The Unlucky Lottery Winners of Classroom 13

by Honest Lee

  Then, using their father’s top secret military connections, the girls bought two aircraft carriers and had all their high-priced items flown there in helicopters.

  The twins wanted to show off their spendings. So they planned a huge party on the ships and invited all their classmates from Classroom 13. Unfortunately, before the celebration, their ships were so heavy, they sank.

  Because they were twins, Mya & Madison felt twice as sad about their loss.

  CHAPTER 19

  Dev

  Dev’s whole life revolved around video games. He’d go to sleep playing his PlayStation and move over to the Xbox when he woke up. On his way to school, he played his portable Nintendo. He also had over a hundred games on his phone for playing in between—and sometimes during—bathroom breaks.

  “Are you pooping or playing video games in there?!” his dad would yell at the bathroom door.

  “Both!” Dev answered.

  So when Dev got his check for over a billion dollars, he knew what he wanted—to level up to VIRTUAL REALITY.

  (His thumbs were getting tired of all the button mashing anyway.)

  A store-bought VR system was not going to cut it for Dev. He wanted to live his life inside the most sophisticated virtual-reality world money could buy. So he found the greatest video game designers in the world and hired them.

  “I want to live in a video game world,” Dev said.

  “For how long?” one game designer asked.

  “Forever,” Dev said.

  “But what about sleeping, or eating?” another game designer asked. “Or you know, going number one, or… you know, number two…”

  “I’ll be doing everything in this game world,” Dev said. Then he handed his check over to the game designers. “Now get coding!”

  The game designers worked twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, to finish Dev’s Virtual World in just one month. Many nights, they skipped sleeping to make Dev’s deadline. To meet his demands, they skipped over some tiny details, but they could always add stuff later.

  “Are you done yet?!” Dev snapped.

  “Not quite,” the designers said. “We need to add a Save function.”

  “Don’t bother,” Dev said. “I’m never leaving this game.”

  Dev stepped into the VR suit and turned on his new world. He couldn’t believe his eyes.

  The virtual reality was so crisp and so clear, it was like being in the real world—only way better because it wasn’t real. In VR, Dev could fly like Superman. He could build castles with a wave of his virtual glove. He could fight monsters, drive race cars and rockets, and shoot up killer robots. He could even nap on a virtual cloud.

  And when he had to use the restroom…well, he just went wherever. (The VR suit took care of the… stuff.)

  Dev’s VR was everything he could ever dream of and more. He ate virtual pizzas, rode virtual roller coasters, went on virtual quests, and met virtual friends from his favorite video games. In his game, there was no school and no chores and no nagging parents. And best of all, every day was an adventure.

  Out of nowhere, Dev could kinda, sorta hear someone yelling (from back in the real world). He didn’t want to deal with it, whatever it was. He wanted to play his game. With his glove, Dev turned up the volume. Now all he could hear was the cool techno music of his latest mission.

  Suddenly, the virtual world around him vanished. There was nothing but black in every direction, until a blinking red light appeared overhead. Big capital letters appeared in the VR:

  NO SAVE FILE FOUND. PROGRESS LOST.

  Dev removed his VR goggles, returning to the real world. He was ready to shout at the VR game programmers. Instead, he screamed. He was surrounded by electrical sparks and a small fire.

  FWWSSSSSHHHHHHH!

  The programmers sprayed him (and the VR suit) down with fire extinguishers. “What happened?!” Dev cried.

  “Sorry, little dude,” one of the programmers said. “The system overheated and caught fire.”

  “But the game is okay, right?”

  The VR programmers shook their head.

  Dev sighed. It was officially Game Over for Dev’s Virtual World. Now he was stuck in reality like the rest of the people on the planet.

  CHAPTER 20

  Ethan

  Ethan Earhart’s parents were both lawyers. He hoped one day to grow up to be just like them. Ham or turkey? Paper or plastic? Boxers or briefs? Everything was something that could be argued. And he loved to argue.

  “Six times nine is fifty-four,” Ms. Linda said.

