A Whole Lot of Lucky (23 page)

“Hailee!” Nikki shouts. She waves the sign-up sheet. “I've got you!”

My stomach churns.

After class, Nikki waits for me as I pick up my pencil, slide it into the outside pouch of my backpack. I pick up the St. Augustine papers and straighten them by knocking the edges against my desk. I smooth the bent corners of my workbook; I wish I'd been more careful with it because it looks damaged now.

Nikki doesn't notice how long I'm taking. Or maybe she doesn't mind. I sling my backpack on and listen as she tells me which boutiques she wants to show me in St. Augustine.

Why do you like me?
I want to ask her.
Why are we friends?

Outside, Alexis sidles up to Nikki's other side. She groans when Nikki mentions the field trip. “It's too hot,” Alexis says. “I hate all those old buildings. We've already seen them, anyway.”

I haven't. Nikki stops under the shade of an oak. She brings up the cool shops, but Alexis interrupts her by talking about the egg throwing as if it were an Olympic event and she won the gold medal.

I grab a low branch, hoist myself up, and perch amid the leaves.

“What are you doing?” Alexis's voice is a whine in my ears. Her face scrunches like it did when Libby pooped in her diaper.

This tree has good branches; I move up like I'm climbing a ladder.

Alexis leans toward Nikki. “Does she think she's a gorilla?”

I sit and stare down at them through the twigs. Nikki watches me. Alexis huffs like a bull and shrugs her shoulders. Their parts cut white lines through their heads.

“What do you see up there?” Nikki calls.

“Alexis's dandruff.”

“I don't have dandruff!” She glides one hand over her hair.

I drop an acorn on her.

“Hey!”

The next one hits her forehead.

Almost all of her straight white teeth show as she curls her lips back like a chimpanzee. “Stop it!”

“Nine left,” I say and shoot another one.

She raises her backpack over her head. “Come on,” she says to Nikki, who tilts her face up at me. “Let's go.”

I toss an acorn to Nikki and she catches it.

I stare at her and she stares at me, and then I grip the branch, turn, and climb down, twisted sprigs snagging my backpack and scratching my legs. Swinging off the bottom branch, I nail my landing and raise my eyebrows. “Should we go now?”

“Hang on,” Nikki says. She raises a hand to me and I flinch, but all she does is brush off the top of my hair. A leaf flutters down beside me. “Let's go.”

Alexis fiddles with her collar, flicking off acorns that aren't even there. To me, she says, “You're so weird.”

“Shut up,” Nikki says. It's the same voice she used on Jordan.

* * *

My head is swollen with thoughts of this past weekend and the uncomfortable way I felt at school. When I get home, my brain is bigger and heavier than my body. I lay
my head on the table as Mom brings a snack along with her coffee.

“Mom?” I don't open my eyes. “What if you accidentally hurt someone and you didn't mean to and it wasn't your fault?”

I sense her lean forward with attention. “Someone got hurt?”

“Not like a broken leg or anything. But—”

“Hurt their feelings?”

I think about that. “No, not their feelings, just … never mind.” There's no way I can tell her about the eggs.

She tries to pry more information out of me, but I put on the tired act so well she finally leaves me alone. “Maybe some fresh air would perk you up,” she says. “You've been indoors ever since your party.”

I trudge outside. My bike feels like too much work so I drag my feet along. I have to look down, the sun is so bright. My hair follicles burn like hot little pins in my head, and I slog through the humidity as if it's quicksand. This is not fresh air. I feel worse than before and I need relief.

I press Emily DeCamp's doorbell. As I wait, I slide my eyes left and right, looking for egg evidence, but it's all been washed away.

After a few moments, Emily cracks open the door, just a slice. A dull surprise blooms on her face, but she doesn't say anything.

“Hi,” I say.

She waits.

I shift from foot to foot and shrug. “Just thought I'd come over and visit.”

She presses her face against the narrow opening she's allowed. “I saw you.”

Alarm streaks through my body. “What?”

