Lucky Charm

by Annie Bryant

  CHAPTER

  18

  The Best and Worst

  So how was your weekend, class?” Ms. Rodriguez asked as the Monday morning bell rang to start homeroom.

  Katani’s weekend had been partly wonderful, but in a way it was more horrible than she could have imagined.

  Yesterday she went riding, and that had been amazing. When Penelope saw Katani standing at the corral, she lifted her head as if to say “What’s up, girl?” and nickered softly. Nickering was what Claudia McClelland had called that soft, low horse sound that came from deep inside Penelope. It was different from a whinny, which was louder and shriller. A nicker meant: “Hello! I see you by the fence. How are you?”

  But Penelope didn’t just nicker. She trotted right over to the fence and nuzzled her velvety nose into Katani’s shoulder. She never thought her stable chores, like cleaning out a stall, could be an act of love, but to Penelope, they truly were. The sooner Katani got the stall mucked out, the sooner she could curry Penelope and ride her. Currying was okay, but riding her was the best thing in the whole world. On top of Penelope, Katani felt she could conquer the world. Plus, riding was just so much fun. Her dad always called Katani his serious daughter. Until she met the BSG, Katani had been all work. Now she had friends and Penelope.

  Katani suddenly realized that she had completely spaced out on Ms. Rodriguez as Joey Peppertone shouted, “It was the most awesome thing I’ve ever seen!”

  Pete Wexler mimed hitting a ball.

  It didn’t take long for Katani to figure out they were talking about Saturday’s baseball game.

  Joey’s comment about the Red Sox game reminded her of the other half of her weekend—the horrible half. She remembered that stupid fight before the baseball game. Katani felt bad that she had stormed off in a fit. At the time she just couldn’t help herself. The thought that the stable might close seemed so unfair.

  The $10,000 that Robbie Flores offered for Marty would mean so much to so many kids at High Hopes, including her sister, not to mention herself. Did she want the money for herself so she could continue to ride Penelope? Katani felt a sudden stab of guilt.

  She loved riding so much that maybe she really wanted the stable to stay open for herself. But Katani also knew that as wonderful as riding was for her, it was ten times more important to Kelley.

  Why, she couldn’t completely understand, but the horses had helped. Katani understood exactly what her sister was going through. On horseback, she wasn’t just Katani Summers, the non-athletic one of the family, and her sister wasn’t Kelley Summers, the autistic one of the family. They were both something much, much more.

  But the offer of $10,000 had changed everything. How could Avery and Charlotte give up such an amazing chance to help so many people? And then there was Marty. Marty was the sixth member of the BSG. Katani shook herself. This was all becoming way too complicated. She had a headache thinking about it all.

  Suddenly the class broke out into laughter. Katani snapped out of her thoughts about the weekend. What were they all talking about? What was so funny? She turned to listen to Dillon, super jock.

  “Socks! What do you mean he hasn’t washed his socks?” Dillon asked Pete.

  “Well, you know how superstitious ball players are. Remember the 2004 Red Sox team? A lot of them didn’t shave or cut their hair because they were afraid they’d bring on the curse of the Great Bambino,” Pete told him.

  “What does that have to do with Robbie Flores, though?” Dillon demanded.

  “Well, Flores is shaven and it looks like he just got his hair cut. So I was thinking maybe his socks are his lucky charm,” Peter suggested. He pulled his socks up over the ends of his pants and pretended to hit a home run. Then he waved his hand in front of his face and held his nose as if his socks were the stinkiest things he’d ever smelled. The class burst into hysterical laughter.

  “Hey, quiet down!” Avery commanded. Everyone stopped laughing immediately.

  Katani was shocked. Avery never wanted the laughter to die down when it came to sports talk, especially sports talk about the Red Sox.

  “You guys, I know what Robbie Flores’s lucky charm is and believe me, it’s not a pair of socks.”

  “Well, what is it?” Peter asked.

  “It’s our dog! Marty!” Avery cried.

  Suddenly the room was agog with curious chatter.

  Ms. Rodriguez looked skeptical. “The one that’s missing? Avery, are you sure?”

