A Whole Lot of Lucky (7 page)

I am just like Opal. I even have a friend named Amanda
and
I live in Florida. If they make a sequel to the movie, I should probably play Opal's part. I wonder if I should write to the author and tell her.

The next chapter is even sadder. If you want to know why, I can't tell you. You have to read it for yourself, but don't skip right to that part just because you want to know what I'm talking about.

I close the book and let it rest on my stomach. Then tears leak from my eyes, sliding into my hair and making wet spots on my bedspread. We
won
the lottery. Winning isn't supposed to make you lose things.

I cried all night and Amanda had tears this morning when I spilled the news.

“But why?” she asked between blubbery sobs. “We're an A school!”

That's true—I saw it on the school sign by the road.

Amanda folded into her chair. The bell hadn't rung yet, so I sank into the desk behind her. “But we have homeroom and lunch together. We're going to be in Compass Club next year.”

Her watery eyes look into mine.

Lisa, the girl whose desk I'm sitting at, sees our tears. She lowers her backpack. “What's wrong?”

“She's moving to a different school.” Amanda's voice cracks.

Lisa bends down to Amanda with a look of pure
sympathy. “That's terrible.” Everyone knows we are best friends. Then she asks me, “Where're you going?”

I pour as much glum as I can into my answer. I want her to pat my shoulder and make me feel better, too. “Magnolia.”

“Magnolia!” Instead of consoling me, she congratulates me. She wants to know all about it. Then the bell rings and I go off to my own seat.

The whole day I notice things I've taken for granted: the plastic red-shouldered hawk that looks out of the library window; the way the cafeteria lady says, “Enjoy your lunch”; the loud, happy voices in the hallway between classes. Magnolia won't be like this. It's a private school—that's practically like going to a military academy.

After school, when Amanda and I part ways on our bikes, she hugs me as if I'm moving overseas.

That does it. They haven't signed me away yet. I'm not going to Magnolia. I will inform Mom as soon as I get home. I ride my red boy bike home, slam it into the garage, and march into the house.

“¿Cómo te llamas? Buenos días. Buenos días. Buenosbuenosbuenos días”

What the heck? The tangy scent of lemon bread greets me at the door. The smell is so powerful, especially when you know how the sugary lemony glaze tingles on your tongue, and your face can't decide if it wants to screw up for the tartness or relax for the
sweetness. The only way to decide is to take another bite. My mouth is already watering, but first, I must detect who the Spanish-speaking lady is.

I slide my backpack to the floor, creep near the kitchen, and peek around the doorway to see who's over. Using expert spy maneuvers, I angle my head and use my left eye as a periscope. Mom's pouring hot lemon syrup from the frying pan over two yellow loaves of lemon bread. This is one of the rare cases in which you definitely want the heel because that's where all the syrup ends up. Looking past her to the table, I see no one.

“Hola.”

With precision swiftness, my laser eyes fall upon Libby. She's examining a red, blue, yellow, and white toy with all kinds of whizbangs and buttons. It looks like fun.

“Hi, Mom,” I say, coming out from my hiding place. My eyes slide over that lemon bread.

“Nope!” She knows my plan. “Wait till it cools.”

“Hola,”
the toy says.

“Aa-ee! Aa-ee!” Libby's smile makes her chubby cheeks even chubbier. She toddles toward me, waving her arms in excitement. Little pink shorts bloom over her diaper.

“Libby!” I scoop her up and kiss her tummy. “Libby! Libby-Libby-Lou!” It tickles so much, she can hardly stand it. She shrieks with laughter and struggles at the same time.

I set her down by the toy and mash a button. “Me
llamo
say your name.” The lady sounds very patient. I press the button again and wait for the cue. “Me
llamo”
“Hailee,” I fill in, then I push the playback button.

“Me llamo
Hailee.”

I like it.

Libby pesters me over the next few minutes as I record and play back the names of our family and neighbors. She keeps reaching her stubby fists over and, finally, she mashes the record button, erasing my voice.

“Stop it!” Using my arm as a guard, I keep her away while I list my classmates.

