CHAPTER ONE
PSPP
It was 3:37 p.m. and Lou Lou Bombay was where she belonged—sitting in the sunshine in her backyard garden. She wriggled her toes in the grass and smiled at a honeysuckle bush nestled between the fence and her tulips. Lou Lou glanced at a red envelope resting on the lawn next to her, and then gazed up at the clouds. One looked like a saguaro cactus, another was a wispy fern, and a third, a misshapen forget-me-not.
Lou Lou heard a knock on the backyard gate and ran to answer it.
“Greetings, Miss Lou Lou Bombay,” said the small brown-haired girl wearing a crisp school uniform. Lou Lou shielded her eyes from the sun and grinned at her best friend.
“Yay! You’re finally here, Pea!” Lou Lou caught herself. “I mean, I’m so delighted you could join me for a PSPP picnic, Miss Peacock Pearl!” Lou Lou used the extra-polite tone reserved for Friday PSPP, or Post-School-Pre-Parents, a magical time when school was over for the week but Lou Lou’s parents had yet to come home from work.
“I am similarly tickled, Miss Lou Lou Bombay,” Pea replied.
“Would you care for PSPP tea and scones?” Lou Lou walked over to a picnic basket resting on the grass and plopped down beside it.
“Certainly, my dear,” said Pea. She took a blue-and-white-checkered blanket from her schoolbag and spread it out next to Lou Lou. Pea wasn’t fond of sitting on the ground, as it meant the possibility of getting dirty. As a horticulturist, Lou Lou didn’t mind one bit.
While Pea got settled, Lou Lou poured tea from a thermos into mismatched teacups and opened a tin of freshly baked currant scones. She handed Pea the blue cup, of course, all the while eyeing the envelope. It was sealed with a fancy gold sticker embossed with two fancy Bs. Lou Lou already knew what was inside and was dying to open it. But she tried her best to keep to the PSPP tradition of polite conversation, which was not easy for her.
“How was your day at school, Miss Pearl?”
Pea smiled at Lou Lou’s proper PSPP question.
“It was lovely, gracias,” Pea replied. She daintily took a scone from the tin. Pea handed the tin to Lou Lou, who rooted around among the remaining scones until she found the one with the most currants. “We went on a field trip to Campo Bonito to do some painting outside of the city,” Pea added, and Lou Lou nodded with a mouth full of scone.
“I trust school was pleasant for you,” Pea said, and sipped her tea. Before Lou Lou could respond with a Quite pleasant indeed, thank you, Pea noticed the envelope and said, “Is that what I think it is?”
“Yes, it was in my mailbox when I got home!” Lou Lou replied, forgetting in her excitement that her mouth was still full.
Pea was excited, too, so she didn’t seem to mind. “Let’s open it!” she said.
Lou Lou exhaled deeply. She was grateful that Pea had abandoned the formalities of PSPP. “Oh, yay! I was going to burst if I had to wait one second longer!” She put down her cup, tore through the envelope’s seal, and pulled out the paper inside. Pea clenched the handle of her own cup in anticipation. Lou Lou unfolded the paper and Pea peered over Lou Lou’s shoulder to read the gold writing.
Lou Lou put down the program and clapped her hands. A slosh of her tea spilled onto the blanket, but Pea pretended not to notice. “It’s so exciting to see our names in print. It’s like we’re famous, Pea!”
“¡Sí!” Pea replied. “Especially since they sent the programs to everyone in the city!”
“I can’t wait for the Bonanza,” said Lou Lou. “It’s going to be so much fun, and we’re going to be even famouser once everyone sees my beautiful honeysuckle and your amazing hats!” Lou Lou knew that famouser wasn’t a real word, but it fit, so she used it anyway.
Pea’s bright blue eyes sparkled. “Can you believe it’s in just a few weeks?”
“I guess that brings us to the next question. Hats or honeysuckle?” Lou Lou and Pea’s usual PSPP dilemma was: candles or cupcakes? Should they head to Cupcake Cabana or pay Rosa the Candle Lady a visit? But with their city’s two hundredth birthday celebration fast approaching, they had to choose between visiting Lou Lou’s celebratory honeysuckle in the park and going to Marvelous Millinery, the hat shop where Pea was an apprentice hatter.
“Hats, if that’s all right with you,” said Pea.
“Hats it is!” replied Lou Lou. She sloshed out another glug of tea from her cup, this time onto her pants. “I’m excited to see your newest creations. Besides, I’m on watering duty tomorrow, so we can visit the honeysuckle then.”
“¡Bueno!” Pea ate the last bite of her scone and brushed nonexistent crumbs off her blue dress. “We can drop in on Rosa at the candle shop on the way home,” she said once she’d swallowed.
It was settled. Lou Lou and Pea cleaned up the PSPP picnic, bringing everything inside the SS Lucky Alley, Lou Lou’s nautical-themed house. Lou Lou used an anchor-shaped magnet to hang the Bonanza program on the fridge, then turned the ship’s wheel that opened the fridge door to put away the butter. Pea washed and dried the dishes with dish towels embroidered with the words SS Lucky Alley Galley. Lou Lou called her parents to check in before she and Pea headed out into the spring afternoon.
Text copyright © 2018 by Jill Diamond
Art copyright © 2018 by Lesley Vamos