  “Objection!” Ethan yelled.

  “This is not a courtroom, Ethan. This is math. Numbers don’t lie. Six times nine is fifty-four.”

  “But how do we know that for sure? That numbers don’t lie? Isn’t a one lying about being an odd number? It does not look at all odd to me. In fact, it looks rather normal. One might say it looks fair, or even! But ten? Ten looks odd!”

  “That’s not how that works,” Ms. Linda said.

  “I disagree.”

  “That doesn’t prove that numbers lie.”

  “I beg to differ.”

  Ethan was not doing this to be rude. Quite the contrary, Ethan was trying to be judicious—which meant showing good sense.

  “No, it doesn’t,” Ethan said.

  “Yes, it does,” I (Honest Lee) said back.

  “I beg to differ.”

  “Well, let’s agree to disagree—hey, wait! Why are you debating with me?” I said. “I’m the narrator. Argue with your friends. I’m just a voice in this book!”

  Anyway.

  After Ethan found he had $1,037,037,037.04 to spend, his first idea was to buy a hot-air balloon. After all, he’d always wanted to fly in one. (Ethan was in a wheelchair, but he wouldn’t let that stop him from seeing the world, or becoming the world’s best lawyer.)

  But as usual, Ethan began a list of pros and cons for buying a hot-air balloon.

  Pros: Flight. Seeing the land from up high. Cool story.

  Cons: Height. Falling to my death. Birds trying to steal my lunch.

  Over the next few days, Ethan argued with himself. He was so stuck on this topic that he went back and forth and back and forth, arguing both sides of buying a hot-air balloon and not buying a hot-air balloon. He asked other students their thoughts.

  “Buy a comic!” Fatima said.

  “Buy a cat!” Emma said.

  “Buy a fart!” Liam said.

  “No, I don’t want any of those,” Ethan said. “Especially that last one.”

  After days without sleep, Ethan found himself yelling, “Objection!” at himself. Finally, he found one more pro than con. And that settled it.

  He bought a hot-air balloon.

  That weekend, Ethan withdrew the remaining $1,036,987,037.04 and loaded it into the balloon’s passenger basket. Before boarding himself, he debated (with himself) about whether he should fly east or west first. And of course, that debate took a good, long while.

  While Ethan argued with himself, the balloon broke away—with his money, but without him. A strong gust of wind caught the balloon and blew it up into the air.

  “Hey, that’s my balloon!” Ethan yelled. (But then argued with himself, “Is it, though, or does the balloon own itself?”)

  Ethan watched as his hot-air balloon—and his fortune—disappeared into the clouds.

  The balloon made global headlines the next day. Apparently, every time the wind blew, the sky rained money. All over the world, people watched for the money balloon, calling it “a wonderful, beautiful miracle.”

  Ethan begged to differ.

  CHAPTER 21

  Chloe

  Is there a canned good in your house that you don’t know what to do with? Do you know someone who likes meals delivered to their home? Perhaps you want to save the dolphins, but don’t know where to start?

  Well, just ask Chloe. Chloe cares. About everything.

  Chloe Canter never met a cause she didn�
��t want to take up. She organized four blood drives and twelve fund-raisers last year. She raised awareness about deforestation by chaining herself to a tree. When Classroom 13 needed a new water bottle for the class hamster, she hosted a telethon.

  (She raised over six hundred dollars. For a tiny bottle. For a hamster.)

  That’s how much Chloe cares.

  Naturally, Chloe already knew where her lottery money was going when Ms. Linda wrote her a check. Her winnings were going straight to CHARITY.

  But how would she divide up the money? There were so many charities that needed her help: The one that gave free diapers to single moms. The one that built schools in poor countries. The one that set aside land for lions. Even the one that taught street kids how to steal nicer clothes. (That is a charity, isn’t it?)

  “You should give it all to one charity,” Ava said. “That would make a big difference.”

  “You should give a little bit to every charity that exists,” Teo said. “That will make lots of little differences.”

