not, Bella,” says Ms. Garcia. “You can sit here, between Lola and Alyssa.” Ms. Garcia always makes sure there’s at least one seat between Alyssa and me because we bug each other so much. Now the new girl sits between us.

  “Hi,” says Alyssa, waving her hand. Bella waves back.

  “I’m Lola!” I say, and she turns toward me.

  “Lola is short for Dolores. My mom is from Peru—is yours, too? Do you speak Spanish? I do. My dad is from here. He’s Jewish. My mom’s Catholic. I’m both. Do you play soccer? I do. Are those bedroom slippers on your sweatshirt? Do you always wear pink? Don’t you get tired of it? It isn’t a very interesting color, in my opinion—”

  “Lola, be quiet!” Alyssa interrupts, rolling her eyes. “You’ll get used to her,” she says to Bella.

  “Actually,” Bella says, “these are ballet shoes, not bedroom slippers! And, for your information, pink is a very interesting color. It’s the color of bubble gum and cotton candy and bunny eyes and—”

  “It’s also the color of my tongue,” Alyssa says, sticking her tongue out at me.

  “That’s not nice, Alyssa!” I say loudly. Too loudly.

  “Lola, please raise your hand if you have a question or comment,” Ms. Garcia says.

  “Sorry,” I say, and try to sit quietly without fidgeting. Principal Blot once told me that I fidget too much. At first I didn’t understand what she meant, but I learned pretty quickly that “fidget” is just a fancy word for wiggling, jiggling, and swinging my legs.

  “I’m a soccer player,” I explained to Principal Blot. “My legs like to move, even if I don’t tell them to.” I don’t think she believed me.

  I try to get Bella’s attention again to tell her that I like cotton candy, too, but she stares straight ahead and doesn’t look at me even once.

  Chapter Two

  Spirit Week

  “Class, everyone’s eyes on me,” Ms. Garcia says, and we turn to the front of the room. “It’s time to talk about Northland Elementary Spirit Week.”

  I raise my hand.

  “Is that like Ghost Week? Can we have a haunted house?”

  “No, Lola, Spirit Week celebrates school spirit. This is our twentieth year open as a school, and at the end of the month we are going to have all sorts of fun events. We are going to kick off the week with a school assembly and an ice-cream social, and each day we will dress up according to a different theme.”

  “Yeah!” the kids in my class say. I don’t know what to think. I like the idea of ghosts better than dressing up.

  Ms. Garcia goes to the board and writes:

  Monday—Assembly and Ice-Cream Social

  Tuesday—Mismatched Day

  Wednesday—Pajama Day

  Thursday—Tie-Dye Day

  Friday—Twin Day

  She turns back to the class and explains each day. I am especially excited about Mismatched Day because I think matching is boring. My mom once gave me a picture book called Marisol McDonald Doesn’t Match, and I loved it so much. Marisol decided that she didn’t care if people thought she was weird—she just wanted to be herself. I want to be myself, too, but I still want to be invited to slumber parties. When Ms. Garcia starts to talk about Pajama Day, I lean toward Bella.

  “You can wear your bedroom slippers!” I say with a smile.

  “They’re ballet shoes, not bedroom slippers!” Bella says, and she doesn’t smile back. What did I do wrong?

  Ms. Garcia moves on to talk about Tie-Dye Day.

  “What if we don’t have a tie-dyed shirt?” Juan Gomez asks.

  “That’s part of the fun,” says Ms. Garcia. “Our art project this Friday will be making tie-dyed T-shirts. Make sure to bring in a white T-shirt to school, and we will work on our Spirit Week shirts!”

  Bella raises her hand.

  “Can we tie-dye our T-shirts pink?” she asks.

  “Yes,” says Ms. Garcia, “you can pick the colors you like and mix new ones if we don’t have them.”

  I’
ll do an orange tie-dye, of course, for my soccer team, the Orange Smoothies. But I also love blue. And purple. I’m thinking about my design already.

  I want to talk to Bella some more at recess, but just as I’m walking toward her, Makayla runs up and says, “I’m a dancer, too!” and drags her off. I don’t care. I’d rather play soccer with Josh and Juan, anyway.

  “Come on, Lola!” Juan says. “Josh and I are going to take shots on you.”

  “Do your best!” I say as I run toward the grass.

