A Whole Lot of Lucky (6 page)

Nothing about winning the lottery was turning
out the way I thought it would. I wanted to go out to eat; they wanted to take a nap. I wanted to go to the movies; they said just watch TV. I wanted to have a party and they said we need to be alone right now.

Mom shuffled around telling Dad we must be good stewards. The pastor uses that word a lot in church; a steward is a person who takes care of something, especially stuff that has been given to you—like money.
Good stewards,
Mom would mumble.
Good stewards,
Dad droned in return.

Not even when the Action 5 Reporter Live stopped by did they get excited. The reporter practically jumped out of his pants when Dad started telling how it all happened. Of course, Libby being a baby, she just babbled, but still the Action Reporter thought it was cute and he had the camera man zoom in on her, and that's when I dropped my photo pose because usually when people get all caught up with Libby, my part of the show's over. Then he stuck the microphone in my face. The camera pointed at me. A red light shone on the top. I forgot which side of my face I had practiced in the mirror.

“Would you repeat the question?” I asked the Action 5 Reporter Live.

His rows of white teeth flashed. He had makeup on. And hair spray. I noticed all this in the time it took him to say, “How do you plan to spend your winnings?”

I froze.

“Look into the camera,” he whispered through his unnaturally white smile. If he ever lost his job as a reporter, he could be a ventriloquist.

I looked straight into that camera and forgot everything I wanted to tell it. The Action Reporter hissed. Dad cleared his throat. Only Mom cast a life-saving glance at me, and then I remembered something to say.

“I want to be a good stewardess.”

The Action 5 Reporter Live laughed heartily and told Michelle at the station, “Back to you.”

Suddenly they were wrapping up their cords, folding down their lights, walking out of our house.

“Oh, my gosh.” I ran down the steps as the Action Reporter climbed into the passenger side of the van. “That's not what I meant to say!”

He slammed the door shut and flashed me his teeth. “Good spot. You were great!”

“No! I don't want to be a stewardess!”

“You'll figure it out!” The van pulled away from our driveway and straight to my embarrassment.

* * *

“Hey, you're that millionaire girl!” a boy shouts as I pass him on my way to school Monday morning.

I almost fall off my ugly red bike. “Thank you!” I yell over my shoulder, realizing as I say it that it isn't quite the right response.

Up ahead, a group of girls clogs the sidewalk. They
shuffle along, lollygagging as one of them stops to rummage inside her backpack. Slowpokes. My first car will have a radar detector so I can speed around Sunday drivers without getting a ticket.

The grass is mushy and hard to pedal through, but it's the only way to get past the slower-than-snails girls.

“Wait a second!” yells one with a streak of blue hair.

Uh-oh. Hope I didn't splash her with mud or something. I slow down.

Blue Hair Streak whirls around to her friends. “It
is
her! I told you!” She turns starry eyes toward me. “I saw you on TV last night! You're the girl who won the lottery, right?”

“Um, yeah.” I stop the bike and put my foot down, but I can't think of anything else to say. It doesn't seem to matter. The four of them get big cow eyes and stare at me as if I were a celebrity.

They move closer, slowly, without seeming to realize it.

“Three million dollars,” one of them says.

“What?” another shrieks.

“If
I
won three million dollars,” says Blue Hair Streak, “you wouldn't catch me coming to school!”

Ooh, good point. I tuck that thought away as a possibility for my list of Things I Need.

“Well,” I say, “I gotta get going.”

Blue Hair Streak nudges one of the other girls. “Move, Trish. You're in her way.”

All four of them scoot into the grass while I pedal onto the sidewalk.

“Bye!” they call out. “Don't spend it all in one place!”

I crook my head around, giving them a perfect over-the-shoulder pose. I add a tiny smile to let them know I appreciate their humor.

The sidewalk down the school entrance becomes a red carpet, with people clamoring after me and shouting questions. “Hailee, over here!” “Hey,
I
was going to talk to her!” Kids I hardly know ask if I need help locking up my bike or carrying my backpack. Their faces gleam in my presence. Their feet work to keep up with me.