Shaking her hair off her face, she repeats herself. “I saw you throwing eggs at my house with Nikki and Alexis.” She says this flatly, in a monotone, a straight charcoal-colored line from her to me.

I don't know how to react. It would be easier if she were angry or laughing it off or something that would tell me what I should do next. Nikki launched my arm. That's the truth.

“It wasn't—” But I cut myself off. It
was
my fault. It was my eggs, my guests, and my party. I didn't do anything to stop it.

“I'm sorry,” I say.

Her eyes well up.

Mine water in response. “I am so sorry.”

“I don't know if I can forgive you right now.” A tear slips under her glasses and she quietly shuts the door on me.

* * *

The next day, I hide by the cafeteria loading dock during lunch. As we head into history class, Nikki asks me about pitching those acorns.

“I don't know.” Which isn't true. I do know; I just don't want to tell her.

She glances down, then leans her head and says, “Sometimes, I go into my mother's room and break her cigarettes. Then I put them back in the pack.”

“Why?”

“I feel mad at her a lot.”

“How come?”

“I don't know,” Nikki says. I picture her sneaking into her mom's room, padding across the floor so she doesn't make a sound. Shadows slide over the walls. Even though blinds hung in every downstairs window I saw, in my version, long, sheer drapes billow mysteriously, carried by a wind that whistles through the house. Nikki pulls each slender white cigarette from the box and snaps it in half, carefully sticking each one back so her mom can't tell they're broken.

She's not so much older than I am.

I say, “I know what you mean.” Then I take a chance. “I didn't like egging Emily's house.”

She nods, the slow kind of nodding that's loaded with thoughts. “Sorry about that.”

A kind of appreciation passes between us. My brain can't put words to it, but my heart understands it completely. I take my seat. I'm ready for this day to be over. If I were the sun, I'd call it a night.

Here's how my week goes: Each day I eat lunch alone
by the stinky Dumpsters. I do all my homework and all my chores without being asked, mainly because Amanda and Emily are mad at me and I can't text or get on Facebook. I take the Silver Flash out for a spin, but I have to ride in the opposite direction, away from Emily's house and nowhere near Amanda's.

Some kid blows out his trumpet lessons; the notes bleat loudly, so off-key, it would be a good deed to tell him he would probably make a really good accountant or librarian or some other quiet job.

Bright red roses splash against a deep green lawn. Their powdery smell says,
It's a pretty day,
but they lie because all roses have thorns. Why did God make something beautiful that can also prick your finger and make you bleed? Do you ever wonder about stuff like that? I do. Then I start thinking about why did he make cactuses prickly when desert animals need the water inside. Why do cherries have pits—you could choke on those, you know. And that would be the pits.

If I had my phone and could post that, I would add LOL.

Thursday, Mrs. Fuller goes over the field trip again. Some of the girls chatter about the cool shops and the stuff they've bought there before. My group will be chaperoned by Mrs. Grant, Gia's mother.

Mom's good mood when I get home makes me feel
even worse. I push away my snack and she doesn't even notice.

“You aren't the only person in a new school,” she says brightly, handing just-woke-up Libby her sippy cup. Mom waves an envelope. “I've been accepted to the community college!”

I snap straight up. “College? Who's going to be here when I get home? Who's going to cook supper?” My baby sister makes noises, too, so I do the asking for her. “Who's going to take care of Libby?”

“Daddy will. You know he sets his own hours.” Mom's smile radiates a hundred watts. “I'm going to college!”

“Why?” Why would a grown woman volunteer to go to school?

“Hailee,” Mom starts, “I want to make something of myself.”

“But you're a mom. You don't need to go to college.” Her face gets all serious. “Yes, I do. I
do
need to go to college.”

“But why?”

“Because”—she softly brushes my cheek with her fingertips—“I need to.”

All my life, when I came home from school, my mom was there. Now I'll have no one. I really am like Opal now, except no dog to make me feel better and no old lady friend who lets me have a party at her house.

I pull myself up like a bag of bones and drop myself upstairs on my bed. I don't even have a book to read because I finished
Because of Winn-Dixie
last night.

