The One and Only Zoe Lama Read online

  Here’s my theory. If you give people a mug, they can take a drink. But if you give people a slogan to print on a mug, they can sell that mug to tourists for ten dollars each and eventually make enough money to put their Icky little children through dental school so the kids don’t have to spend their entire lives standing on a steaming-hot beach selling mugs to sunburned people in flowered shirts.

  “And I like to change his shavings twice a day,” says Devon, her voice rising to a hysterical yelp. “You know, so he doesn’t get a complex about living like a, like a…”

  I stop stuffing cedar shavings into my backpack and look up at her. “Like a pig?” I zip up my bag. “I have news for you. He is a pig.”

  “I find your attitude troubling. This poor animal is trapped in a cage and depends on us for everything. I need to be sure you’re taking this seriously. ”

  One thing I won’t tolerate in my Icktopia—cages. When I rule the island, the animals shall roam free. I watch as Smartin finishes copying the week’s vocabulary words from the chalkboard, then walks closer and licks the board, leaving a big splotch of foul slime where liaison and eminence used to be. Then he belches.

  Okay, maybe not all the animals will be free.

  “If you see Boris fretting or pacing when you get him home, you’ll need to up his carbs,” she says. “My dad and I used to be joggers—”

  “Why did you stop?” I ask.

  “What?”

  “You said you used to be joggers. Why did you stop?”

  She widens her eyes. She doesn’t move for a couple of seconds, then says, “We didn’t stop. I meant to say when we jog; we double our intake of whole-grain pastas.”

  “Hmm. Well, Boris and I are definitely not jogging.”

  Devon follows me to the cupboard where we keep Boris’s traveling blanket. “I just buffed his nails and checked him over for cuts, ticks, and lice, so you won’t need to handle him too much. In fact, it might be best if you didn’t handle him at all,” she says. “And don’t be alarmed if he swallows his own feces; this is a perfectly acceptable way for him to stock up on vitamins and proteins.”

  “Boris doesn’t eat his own feces!” I say. “He happens to be very gentlemanly…for a pig.”

  “Boris is not a pig! He’s a rodent.” She looks up at Sylvia, whose arm is stuck in the sleeve of her jacket. “Sylvia, is Boris a rodent or a pig?”

  Sylvia looks scared. She digs through her desk and pulls out a pink folder about half the size of Devon’s rule book. The cover of this one reads, “Devon Says for Household Pets.”

  I don’t believe it. Devon is trying to rule the animal kingdom as well.

  Sylvia reads from the folder. “It says in the book—”

  “Folder,” I snap.

  “It says in the folder that he’s…” Sylvia looks up at me and apologizes with her eyes. “He’s a rodent.”

  Devon enormo-smiles, takes the folder from Sylvia, and slaps it into my hands. “Keep it with you at all times,” she says. “And in case of emergency, there’s a list of after-hours clinics and vets in the index. You’ll want the one that says ‘small-animal veterinarian.’”

  I toss it back at her, but she misses and it crashes to the floor. “Thanks, but I don’t need your project. Boris and I are going to do just fine.”

  “It’s not a project, it’s a book!”

  I pull on my coat, pick up the bag of food. The bell rings and I start out the door. “We’re going to have so much fun; Boris won’t know what hit him. I don’t plan to smother him with restrictions. I’m going to let him have the time of his life.”

  “Umm, Zoë?” says Devon.

  I spin around. “What?”

  “Aren’t you forgetting something?” Her arms are folded across her chest and she nods toward the floor, where Boris’s cage sits wrapped in the travel blanket. She looks back at everyone else, who are just getting up from their desks, and asks, “Am I the only one who feels Boris is in great danger this weekend?”

  And the very worst thing happens. Worse than Devon cramming her lousy advice down my throat. Worse than my embarrassment at having forgotten Boris. About half the kids in the class actually look worried for Boris’s safety!

  I never would have forgotten him. Seriously. As soon as I got to the school parking lot, my mother would have asked me where he was and I would have run right back into the school. My mother’s not stupid. She knows I wouldn’t pack a guinea pig as big as Boris in my backpack.