But arm guard or not, the levers and purple smiley face with workable features aren't enough for her; she's got to do what I'm doing. She pulls and tugs at my shirt, not even looking at the toy now—she's all about getting me.

“Stop it!” I snarl. It's just a gentle push I give her, hardly a push at all—more like a tap, or a touch—but it's enough to make her fall onto her puffy behind and wail. Happily, I search my mental databanks for another name to record.

“Hailee, why is she crying? Can you change her diaper?”

“Me
llamo”
“Diaper.” Ha! I crack myself up.

Libby leans over and sinks her sharp little teeth into my arm.

“YEOW!” I jerk my arm away, a move that knocks
her on her butt, complete with full-scale wailing and tears.

Mom gives me the eyebrow.

“She bit me!”

The eyebrow, amazingly, arches higher. Mom tamps the syrup-covered spoon against the loaf pans and holds it up. Why, yes—I
would
like to lick it. I'm up and across the room in a flash, but Mom's faster. She holds the spoon just out of my reach.

“Go tell her you're sorry.”

“She won't even know what I'm saying.”

The spoon moves farther away.

My shoulders droop, and I trudge over to Libby to make amends. She's busy hitting buttons. I pat her back, say I'm sorry, and that's when I notice the crisp, white price tag on the side of the toy.

“Did you buy this at the store?”

Mom smiles. “Isn't it neat? I just went for some teething stuff and …” She shrugs her shoulders.

“It's okay.”

“Oh”—she points with the spoon—“and I got that stuffed rocking horse in the corner. Libby loves it!”

I charge up the stairs. My new stuff is probably on my bed, where Libby can't swipe it or put it in her mouth. But my bed is just as I left it. My closet hasn't been touched. I pull open my drawers, slam them shut, then clobber down the stairs so fast I nearly crash into
the island. “What did you get for me?” I say between breaths.

The syrup-laden spoon sits in a lemony puddle on a saucer. My question doesn't stop Mom from rinsing the baking dishes. “What?” she asks over the noise of the faucet.

I raise my voice. “Where's my stuff? What did you buy for me?”

Mom turns off the water, shakes the silverware, and puts it into the dishwasher. “I was at the baby store, honey; they don't have things for girls your age.” She says it like I should know that.

“But you could've gone somewhere else.” Easy enough to swing by and get something for your other daughter, who was thoughtful enough to make up a list of things she needs.

Mom goes to stroke my hair, but I duck from her hand. She says, “Don't be mad. I ran errands all day today, and my last stop was the baby store. I was so tired by then, I put Libby in their play area and sat in one of those gliders for a while watching her. She had so much fun.”

Well. What a good day for Libby.

“One of my errands was dropping off the forms to Magnolia.”

“I don't want to go there.”

Mom doesn't say anything. Instead, she tries to reel
me in with the oldest trick in the book. “Are you going to lick that spoon or am I going to wash it?”

Silently, I raise the spoon to my mouth, but then I see a smile of satisfaction flicker across my mom's face. Licking this spoon means I have to go to Magnolia. Though I would love to slurp off every last lemony drop and wash the spoon clean with my tongue, I steel myself against its power. It takes all my strength to set the spoon down.

“What's wrong?” Mom asks.

I throw out my words without caring where they land. “Too bitter,” I say. And before I shoot out the door, I add, “I'm not going to Magnolia.”

Then I'm gone.

Rrish, rrish, riiish.

I pedal down Crape Myrtle Road.

Rrish, rrish, riiish.

Orange blossoms spangle in the trees. I slow way down; in fact, I stop. I walk my bike through the gravel edge of the road and up to the barbed-wire fence that holds in the orange trees. The creamy blossoms breathe softly, wisps of their light orangey fragrance washing the air. If factories could make air fresheners that really smelled like this, nobody would ever be mad or fight or do anything bad—that's how pretty orange blossoms smell.