I had no idea all this was going to happen, yet I've been preparing for it my whole life.

“Hailee! Hailee!” Amanda runs up to me from the bicycle pen, her cheeks flushed, her arms wide open. Everyone makes room for her because she's my costar. She almost knocks me off my bike with a great big hug. “Oh, my gosh! Someone told Becca you won the lottery, but I told her
no way
because you would've called me—”

“I—”

“Then people started asking me if it was true—”

“It—”

“So I called your mom!” Amanda's eyes gleam like they do when she drinks too much Mountain Dew. “YOU GUYS ARE RICH!”

“I KNOW!” Our capital letter words skip across the waves of love and attention surging toward us—well, really
me
, because I am The Girl Who Won The Lottery.

When the bell calls us to class, everyone stops what they're doing as I walk by; I hear them start up again only after I've passed. Teachers and students alike strain for a glimpse or a word from me.

Cottony puffs of feel-good vibes stuff my brain. I hear and see everything around me, but it's like I'm floating in a bubble. My feet don't feel the floor. Think of this: your best birthday when you finally for once get everything you really want. The cake isn't lopsided, and after your friends and parents sing “Happy Birthday,” someone adds,
and many more,
then everyone laughs.
That's
how good being famous feels.

When Becca slides her hot lunch tray onto the table, she hunches her shoulders. “Here they come,” she says.

Amanda's eyes flit up, then she studies her milk carton as if there'll be a test on chocolate milk later.

“I want to be a stewardess,” Megan mimics as I unwrap my peanut butter sandwich. Oh, no—she obviously saw me on the news last night. She and Drew stop at the table Amanda, Becca, and I sit at.

“Peanuts? Pretzels?” Megan pretends to ask airline passengers as she paces behind me. “They're not called stewardesses anymore; they're
flight attendants
.”

“Yeah,” Drew sneers at me.

I look across the table at Amanda, but she puts her head down. Searching for just the right comeback, my mind stumbles through huge blank spaces. At this point in the situation, Megan usually fires her kill shot, but here's where winning the lottery comes in handy—my new fans come to the rescue, pushing Megan and Drew away, literally squeezing past them to join me on the bench.

“What's it like being rich?” “Are you moving to a mansion?” “Are you buying a jet?” I laugh at the thought of piloting an airplane to school. For one thing, where would I land it?

“Not a jet,” I say, thinking. “But probably a limo.”

One boy asks why Mom is still delivering the newspaper. When Dad asked her the same thing last week, she said,
I just … wanted to wait until I knew it was real.

It's real,
Dad had said and cracked a lopsided smile.
You'd better believe it.

Now curious faces want to know why a millionaire gets up at four in the morning to hurl newspapers into their driveways. I say, “She wanted to give her two weeks' notice.”

The boy snorts. “I would've quit!”

I frown.

Another girl says her dog had diarrhea on the good rug, and her mom is going to call my dad to come take
care of the stain. Everyone groans and a couple of the boys make retching sounds. I feel each of the seven layers of my skin turn red.

Amanda goes, “She can't help it if her dad cleans carpet.”

“Amanda!” Oh, my gosh—she's making it worse.

I wriggle from the bench like a worm. I am pink and gross, with everybody stepping on me. The worst part, the part I can't take, is that they are right. Mom should have quit her stupid newspaper job. Dad cleaning dog poop? What's wrong with my parents? We're
rich
now—other people should be doing this stuff for us.

Amanda follows me to my locker. Some kids try to stop me in the hall, but I don't talk. Talking will just make this feeling grow bigger. Later, when the dismissal bell rings, I'm the first one out the door, the first one in the pen, and the only one riding a three-dollar bike.

I yank my stupid bike off the kickstand and rasp away. Red bike and green shirt—look at me, I'm the biggest dork in the universe. I pound the pedals all the way home. I'm going so fast that when I hit our driveway, the wheels roll right through the brakes as I try to stop, the seat bucks me off, and I scurry away before it falls on top of me. Dusting off my shorts, I kick the bike. It makes a screechy sound as it slides across the garage floor. “Stupid bike!”