  “You should just fart on it,” Liam blurted, making a loud fart noise.

  Chloe ignored Liam. She considered Ava’s and Teo’s suggestions. She finally decided she wanted to make a big difference. But which charity would she select?

  Chloe thought hard. The lottery winnings came to her at random. So that was how she should donate the money.

  Chloe went online and found a list of every major charity on the planet. There were over 1.5 million charities in the United States alone. So she closed her eyes, scrolled down through the webpage, and let her mouse land on a random charity.

  She opened her eyes. “National Flatulence Awareness, a nonprofit,” she read. “What’s flatulence?”

  Liam’s eyes grew wide. “It means fart!”

  Chloe thought Liam was kidding, so she looked it up. “Flatulence” did, in fact, mean intestinal gas, which is what a fart is.

  Chloe shrugged. If fate wanted her to use her winnings to make America more aware of farts, then that’s what she had to do. Farts have feelings, too, she thought.

  She phoned the Flatulence Awareness hotline and made her donation. The woman on the other end of the phone nearly fainted. “Thank you! Bless you, my child!” Chloe heard the woman pass gas on the other end of the phone. “I apologize. I expel gas when I am excited.”

  That night, Chloe felt good. She had made a real difference in the world. She was warming up to the idea of educating people through National Flatulence Awareness, when a public service announcement on TV came on. An oil tanker crashed off the coast of a place called Penguin Cove. Oil was everywhere.

  A single tear leaked out from behind Chloe’s glasses and down her cheek.

  “Oh no!” she said, running to the phone. She called the Flatulence Awareness hotline. “Earlier today, I donated over a billion dollars, and I’m afraid I made a mistake. I need the money back—not for me, of course. But for the oil-coated penguins! You know, for a real charity.”

  After a long poooooooot, the woman said, “Pardon me. I expel gas when I am offended.”

  “Why are you offended?” Chloe asked.

  “Because your change of heart really stinks.”

  Chloe didn’t know how to respond to that.

  “Ah, I see,” the woman said. “The silent but deadly treatment. Well, the money is gone. And there’s nothing that can be done. She who dealt it… well, you know how the rest goes. Good day, ma’am.”

  CHAPTER 22

  Fatima

  All the kids in Classroom 13 knew one thing about Fatima: She had “issues.”

  No, not someone-call-the-cops-on-that-girl kind of “issues.” I mean, actual issues… of comic books. Fatima Farooq was a comic book collector with a rather serious collection. She bought two of every comic: one to read and a second that remained—perfectly safe and in mint condition—in a plastic slipcover, inside a protective box, never to be touched by human hands.

  I bet you can guess what she bought with her share of the lottery winnings.

  (What? Who said a refrigerator? Yes, you did. I heard you. Now stop talking back to this book or people are going to think you have “issues.”)

  Fatima used her lottery winnings to buy every comic book ever made. Even the super-rare ones owned by pale old men who swore they’d never part with their most-prized possessions.

  She bought classic issues, deluxe issues, autographed issues, misprinted issues, and issues with die-cut holographic foil. She bought superhero comics, ninja comics, monster comics, robot comics, sci-fi comics, and old cartoon comic strips that were hanging up in a comic book museum in another state.

  Fatima bought them all, spending every last cent.

  Her mother did not approve.

  “Fatima Farooq!” her mom yelled from deep within the stacks and stacks of comic books that now lined every square inch of their house. “What is all this?!”

  “My comic book collection!” she yelled back. “It’s finally complete.”

  With all the stacks of comics and mountains of boxes and layers of protective plastic everywhere, it took Mrs. Farooq six grueling days to dig a tunnel to her daughter’s bedroom. Mrs. Farooq wore full climbing gear, including a little helmet with a light on it. Her face was covered in brightly colored stains (from smudging the pages along the way), and her hands were shaking.

  “What have I told you about comic books?” Mrs. Farooq growled.