  Then Smartin tears over to the doorway and starts stomping his foot. He’s blocking one nostril with his finger. Which is the universal signal for…

  “SNOT ROCKET!” calls Avery.

  And everyone counts down in time with Smartin’s stamping foot. “Ten, nine, eight…” When they get to one, the whole class shouts, “Blastoff!” and Smartin splats one onto the floor by my feet.

  Normally, I’d go inside out with disgust.

  Normally, I’d make him disinfect the floor.

  Normally, I’d smack him and recite Unwritten Rule #21: Snot Rockets Don’t Make You an Astronaut, So Keep Your Freakboy Missiles to Yourself.

  But today, I scoop up Boris’s cage and smile at him. That was no random Snot Rocket. That was rarely seen evidence that Smartin Granitstein has a soul. I’m so touched by the way he came to my rescue; I bump him with my shoulder as I pass through the door. Honestly, if my arms weren’t full, I might have considered leaning closer and kissing his chalky little cheek. “Thank you, Martin,” I whisper, looking him in the eye. “There might just be hope for this big, bad world after all.”

  He snorts and walks away. “Your face is a big, bad world after all.”

  Okay, so maybe there isn’t.

  Paddling Pools Can Hold a Guinea Pig’s Attention for Only So Long

  Boris creeps across the bath mat and pauses to sniff the entrance of the Guinea Pig Fair. His little nose twitches and flares, and he makes a tiny squeak—in excitement, probably. I hand him the “Admit One” ticket I made, because I want to take a picture of him and show everyone all the fun he had at my house. Boris eats it. Kind of rude, but whatever. Then he flattens his brownish-orangeish body down and scoots through the two washcloths I hung up in the entrance to keep out cockroaches.

  He totally snuck in!

  I got up super early this morning to build him his very own carnival. First I spread out a green towel for grass, then added the plants for trees. I gave him a lamp shade slide and filled our frying pan with water for a paddling pool. You can bet your favorite underwear Devon never gave Boris a paddling pool!

  I thought he might get bored with sliding and paddling, so I made a fun house by smearing a mirror from the hall with hair gel so he’ll look warped and crooked when he looks at himself. Then I found my mother’s round baking pan and filled it with frozen peas to make a ball pit—just like they have at McDonald’s Playland.

  Boris heads straight for the ball pit, climbs in, and starts eating.

  The phone rings. I grab it quick so it doesn’t wake my mother. “Hello?”

  “Zoë. It’s Devon. I forgot to tell you something.”

  “I’m kind of busy right now, Devon…”

  “You have to put the vitamin-C drops in his water. Otherwise he might get scurvy. And DIE.”

  Boris crawls into the paddling pool and splashes around. And—I don’t believe my ears—I think he’s actually purring!

  “Did you hear me, Zoë?”

  “He doesn’t have scurvy.”

  “You don’t know that. There are very specific symptoms. Is he lethargic?”

  I watch him race in circles around the pool. “No.”

  “Is he hopping instead of walking?”

  He hops into the center of the pool and starts drinking.

  I flop down onto my back and stare up at the ceiling. “Devon, you seem like a nice kid, so I’m going to help you out. You’re pushy. Pushy might cut it in a sixth-grade class, but you’re in a six-seven split now. The stakes are
higher, the kids are sharper. You’re going to have to take it down a notch or risk total social annihilation. I haven’t said anything to you yet, because I was hoping you’d find this out for yourself. But it’s been over a month now and I feel it’s my duty—my civic duty—to not only guide you, but—”

  “Zoë? What’s Boris doing now?”

  I yawn, then glance over at the paddling pool. It’s empty. So is the ball pit and the fun house. I sit up and peer inside the lamp shade. Empty.

  “Zoë? Don’t you dare hang up on me again!”

  “He’s, uh, here…” I look between the plants and behind the Barbie car monorail. Into the bathtub, the toilet and under the shower curtain. I check that the bathroom door is still shut. Then I notice one of the cupboard doors under the bathroom sink is cracked open. I peer inside the cabinet and see Kleenex boxes and knocked-over bottles of bubble bath. But no Boris.