I grab it by the horns, wrestle it up, and knock it into its resting place. “I'm getting a new one,” I tell it.

A lizard skitters through a hole between the cinder blocks. “New garage!” I yell.

As I walk out, a bougainvillea branch sticks me with a pricker. “New plants!” I yell at the vine, which sways in the wind as if readying for another attack.

* * *

Oak trees shimmer with tender leaves the second week of March. The parched grass sucks up the spring rain and colors each blade with green. Orange blossoms decorate their trees like ornaments, filling the air with a scent so pretty, you could actually believe in fairies. Even the lovebugs are starting up.

Everything in nature has been renewed.

Nothing in the Richardson house has been renewed. My cheery red maple is not so cheery anymore, dropping its leaves as if it no longer has the energy for them. A shock of red puddles around the tree, but as days go by, time drains the color and makes the leaves crispy and brown.

One night at supper, I ask Dad why he bothers going to work.

“We still need an income,” he says, grabbing the mashed potatoes.

“We won the lottery,” I say in a
Dad-did-you-forget
voice.

“Yes, but we're not rich.” Dad keeps a straight face as he says this.

I try to stare him down, but I lose and start laughing first. “Yeah, right! Good one.”

“Hailee,” Mom says. “Remember we told you how it works? We're taking the money as installments—that means we get a little money each year, enough that I can quit the newspaper and not take on any Christmas jobs.”

What?

Mom's mouth keeps moving, but all I hear is this:
Blah blah blah
college fund.
Blah blah
investments
blah
future
blahaha mwahaha mwahahaha! Mwahahaha!

I snap out of it. “College? That's years away! What about the stuff we could use right now? I thought winning the lottery would change our lives, but I still don't have a good bike or new clothes or anything! Where's my cell phone? Where's my computer? I need a new backpack.” My words flash like a sharp sword. I home in on Mom before delivering the final blow. “You don't even know what it takes to get good grades.”

The hurt in her eyes tells me I've struck a vital chord.

“That's enough,” Dad says in a husky voice. “Don't ever disrespect your mother like that.” He covers her hand with his.

I lower my head. I guess I did cross the line there. “Sorry,” I say.

Dad clears his throat. “Your mother and I have been talking—more than talking. We're enrolling you in the Magnolia Academy for Girls.”

“What?” My voice scrapes the ceiling.

Silence.

“I said I was sorry!”

Dad shakes his head. “It doesn't have anything to do with that. The curriculum there is supposed to be excellent. Magnolia was listed in the paper as one of the top private schools in the area. Mom visited last Friday and she was very impressed.”

“No! I said I was sorry!” Desperate, my eyes seek forgiveness from my mom. “I don't need a phone or a computer or any of that stuff. You don't have to buy me anything.” I'll eat bread and butter the rest of my days. I'll use newspapers as blankets. “Just please don't make me switch schools.”

“Hailee,” Mom says, stretching her hand out to me. I don't take it. “We were lucky—their principal said the quarter just ended and it's the perfect time to start.” Her voice becomes reverent. “This is the opportunity of a lifetime.”

Stumbling up from my chair, I wipe the tears away. “It's the
punishment
of a lifetime! You hate me.”

Mom's mouth drops.

Dad starts to say something, but I wave away his words. “You both hate me!” I yell, and before they can say anything else, I run upstairs, slam the door, and lock it.

Imprisoned in my own room. Without even the phone so I can call Amanda.

I am truly alone.

Chapter seventeen is where I'm at in
Because of Winn-Dixie.
Opal has met a girl named Amanda and they don't like each other but you can tell they're going to be friends. Since I read a lot of books, I know stuff like that. Anyway, there is nothing but sadness in this chapter. Opal eats a piece of candy and it reminds her how lonely she is, and the first thing she says about loneliness is how she misses all her friends from where she used to live. I know exactly how she feels. Moving to a new school will be just like moving to a new town—I won't know anyone and no one will know me.