  “Of course I’m sure! Robbie Flores invited us to the game on Saturday and we got to meet him afterwards.”

  “You got to meet Robbie Flores?” Dillon asked. This was the moment Avery had been waiting for.

  “Really?” Peter wanted to know.

  “Really.” Charlotte was right there to back up the claim. “We saw Marty on Saturday. He was there at the game. Robbie keeps him in the dugout.”

  “Hey! I did see a little dog in the dugout during the game! Jerry Remy and the other announcers were talking about the dog,” Pete said. “That’s really Marty?”

  Avery nodded. “Flores thinks he’s out of his slump because he found Marty and now he doesn’t want to give him back!”

  Don’t say a word, Katani told herself as she listened to all this. She pretended to act disinterested. But Avery was going on and on, making it sound like Robbie Flores wasn’t playing fair because he didn’t want to give back Marty. Katani thought of his generous offer, and it all became too much for her to handle.

  “First of all, Robbie Flores didn’t steal Marty,” Katani snapped. “He found him running loose in the park with no collar and called when he found a number on Happy Lucky Thingy’s tag. He did call, because he wanted us to know that Marty was okay. And now you are making him out to be selfish. Marty is the hero of Boston! And Robbie is willing to pay ten thousand dollars for his ‘Lucky Charm’ and that money could help a lot of people…” Katani had stood up and raised her voice so the whole class could hear. A hush fell over the room.

  “Robbie Flores wants to pay you ten thousand dollars to keep your dog?” Dillon asked.

  Avery and Charlotte stared at Katani in disbelief. Is Katani even a BSG anymore? wondered Avery.

  Everyone started talking at once. Everyone had his or her own opinion.

  “Okay, people, settle down,” Ms. Rodriguez said as she walked up and down the aisles. “Katani, it seems like you feel pretty strongly about this. Why do you think you girls should accept the money?”

  Katani felt everyone’s eyes upon her. She tried to summon the confidence she felt while she was on Penelope, remembering what it was like to be on top of her horse and feeling like she was on top of the world.

  “A lot of you guys know I have a sister at this school, Kelley. And if you know Kelley, you know that she is…extraordinary. The reason why Kelley seems different than us is because she’s autistic,” Katani explained. She couldn’t believe she was standing in front of her seventh-grade homeroom talking about Kelley. But this was important, and she needed her classmates to understand why. “Well, Kelley just started a new therapy, horseback-riding therapy, and it’s helping her a lot. Horseback-riding riding is good for autistic kids—not just physically, but socially and emotionally, too. You wouldn’t believe how much of a difference it has made in just the short time she’s been riding.”

  Everyone in the room was hanging on her every word, even Anna and Joline. Katani took a deep breath and continued. “But last week I learned that the stable, the High Hopes Riding Stable, is going to be shut down. They need to make repairs, which will cost more than ten thousand dollars. There isn’t time for a fund-raiser or anything. They need the money now. And then this miracle comes along—Robbie Flores is offering us that exact amount! That money would keep, not just Kelley, but lots of kids like Kelley, learning and improving every day.”

  Charlotte was sure there was something wrong with that argument, but she just couldn’t figure out what it was. Katani had a right to care about
her sister, but didn’t she care at all about Marty and what he meant to her, Avery, and the BSG? Charlotte wasn’t even mad at Katani anymore. She was just confused. She wondered if Katani had ever cared about Marty.

  Katani turned to Avery and Charlotte, who were sitting together. “There are plenty of cute dogs at the shelter that need a good home. Giving Marty to Robbie Flores would do a world of good for a lot of people.”

  Katani sat down. The room was eerily quiet.

  “That was a very thoughtful plea, Katani,” Ms. Rodriguez said. “But on the other hand, the love of a pet is a powerful thing. Animals can be like a part of the family.”

  Everyone in the room turned their heads to look at Avery and Charlotte.

  “Man, if I were you, I’d take the money,” Dillon said. “He already has the dog, right? So he has all the bargaining power. If you don’t take the dough you might end up with nothing.”