  “But, Mom—” Fatima said. “I have some educational comics, too! Look,” she pleaded, pulling out an issue to show. “This guy learned how to melt minds with a mind-melting laser! Knowledge is power!”

  Mrs. Farooq was not amused. “What have I told you…?”

  Fatima repeated her mother’s words. “Comics are bad news…”

  “And…”

  “And young, vulnerable minds shouldn’t be reading them,” Fatima and her mom said together.

  Mrs. Farooq took out her phone and started dialing.

  The next morning, a fleet of garbage trucks rolled up to Fatima’s house. Soon, her billion-dollar comic collection—the biggest one in the world, I’m told—would fill landfills across the country. And birds would poop on it.

  *Honest Lee does NOT agree with Mrs. Farooq. Comics are NOT bad news. They are GREAT, and everyone should read them.

  CHAPTER 23

  Yuna

  Ask anyone: Yuna is a mystery.

  Much to the annoyance of her classmates—and Ms. Linda—Yuna speaks only in code. Instead of words, Yuna uses numbers to communicate. The numbers correspond to each letter in the alphabet. Meaning:

  A = 1

  B = 2

  C = 3

  D = 4

  E = 5

  And so on…counting upward until you reach the letter Z, which of course equals 26.

  What’s that? You want to know what Yuna did with her money? Well, all I’m going to say is what she told me:

  25-21-14-1 8-9-4 8-5-18

  13-15-14-5-25 19-15-13-5-23-8-5-18-5

  19-5-3-18-5-20.

  19-15 19-5-3-18-5-20, 19-8-5

  6-15-18-7-15-20 23-8-5-18-5 9-20 23-1-19.

  CHAPTER 24

  Benji

  Benji had very BIG—or should I say, very small—plans for his new fortune.

  “I’m going to shrink them all!” he told his parents. Benji was smiling ear to ear. His mom and dad were nervous, until they realized he wasn’t talking about shrinking every person in the world.

  He was talking about shrinking their pets.

  You see, Benji had two loves: football and animals. He loved animals, but he loved miniature animals even more: Panda cows and micro pigs. Bee hummingbirds and Philippine tarsiers. And let’s not forget miniature horses and teensy-weensy fennec foxes. (I blame the Internet, and all its videos of tiny, itty-bitty animals that are cuter than cute.)

  Benji had a stuffed animal collection (on the same shelf as his football trophies), but it just wasn’t the same. He wanted real-life mini pets. He wan
ted to hold them and hug them and love them and live happily ever after.

  Have you ever seen a pygmy marmoset? (Look it up.) It’s no bigger than the palm of your hand. It could live in your shirt pocket. Benji wanted one. And he wanted everyone to have one. Everyone deserved a little bit of miniature joy.

  “Think about it,” Benji told his parents. “If everyone had a teacup puppy to carry around all day, no one would be sad. You can’t be sad when you look at that tiny, furry cuteness with its big, beautiful eyes. Plus, they’re perfect for football practice—you can pull them out and cuddle with them in between plays.”

  Benji’s parents didn’t understand their son.

  Triple J and Mark recommended the same scientists who helped them. “They really like money. Like, way more than they like obeying the laws of nature and space-time and whatnot. If you’re willing to pay, they’ll pretty much do whatever you want.”

  So Benji hired the scientists to build him a shrink ray. It looked like a huge laser cannon from an old sci-fi movie. Once charged, it shot a beam that could miniaturize anything.

  “Big, scary animals become tiny, cutesy animals,” said one scientist.

  “Extra cutesy!” another scientist added, counting his money.

  “How can I be sure it works?” Benji asked.

  Just then, a shrunken scientist the size of an action figure climbed onto his shoulder. “Trust me,” his wee voice squeaked, “it works.”

  Benji was so excited to get started, he bought two local pet stores, a farm, and the nearest zoo.

  One by one, Benji put the animals in front of the shrink ray. He pulled the lever and watched them shrink down to the size of an apple. He could hardly believe it—petting and holding each of the impossibly tiny animals made him smile so hard, it hurt. (But in a good way.)