  Then I see it. Right where the pipes disappear into the wall, there’s a big, gaping hole. My heart starts to pound like crazy.

  After doing everything humanly possible to coax Boris out of the wall—laying out crackers, calling his name in my most sugary-sweet voice, and rattling the box of guinea-pig yogurt drops, I called an emergency meeting of the BFIS minds and snuck out of the apartment while my mother was getting ready to go get her hair done. Susannah and Laurel met me at the corner of Sycamore and Clark streets.

  Laurel looks up at the Lisette’s Lingerie sign blowing in the cold wind above our heads. “I knew it! You guys are trying to trick me into bra shopping again. I told you the last time—my body will not be rushed!”

  “No one’s bra shopping,” I say.

  “Then why are we standing in front of my favorite shop?” asks Susannah, staring at a pretty flowered bra in the window.

  “We’re not.” I point across the street toward a small store with a puppy in the window. “We’re standing across from Scranton Street Pets.”

  Susannah’s mouth drops open. “You forgot Boris’s food? Is he starving?”

  “You lost his vitamin drops?” asks Laurel. “Does he have scurry?”

  “Scurvy,” scolds Susannah.

  “Do you people have no confidence in me?” I say, determined not to cry in the middle of Scranton Street. “I would never lose Boris’s food! Or forget his vitamins.”

  I wait for the traffic light to turn green, then rush across the street. “So then why am I not buying a tulipcovered bra this very minute?” asks Susannah, struggling to keep up.

  I don’t answer until we get to the pet store. Then I stop and turn around to face them. The wind churns snowflakes and bits of trash between us like a tornado as I suck in a deep breath. “I lost Boris.”

  If only I knew what’s behind our bathroom wall, maybe I could relax,” I say as we stare at the guinea-pig cages. I blink back tears. “I mean, what if he just dropped eight stories straight down to the cellar? He’d be dead for sure.”

  “It would be nine stories down to your cellar,” says Laurel, snuggling a guinea pig way too white to pass for Boris.

  Susannah elbows Laurel until she yelps.

  “Or maybe the wall leads to the incinerator,” I say. “It’s a big metal pit filled with fire. We do live awfully close to the garbage chute.”

  “Walls are filled with pipes and wires and wooden beams,” says Susannah. “There’s no way he fell into any cellars or incinerators.”

  Laurel shushes her. “I don’t think we should be discussing this in front of the…” She nods toward the guinea pigs in her arms.

  “What did your mother say?” asks Susannah.

  “My mother got tired of waiting for me to come out of ‘the bath’ and left to get her hair colored.”

  “Huh.” Laurel blew her hair out of her eyes. “Saved by foil highlights. What are the odds of that?”

  I don’t have the energy to consider the odds, so I continue: “He might have slid through an air vent and gone straight outside. He might be freezing to death this very minute while I shop for his replacement. Which would make me a murderer.”

  “You’re not a murderer,” says Susannah. “But Devon Sweeney would not agree. She’ll use this tragedy to take you down.”

  “It’s true,” Laurel says. “The kids would eat you alive. Boris is the only reason some of them come to school.”

  A gurgling noise comes from my stomach, which reminds me that moments before Boris disappeared, he purred. Actually purred. “I think I’m going to be sick.”

  Susannah pats my hand. “Everything’s going to be okay. As long as Bogus Boris looks exactly the same as old Boris.”

  “Don’t call him old Boris!” I say. “That sounds like he’s never coming back.”

  “He’s never coming back, Zoë,” Laurel says. “With all the rats and mice and bugs that must be living in the walls of that old building—why would he?”

  “Hey! That’s my home you’re insulting,” I snap.

  Laurel shrugs. “I meant it as a compliment. Boris is probably having the time of his life. I think you’re a hero. You set him free.”

  I sniff. “You think so?”

  “Not really. But it would make a good Disney movie, don’t you think?”

  “Guys, over here,” whispers Susannah from where she’s squatting beside a huge cage. She turns around, smiling. There’s a brownish-blackish-whitish guinea pig in her hands who could be Boris’s once-attached Siamese twin. “I think we’ve found ourselves a pig.”