  “We’ll just see about that!” Avery growled. “I’ll call every paper in Boston. I’ll write a blog. Wait until everyone in the world finds out that Robbie Flores took a dog away from a group of kids.” Avery rubbed her hands together with a mischievous twinkle in her eye and added, “We’ll see who has bargaining power then!”

  The bell rang and the students shuffled off to first-hour class. Ms. Rodriguez pulled Avery back from jogging out the door and called the BSG to her desk.

  “I can see that you are all very emotional and upset about what happened over the weekend,” Ms. R said in a calm, quiet voice. “You are all very creative individuals. I’m sure there’s some type of solution. Why not put your heads together? All of you.” She made eye contact with each of the girls as she spoke. “See what you can come up with.”

  “But Robbie Flores is leaving town tomorrow night,” Avery protested.

  “With Marty,” added Charlotte. “It doesn’t seem fair that he can do that. It’s not even his dog. He just found him. We could call the police and my father said he would help me if that was what I wanted to do.”

  All the BSG stared at Charlotte. Calling the police would be a really big deal.

  “Well, he’s got to come back to Boston eventually, right?” Ms. Rodriguez asked.

  “But he’s going to Baltimore for a three-game series. He’ll be gone for another week,” Charlotte said. “With Marty.”

  “All the more reason for you to put your heads together now. Start working together instead of against each other,” Ms. Rodriguez told them. “If you want to have a solution by tomorrow night, then make tomorrow night your deadline. Sometimes the pressure of a deadline helps sharpen your thinking and gets those creative juices flowing. Now get going, ladies. You have no time to lose!”

  Katani held her stack of books tightly to her chest and rushed to her first-period class. She hated being late. Plus, she didn’t feel like talking to her friends right now. What if they had seen right through her speech and knew the truth: She wanted the riding lessons to continue for herself as much as for Kelley. Katani felt ashamed and just wanted to go concentrate on something she could do well, like math. Algebra was easy. You just had to follow the formula and it would usually come out right. Why can’t life be more like math? she sighed.

  Lunch a Bunch

  Katani sat down at the BSG table, but she didn’t even know where to begin. But neither did anyone else. The five friends began to eat in silence. It was Maeve who finally broke the ice.

  She set down her milk with a small thud. Her friends looked up from their assorted yogurts and cafeteria cardboard sandwiches. “I’ve been thinking about our problem all day. Maybe Ms. Rodriguez has a point. Let’s make tomorrow night our deadline. We can do this! We have to think of a solution. We’re the BSG. We don’t give up on each other. We stay loyal and we solve the problem.”

  The group stared at Maeve doubtfully.

  “C’mon, girls, people have had to figure out harder problems than this!” Maeve said. “Remember Titanic? That was a serious deadline and a much bigger problem.”

  “Uh, Maeve?” Avery giggled. “Didn’t the Titanic sink?”

  “Well, there were some survivors.”

  Avery rolled her eyes and Katani finally melted. She let out a big Katani guffaw. Leave it to Maeve to break the ice with a movie reference!

  “Maeve, you should definitely write a book someday,” Katani said.

  “Moi?” Maeve asked with an innocent look.

  “Yes,” Katani answered emphatically. “It should be called Watch a Movie—Solve a Problem!”

  Maeve’s face beamed. No one had ever suggested that she write a book before! She couldn’t wait to tell her mother.

  “We haven’t exactly solved anything,” the ever practical Avery interjected.

  “True, but at least we have some hope now,” Charlotte observed. “We just have to think about it some more.”

  “Maybe we should meet after school at Montoya’s,” Isabel suggested. “Nothing gets the ideas flowing like cookies and hot chocolate.”

  “Yum, I can taste those biscotti now!” Charlotte agreed. It was a date. Charlotte felt relieved. The BSG were together again. They would fix this and Marty would be home. She was convinced of it.

  CHAPTER

  19

  Second Chance

  The Sentinel office was located at the end of the hallway. It was a small room that had originally been used for storage before the students suggested that it would be perfect for the newspaper production. When Charlotte opened the door, she found Jennifer Robinson, eighth-grade editor of the Sentinel, at the computer sitting in a swivel chair. “You wanted to see me?” Charlotte asked.