  After school, I have soccer practice. Dad takes me because he’s the assistant coach. He’s a pretty fun coach.

  “Remember, Smoothies, soccer is creative!” he says, and leads us in really fun warm-ups. We do Frankies and flamingos. With Frankies, we walk like a monster named Frankenstein with our arms out and our legs kicking straight ahead of us. For flamingos, we balance on one leg and hold our opposite ankle, pulling our foot toward our bottom. Flamingos are birds that sleep on one foot, which is very cool, in my opinion. Dad has animal names for most of our warm-ups—the inchworm, the bear, the seal. We laugh a lot during warm-ups.

  Mr. Berg, our head coach, is a little tougher. He’s always making us do dribbling and passing drills. I don’t mind, though, because I love pretty much everything about soccer. After warm-ups, Coach Berg gathers us all together.

  “Team, I have a few announcements,” he says. “First, we need to really focus, because we are playing the Gray Sharks two weeks from Saturday, and they are the number one team in our league. If we win, we will be number one, and I know we can do it!”

  “Yes, we can!” we yell.

  “And even if we don’t win, we’ll do our best and have fun,” my dad says. Coach Berg doesn’t look like he agrees.

  “My second announcement,” Coach Berg goes on, “is that I’ve decided to have two co-captains this year. The first captain will continue to be Lola Levine, and her co-captain will be… Alyssa Goldstein.”

  What? I can’t believe it! I mean, Alyssa is a good player, but she doesn’t take soccer seriously.

  “Congratulations, Alyssa,” Coach Berg goes on. “I know you and Lola will work together to lead our team to victory!”

  “And lead by being extra respectful and extra nice,” Dad adds.

  Later, when the team is practicing penalty shots, I stop Alyssa’s fast shot to the left.

  “That was just luck!” she says.

  I’m about to tell Alyssa exactly what I think about that when I remember I’m a captain, and I’m supposed to be extra nice.

  “Champions make their own luck” is what Alex Morgan would say. She plays on the US Olympic women’s soccer team and is an amazing forward, in my opinion. I have lots of opinions, and one of them is that Alyssa Goldstein shouldn’t be co-captain of the Orange Smoothies!

  When I get home, I write a note to Dad and leave it wrapped around his paintbrush in his art studio. He likes to spend an hour in there after dinner.

  Dear Dad:

  Why did you choose Alyssa to be a co-captain? We couldn’t get along if we tried, and Alyssa won’t try, that’s for sure!

  Shalom,

  Your daughter

  (Lola Levine)

  That night, Dad tucks me in.

  “Hey, Daughter Lola Levine,” Dad says, holding my note. “Coach Berg and I thought making you co-captains might help you and Alyssa learn to work together. All I’m asking is that you give Alyssa a chance.”

  “Okay, Dad,” I say, and try to smile.

  “That’s my girl!” Dad says, and wishes me a “very good night. I hope your dreams are filled with unicorns and balloons and soccer balls and doughnuts and—”

  “All good things!” I interrupt. “I get it, Dad,” I say with a real smile this time.

  He turns out the light.

  Chapter Three

  Uh-Oh

  Dear Diario,

  Just a quick note to say, “Yay!” We are tie-dyeing our T-shirts today for Spirit Week, which is only two weeks away! I have to remember to ask Josh what we are wearing for Twin Day. I think we should dress up as soccer players.

  Dad just yelled up that breakfast is ready, so I’ve got to go.

  Shalom,

  Lola Levine

  At breakfast, Ben makes a mess of his eggs, as usual, squirting ketchup designs all over his plate. Ben seems to think that ketchup and scrambled eggs go together. I disagree. I can’t even see Ben’s eggs under his mountain of ketchup.

  “Dolores,” Ben starts, “I need some advice.”

  I purposely ignore Ben when he calls me by my full name. He knows I don’t like it, even if I’m named after my tía Dolores. She goes by Lola, too.

  “Okay,” he says. “Lola. I need advice about Pajama Day during Spirit Week.”

  “Why do you need advice?” I say. “Just wear a pair of your pajamas. It’s pretty easy.”

  “But what about Chewie?” Ben asks.