  Guinea Pigs Should NOT Smell Like Rabbits

  I slip into the classroom as stealthily as I can while carrying a three-foot-long wire cage wrapped in a red blanket. After setting the cage in its usual corner, I look around before peeling off the cover, folding it up, and stuffing it in the closet. Luckily, today we have gym right after morning announcements, so everyone is busy looking for lost sneakers and SPIRIT T-shirts.

  Bogus Boris is too busy chewing on a carrot to notice he now lives in the crummiest place imaginable—a school.

  After I slipped Bogus Boris into old Boris’s cage, I called my mother over to see how extra cute his toenails are—as a test. I figured if Mom scrunched her eyebrows and peered closer, I was doomed. On the other hand, if she took one look, scrunched up her nose, and asked when I was going to clean the cage, my plan was a success.

  Thankfully, Mom’s nose won. She didn’t suspect a thing. She also didn’t suspect that I slept on the bath mat Saturday and Sunday nights. Just in case. I woke up with a Band-Aid wrapper stuck to my forehead, but no Boris.

  Here’s my hope for today: that nobody notices me or Bogus Boris before Mrs. Patinkin comes in and asks about the “mesmerizing voyages” that were our weekends. Hopefully by then she’ll have ruined every weekend memory we have and no one will think to welcome Bogus Boris back to the classroom.

  Just after the late bell rings, Mrs. Patinkin sweeps into the room and throws her coat over her chair. “Good Monday, class! I can’t wait to hear all about the exhilarating travels that made up your end-of-week.”

  “Mrs. Patinkin,” says Kitty. “Does it still count as someone’s end-of-week if they had to spend the whole time cleaning the basement?”

  I could kiss Kitty. She’s muddling up Mrs. Patinkin’s thoughts before she gets a chance to check Bogus Boris’s…

  “Beverage container,” says Mrs. Patinkin. “I see Boris’s water is sparkling clean. To whom am I grateful this particular Monday morning?”

  I pretend to organize the colored pencils inside my desk. But it doesn’t make a difference. Half the class rushes over to Bogus Boris’s cage to coo at him and ask him if he had a fascinating end-of-week.

  Avery picks Bogus Boris up and kisses him on the chin. Then Avery scrubs his thick glasses with one finger and crinkles his nose. “Boris smells like rabbits. And he’s acting like he’s never met me.”

  But then Smartin—who probably destroyed his sense of smell two years ago when he folded a Christmas-tree-shaped air freshener and stuffed it up his nose�
�says, “He smells better than you look, Buckner.”

  Riley bends over and says, “I think Boris looks awesome. Like he’s been getting extra-special good care all of a sudden. Little dude looks five years younger.” He pretend-scratches his head and screws up his face. “I wonder who took home Boris-the-pig this weekend…”

  “I don’t know, Riley,” says Susannah with a sly grin. “But he looks like the very best Boris he can be. I know I personally wish this person could care for him all the time. And I’ll bet young Boris does, too.”

  “Boris doesn’t look young! He looks the same age he was on Friday afternoon.” Laurel winks way too obviously. “The exact same age!”

  Susannah rolls her eyes. “I just meant that he looks like he had a spa weekend.”

  “Or a face-lift,” adds Riley.

  Mrs. Patinkin looks at the chalkboard and smiles. “I think we have Miss Zoë Costello to thank for Boris’s transformation. Zoë, do you have any special animal-husbandry tips you’d like to share with the class?”

  Before I can answer, Brianna calls out, “Animal husbandry is a crime in this country. So is first-cousin husbandry.”

  Mrs. Patinkin exhales and reaches for her coffee. “Animal husbandry means animal management, farming, Brianna.” Then she looks at me, hoping I’ll say something so she can pretend she’s anything BUT a teacher. Even for a moment.

  I say, “I’ve actually come up with a few unwritten rules for rodents. First would be that bathrooms—”

  “Ouch!” says Avery, holding his hand. “Boris just bit me!”

  Mrs. Patinkin hurries over to help Avery. “Oh dear! We’re going to need a Band-Aid and some disinfect—”