  Jennifer bit the end of her pencil and smiled. “You were interested in doing that piece on hurricane pets, right?”

  Charlotte’s breath caught in her throat. She tried not to look too excited. “Um, yes. I was. Why?”

  “Good news,” Jennifer said. “Today’s your lucky day. You get to write the piece.”

  “I do?” Charlotte asked, scarcely able to believe her ears. She had dreamed about writing this story. It was right up her alley, all about volunteerism and animals. And Hilary Tamarack, the ninth-grade girl who worked at the shelter, was someone she truly admired. She couldn’t wait to interview her and visit the animal shelter. “I’d love to, Jennifer. What made you change your mind?”

  Jennifer shrugged. “I just got tickets for the Red Sox game tonight. And since the deadline is Wednesday morning, I knew I just didn’t have time to, you know, really dedicate myself to the piece,” she said.

  So that explained her sudden generosity. Charlotte had to smile. Jennifer was always looking out for numero uno. “But that doesn’t leave me much time. I still have to set up an interview with Hilary Tamarack and visit the shelter and…”

  “No, you don’t have to do any of those things. I already did that. Here are my notes from the interview.” Jennifer looked pleased with herself.

  Charlotte’s felt her stomach turn. “What?”

  “Here are my notes. It’s everything you’ll need to write the article.”

  Charlotte scanned the three sheets of paper that Jennifer had handed her. “But you didn’t even visit the animal shelter. I thought the piece would be about—”

  “Look, Charlotte. Are you gonna do it, or not?”

  Charlotte wished she had the guts to tell Jennifer what she really thought. The idea for the piece had been her idea all along. Not even bothering to go to the shelter would make the story so much less interesting, but she was the reporter and Jennifer was the editor. She felt she had no choice. “I’ll do it,” Charlotte said quietly. Being a reporter was really frustrating sometimes.

  “Well, that’s good because if you don’t do it, you can count on this being your last chance at the front page this year.”

  Charlotte scanned through the pages of notes again. “Did you ask her about—”

  “Seriously, Charlotte!” Jennifer interrupted. “You can’t just re-interview someone I’ve already intervie
wed! Do you know how bad that would look? Now just take the notes and write the article. I swear, it’ll be fine.”

  Charlotte breathed deeply. She was really getting annoyed. She remembered what her father said, “Be polite, but stand up for yourself.”

  “But what about Ms. Rodriguez’s lecture about keeping a reporter’s notebook during every interview? What if she asks to see my notes from visiting the shelter?”

  “Hey, you’re the creative one. I’m sure you’ll think of something,” Jennifer said.

  “But what about—”

  “Really, Charlotte…let it go!” Jennifer snapped. “You have all you need to write the piece. If necessary, I’ll add details later.”

  “Add details later?” Charlotte asked. “How do you write an article without details?”

  But her question fell on deaf ears. Jennifer had already left the room and headed to class.

  Charlotte didn’t look at Jennifer’s notes again until the end of the day. The questions and answers were all very ordinary, run of the mill. Charlotte had been hoping that there would be something interesting, some fascinating tidbit that would really hook the reader. Charlotte stopped by the ninth-grade hall to see if she could find Hilary Tamarack and at least ask her a couple more questions. She ran into one of Hilary’s friends, Julie Atkinson.

  “Julie, Julie! Have you seen Hilary? I’m supposed to write an article about her for the Sentinel and I just need to ask her a few questions.”

  “Wait, didn’t Jennifer tell you?”

  “Tell me what?”

  “Hilary’s gone.”

  “What do you mean ‘gone’?”

  “Hilary’s in Louisiana with her parents working with the animal rescue program. She won’t be back until next week. She told me she wouldn’t even have time to talk to me.”

  For the second time that day, Charlotte felt her stomach turn as she felt the harsh reality sink in. She had two days to write a cover story with shoddy notes, no details, no sources, and absolutely no way out. And she had to figure out how to convince Katani, Isabel, and Maeve that keeping Marty was the right thing to do. Gosh, thought Charlotte, could things get any worse?