My cheery maple waves to me, but I turn aside and cry.

“In your groups, everyone! Sit with your group on the bus,” one of the teachers yells.

The sun has barely opened its eyes and mine should still be closed, but here we are, six thirty in the morning, boarding the buses for St. Augustine from the school parking lot. Alexis spies me approaching and narrows her eyes. As our group pushes up to the bus door, she bumps me out of the way with her backpack and slips into a seat with Nikki. She doesn't care that her backpack nearly took my head off; in fact, she'd probably love that. If my mom's van was still here, I'd run right off this bus. I wouldn't care what people thought. I do not want to be on this field trip with that girl.

But I have to.

I climb aboard the bus like a sentenced prisoner. Gia, the fourth girl in our group—the girl who skipped
school with Nikki and Alexis—pairs up with a friend, and I end up sitting next to her mother, Mrs. Grant. While everyone else chats with their seatmates, I lean my head against the window and try to sleep.

Not far out of town, a traffic accident plugs up the highway and we sit and we sit and we sit. After a while, the driver turns off the motor and the air conditioner. Everyone groans, but he explains he's got to conserve for the rest of the trip.

The bus becomes a hot tin can. The smell of armpits and sweat sours the air. Girls stand up and fan themselves, only to get yelled at by adults, who then get up and do the same thing. Nikki and Alexis entertain themselves with their phones. My only entertainment is smelling the ripe odor of other human beings and eating part of my lunch.

When the bus finally starts moving, roars and applause fill the air. Because we've lost so much time, the teachers are in a huge rush when we dismount in St. Augustine. Skip the Old Jail, they tell the chaperones, and the lighthouse, and the Oldest House. Don't worry about the questionnaires. Instead, we're going to two history museums, the Oldest Wooden Schoolhouse, and the Castillo de San Marcos National Monument, which is the old fort the Spanish built in the sixteen hundreds to protect themselves.

Some girls stretch their arms and arch their backs as we organize on the sidewalk. I do twenty-five jumping
jacks. My bones can't take all that sitting around. Alexis snorts and points me out to Nikki. I don't care. I prance and fake a couple of boxing jabs in her direction.
Take that!
my fists say.

The fort is the coolest place ever. A real drawbridge lies over a real moat. Heavy chains hold it in place with big huge bolts. Clip-clopping over the planks, I look down. The moat is grass, and a guide tells us it always was—that's where the people in the fort kept their livestock. That's not how you're supposed to use moats! What did they think—the enemy would charge over the berm and be scared away by MooMoo the Moat Cow?

Staring down, I stir up a different picture for myself. Water the color of iced tea fills the moat, and water moccasins zigzag across the surface. Giant alligators shoot from its depths, crushing anything that drops into their powerful jaws of death. Poisonous seaweed grows in the water and if it touches you, you die a horrible instant death.

Now
that
is a much better moat. Probably I should write it all down and send it to their mayor in case he'd like to use it.

We're ushered down a stone staircase and into a large room hollowed out in the wall. For as hot as it is outside, the cavelike space is surprisingly cool. Air funnels down and breezes over us. A small, high window provides the only light. Long, wooden platforms with floppy pillows run along each wall. The Spanish soldiers
slept here, the guide tells us, and the thin pillows are sacks filled with animal hair or hay that served as their mattresses. I try to imagine being so far from home, waiting to be attacked. Did the soldiers actually sleep on these sacks, or did they lie awake staring out the window at the moon, wishing they were home?

Nikki and Alexis hang back, while I stick with Gia and her mom. Bits of another school group surround us and we get caught in their tour. The guide says the whole fort is made of shells called coquina. I brush my hand against the wall.

“Don't do that,” the guide snaps. She singles me out from the group with her pointy nose and her stern gaze. “This material is very old and can crumble. Please, don't anyone touch the walls.”

Well! A fort that held off cannon fire and pirates but can't take one girl touching it. I did not know a fort could be of such delicate nature. When we peek in the barracks and the ammunitions room, I make a big point of keeping my arms rigid at my sides. I even walk like that.