Chapter Six

Trick

At the end of the day, I am a little sad that Halloweek is over at school. At least Halloween is the day after tomorrow. But I want to play one more trick.

I decide to surprise my friends after school. I put my pumpkin and my backpack on the ground behind a tree, and then I hide, too. I wait until I see Bella and Josh walking toward the bus stop. Sometimes Josh takes the bus home from school so he doesn’t have to wait until his mom is done working. Bella and Josh are carrying their pumpkins and backpacks, and they must be talking about something really funny because they are both laughing. I jump out from behind the tree with my hands in front of me like a zombie and yell, “Boo!”

Bella and Josh fall back and something awful happens. Josh drops his pumpkin, and it goes splat on the cement.

“Lola!” Bella says.

“My pumpkin!” says Josh. “It’s ruined.”

“Oh no!” I say. “I’m so sorry. It was a joke.”

“Not to me!” Josh says, trying to put his pumpkin back together.

“You know I don’t like being scared,” Bella says, “but you did it anyway!”

“I thought it would be funny,” I say, but Josh looks like he’s about to cry, not laugh. “I’m so sorry.”

“Stop saying sorry,” Josh says. “I wanted to put my pumpkin in the window to show trick-or-treaters, and now I can’t.”

“Maybe we can fix it,” I say, trying to help.

“Just go away,” Josh says, for the first time ever. So I do.

By the time my dad picks me up, I’m crying. Ben is worried because I don’t cry very often.

“What’s wrong?” Dad asks as I get into the front seat and put on my seat belt. Ben climbs into the back and shuts the door, and I spill out the whole story—about the scarecrow, the smashed pumpkins, and the fact that my two super best friends are super mad at me.

“That is a bummer,” Dad says. “I can see why you are feeling sad and sorry. Why did you decide to scare them, Lola?”

“Because I thought it would be fun,” I answer.

“For who? For them?” Dad asks. I think about it for a little bit.

“No, I thought it would be fun for me,” I say. “I know Bella doesn’t really like being scared.”

“That was a mean thing to do, Lola,” Ben says from the backseat.

“It’s not your job to tell me that!” I say to Ben. But then I think about it.

“I guess it was a little mean, but I just wanted to have fun.”

“Everyone has fun in different ways,” Dad says. “We need to listen to our friends.”

That night, I can’t sleep. I toss and turn and flip my pillow over again and again, but it doesn’t work. I try to think of puppies and soccer games, but even that doesn’t work. I get out of bed and decide to write in my diary.

Dear Diario,

I can’t sleep. It’s like I’ve got monkeys jumping up and down in my head, and they are all saying, “You’re mean, Lola Levine!” I want to be nice to my friends. I just don’t understand why they don’t like Halloween jokes as much as me. But if I think about it really hard, maybe I do understand. I always say I like being scared, but I’m not telling the truth, because right now I feel scared that I might have lost my two best friends.

I think I’m going to go and wake up Mom, because some worries are too big for just one person.

Shalom,

Lola Levine

I peek into my parents’ room, and Mom is still awake reading.

“Mom?” I whisper, because I don’t want to wake up my dad.

“Hi, sweetie,” Mom whispers. “What’s wrong?”

“I can’t sleep,” I tell her, “and I really want to. For real.” Mom gets out of bed and gives me a hug.

“Let’s go downstairs and have some hot milk,” Mom says.

I watch my mom stir the milk in the pot and add a few drops of honey. When it’s ready, we take our mugs into the family room, where Bean is happy to see me. Mom and I sit on the couch, and she wraps us in my favorite blanket, the one Grandma Levine, my bubbe, knitted for us.