Bees murmur through the trees, landing for seconds on the blossoms, then flying off to the next. They sound like gangs of tiny motorcycles. A big black-and-reddish-orange butterfly darts over, and just as the word
“monarch” forms in my mind, I realize this “butterfly” has a long needle beak, feathers, and sash of neon red around her neck. Against the green leaves and white flowers, the little bird stands out beautifully. I watch, just staring, thankful for this moment. Some people go their whole lives without once seeing a hummingbird in real wildlife. Counting this one, I have now seen two. I click its picture by blinking and file it in my mental notes.

“Ruby-throated hummingbird.”

I shriek and almost impale myself on the fence. “Emily DeCamp,” I say, snatching my bike up from the scrabbly grass.

She stands there like I shouldn't be surprised to see her. Her blue Magnolia skirt comes to just above her knees, and tucked into it is her stiff, white button-down top. Her arms hang at her sides, one hand holding her notebook. Springy hair bounces down her neck, under and over her collar, and even covers part of her face. Bees could get lost in it.

“You're coming to Magnolia.” She says this like it's a fact, but her voice comes out rushed. The eye that I can see through the hair beams with hope.

“No, I'm not. I go to Palm Middle.” I grab both my bike handles and roll slowly out to the road. Emily DeCamp follows me.

“I saw your mother in the office last week.” She consults her notebook.

I glance over. Emily DeCamp's handwriting is a
perfect rhythm of cursive loops and dips that flow from side to side in unwavering margins. I am impressed. “Let me see that.”

She clutches it close.

The March breeze envelops us both in the perfume of the orange blossoms, and Emily DeCamp and I take in a deep breath at the same time. We walk on the correct side of the road, which is the side facing the cars,
so you can see them when they hit you,
as my dad likes to say. My bike rasps as we go, but Emily doesn't mention it. I hadn't planned where I was going, but this is where I seem to have ended up.

“Your mother was at my school today again.”

I shrug my shoulders.

Emily DeCamp sneaks another look at her notebook.

Why does she always have that thing? “Why do you always have that thing?”

“I'm going to be a writer.” She sticks a finger through her hair and pushes her glasses up. “I'm on the yearbook staff.”

We stop directly across from her house.

“I have to practice my flute now,” she says. “Are you getting a new bike?”

So she did notice the rusty hacking of my old boy bike.

“Since you won the lottery, you could get a new bike like Amanda's.”

Is she a mind reader? That's the first thing on my list. “How did you know?”

A sliver of eyeball considers me through the hair. “I am observant,” she says. “But don't worry, you won't need to ride your bike to Magnolia.” Her head swivels left, then right, then left again.

“I'm not going to Magnolia,” I yell to her back as she crosses the street. She hops up the curb and over the stepping stones to her porch. “I go to Palm Middle!” Up the porch steps, through the screen door. “Scratch that part out of your notebook—my mom was just visiting. I'm not going to school there.”

Weeds wind around my ankle, prickling my skin. I trample them. Emily DeCamp is wrong. I'm not going to her school. I get on my bike and pedal home.

Rrish! Rish!
I rish people would listen to me.

The stone, impenetrable towers of Magnolia Academy for Girls stab the downtown sky; I can see them through the trees as Mom drives over the brick roads. My teeth rattle in my head, but I don't think the bricks are doing it. “Is this good on the van?” I ask as if it's the van I'm thinking about.

“Don't worry, honey, this van is a tank.” She gives me a reassuring smile as if I actually
want
to get to Magnolia. “Green light,” she says. We move with the other cars like a string of beads being pulled forward.

When you're eager to get somewhere, say someone's birthday party or an ice cream place, it takes forever. When you don't want to get somewhere, green lights smile their permission to fly through intersections. There are no trucks to get stuck behind, no squirrels to hit the brakes for, and even Libby falls into a cozy sleep.

I pull a finger around the stiff collar of my white top, part of my uniform for Magnolia Academy for Girls, which we got at JC Penney, along with the blue skirt and blue shorts.
Kind of expensive, aren't they?
I asked when I showed Mom the price tags at the store.
The principal said three of each,
I reminded her as we searched for my size through the clothing racks,
three times each price tag.
I squished my round feet into pointy black shoes.
These hurt,
I said.
My feet don't end in a point.