  “What about him?” I say. Chewie is a really old and ugly worn-out teddy bear that Ben still sleeps with. He’s missing an ear, and his paws don’t match because Ben used to chew on them. Bubbe, my grandma Levine, patched Chewie’s paws up so many times that the fur on each one is a different color brown. Ben finally stopped chewing on his teddy bear, but he still sleeps with him every single night.

  “Well, for Pajama Day, we are supposed to dress in what we sleep in each night, and I sleep with Chewie every night. If he sees me in my pajamas and I leave him, his feelings will get hurt!”

  “Chewie doesn’t have feelings, Ben. Because he’s a STUFFED ANIMAL,” I say. “Don’t bring that gross bear to school!”

  “Lola,” Mom says, “Ben has strong feelings about Chewie, and that’s okay.”

  “And how do you know that Chewie doesn’t have feelings, anyway!” Ben says. “He talks to me at night sometimes when I’m scared.”

  “Maybe in your dreams,” I say, but Dad gives me a look.

  “Having an imagination is important,” Dad says. “And having a big imagination is great. But if you bring Chewie to school, Ben, then you might lose him.”

  “Oh,” says Ben, who has ketchup smeared all over his face.

  “And people might tease you,” I say. “Trust me, I know all about that.” Dad gives me a pat on the back.

  We get to school early, for once, and just before class starts, I run up to Josh.

  “Hey!” I say. “What are we going to wear for Twin Day? I think we should wear our black soccer shorts and—”

  “Lola,” he interrupts, “we can’t be twins.”

  “Why not?” I ask.

  “Well, you’re a girl—”

  “I KNOW I’m a girl, Josh,” I say grumpily, “but boys and girls can be twins.”

  “But…,” says Josh.

  “But?” I ask.

  “I already told Juan I’d be his twin,” Josh says.

  “Fine,” I say, and I’m glad when the bell finally rings.

  During art class, Ms. Garcia explains our tie-dye project.

  “We’ll tie up our shirts in class before we go outside to use the dye. There are lots of ways to tie-dye a shirt, with stripes and spirals and polka dots.” She shows us the different techniques, and we get started folding and tying with rubber bands. I decide to do polka dots and take little bunches of my shirt and wrap them up with rubber bands. I also decide to try to talk to Bella again.

  “You know, Bella,” I say, leaning toward her desk, “I talked to my dad and he said that pink is just really light red, which I think is pretty interesting, don’t you?”

  “I think pink is just pink,” says Bella. She sounds a little grumpy, in my opinion.

  “Well, my dad is an artist, so he knows,” I say. “You just mix white with red to get pink, so I think people should call pink ‘pale red.’ Though I don’t really see why people like pale colors, anyway. I like bright colors and—”

  “I don’t care what colors you like, Lola. I like PINK!” says Bella.

  “Your
face is actually turning a little pale red—I mean pink,” I say. That seems to make Bella even madder.

  “Don’t worry,” I say, trying to make her feel better. “My face turns pale red, too, when I’m playing soccer.”

  “Soccer is boring,” Bella says. “That’s my opinion. Why would anyone want to chase a ball around all day, anyway?”

  “Soccer isn’t just chasing a ball around!” I say. “And it’s a lot better than dancing around in bedroom slippers!”

  “They are ballet slippers—I mean shoes, NOT bedroom slippers!” says Bella.

  “Is there a problem, girls?” Ms. Garcia asks, walking over to us.

  We both shake our heads.

  When the class finishes tying up their shirts, Ms. Garcia leads us out onto the grass, where she has set up lots and lots of different squeeze bottles filled with dye. There is blue, red, purple, green, yellow, orange, pink, and black.

  “Everyone, put your gloves on!” Ms. Garcia says. “And try very hard not to get dye on your clothes.”

  I pick out orange and blue and start in on my shirt. Makayla and Alyssa both get purple, because they just have to do everything alike, and I see Bella get pink, of course. When I finish my shirt, I decide that something’s missing. I walk over to the table and pick out the bottle with black dye in it.

  “Why not add a little drama?” I ask myself. I guess I’m not watching where I’m going too closely, because while I’m walking back over to my place on the grass, I trip over Juan’s foot and fall forward. So does the bottle of dye. Right into Bella’s lap, where it not only splashes her tie-dyed shirt but all over her pink skirt, too.

  “Lola!” she yells. “You ruined my shirt! And my skirt!”