X. This one didn’t come true, and thank God for that. Fortunately, I crossed it off before it could happen, and replaced it with:
3. Dakota leaves me alone.
Okay, still X. But if I could find out who told on Tyler, I might get this one to happen, too.
4. Make out with Tyler Hoff
4. Make out with a guy I like.
Check, almost? Kissing Jason had to count for at least partial credit, although, strangely, I wasn’t as into kissing Jason as I thought I’d be. He had mushy lips that lay there like slugs on mine, and his breath smelled like hot milk. But when I became his girlfriend, I’d fix all that. In the meantime, I’d offer him a mint.
5. Make new friends.
Serious check. Besides Brooke, Harrison, and Geneva, there was Melanie, who was older and cooler than me, and was smart and caring and gave good advice. I was starting to annoy Mom because I was on my phone all the time. Perfect.
6. Mom gets a boyfriend or a social life.
X. I thought she’d get to choose between two guys, but neither one was available, and that had just made her feel more alone. Boo.
7. Go somewhere good this summer instead of Grandma’s.
Check-ish. I wasn’t going someplace exotic and amazing, but I had my summer internship at Waggytail, so I wouldn’t be stuck in the city with nothing to do. And Holly let me know that I could take a week off each month to go to the beach with Mom and Penguin. Grandma’s wasn’t looking so bad after all, since I wouldn’t be there all summer. Maybe I’d even bring Brooke or Geneva with me for a few days. And I’d be able to tell Bobby Dudderman what happened with the letter. If he even cared.
While Bobby was on my mind, I searched for him on Instagram and was mildly surprised to find him there. Most of his posts were of rocks and shells and feathers. There was only one self-portrait of him, standing on the beach in a tank top. He’d obviously been hitting the gym and putting some thought into his appearance. The short haircut looked good on him, and, if my eyes did not deceive me, he was wearing Billabong shorts.
Good for you, Bobby the Dud, I thought. May the odds be ever in your favor.
Surprisingly, Bobby had a ton of followers, and many of his posts got lots of comments. A lot of his followers were adults, some from other countries, and there were even some girls who followed him. I frowned at the pic next to lacysnowflake’s comment. She was pretty cute. She must have thought he was pretty cute, too, judging by her comments. I mean, it’s just a seashell—it doesn’t deserve that many exclamation points.
Anyway.
8. Mom forgets my upcoming dentist appointment.
Check-ish. She didn’t forget, but I didn’t have to go to the dentist anyway. And that was even after I crossed this one out and replaced it with:
8. Help Savvy.
X. Once Tyler got that picture, there was no way I could have helped Savvy. She couldn’t avoid the consequences of her decision, and now she was disgraced and embarrassed and stuck at home with two angry moms. It was severe punishment for a single mistake. At the start of the month, I was so mad at her that I would have been happy to hear she was grounded for life. Now I felt heartsick for her. As Melanie had discovered with her anorexic friend, karma could be sweet, but it could also be bitter.
9. Savvy stops being weird to me.
Well, check. But I didn’t want it to happen like this. If I could choose between Savvy being snotty, or Vannah’s life being ruined, I would take Snotty Savvy any day. But it wasn’t my wish that caused this whole chain of events to start—was it?
I went back to the original letter. It didn’t say anything about “granting wishes” or “making things come true.” It just told me to watch what happened.
You will not know when these lucky things are coming. You may not recognize some of them when you see them. Some, like this money, will be obvious right away. Others will take time to reveal themselves.
So if I didn’t know the lucky thing was coming, and I wouldn’t even recognize it when I saw it, how could I be the source of it? I couldn’t. What had happened to Savvy was not my doing. My good luck didn’t cause her downfall; her bad luck did.
Well, if nothing else happened on my last lucky day, I would at least get some kind of explanation. Or so I hoped. I hoped so hard that there would be a letter on the floor the next morning while Mom slept in, one that would explain the whole crazy month—all the coincidences, all the lucky breaks, how it all worked, and who was behind it.
But what if there was no letter? What if the last day passed, and that was it? What if I never ever heard anything from the letter writer ever again? That would be too cruel. The curiosity would kill me. I wouldn’t be able to deal with never knowing the truth. Please, I thought. Don’t keep me in the dark. Send me another letter, like you did last time I had doubts. But this time, say more than “It’s real.” Tell me how it works.
At least there was one thing I could count on: One more day, and I could tell Mom about everything. Once the month was over, the No human person must know rule wouldn’t matter anymore. It’s not like whoever it was could take the luck back. They couldn’t rewind to the beginning of the month. It would be such a relief to talk about it, finally, to show Mom the letter and see what she thought. One more day.
I put the list and letter away. It would all be over soon. My special good luck would be gone. The universe had just twenty-four hours to send me the name of Tyler’s rat, a boyfriend for Mom, and a way to help Savvy. Not to mention the impossible, the last lucky little thing on my list:
10. Bring Aunt Jenny back.
Twelve
My last lucky day started much like my first one did: with dog snot.
I was wide awake in an instant. It felt like Christmas morning—I couldn’t wait to run into the kitchen to see if Santa had brought me the gift of an explanation. But if there was a letter for me, Mom had already seen it, since she was already up. I could hear her shuffling around, talking to someone on her earpiece.
I went to the bathroom, rinsed my face, and headed toward the kitchen. Letter or no letter, I was excited to see what this day would bring.
I overheard Mom say, “I know, Florence. I know.”
I stopped dead in my tracks. Florence was Aunt Jenny’s mom. Today was Aunt Jenny’s birthday.
And I forgot.
How could I forget? I was disgusted with myself. Here I was, supposedly so sad over Aunt Jenny’s death, and I forgot her birthday. I still missed her all the time, but I’d been so distracted these past few weeks, busy obsessing over friends and phones and luck and dentist appointments, she had somehow slipped my mind.
So much for Bring Aunt Jenny back.
Last year for Aunt Jenny’s birthday, the three of us went to the crafts store and got a bunch of stuff and decorated her apartment for the birthday party she was having that night. We made tissue-paper flowers and strung them into garlands; then we tied different-colored ribbons around all the lamps and clocks and knickknacks so that everything in the house looked like a present. Everybody loved it when they came in and saw what we’d done.
I gave Aunt Jenny a pin shaped like a horseshoe crab. I’d had to order it online, and it took a month to ship from China. I was so afraid it wouldn’t get here in time, and I cried with frustration every morning it didn’t arrive, but then it showed up the day before the party. I’d wrapped it in paper that had lobsters on it (that was the closest I could find to crab wrapping paper), and when she opened the box and saw it, she burst out laughing with tears in her eyes.
“This is the most perfect gift ever!” She gave me a huge hug and kissed the top of my head. “And you are the most perfect girl.”
We had no idea it would be her last birthday.
I stood in the hall and listened as Mom wrapped up her call. “I know … She was … Always … Okay, I’ll tell her … Be well … Bye.”
She ended her call and let out a super-long “Phhhewwwwww.”
I went into the kitchen and hugged her.
“Bloop,” she said.
I didn’t say anything, just kept hugging her. I didn’t hug Mom a lot anymore, not since my boobs had started their slow, awkward expansion into the world. But I didn’t care right then. She needed a hug.
I could feel her rib cage shake as she began crying. I was way ahead of her there. Her tears fell on my head, and mine soaked into her pajama top.
“I miss her so much,” said Mom.
“Me too.”
Mom reached for the paper towels on the counter, blew her nose in one, and offered me another. I detached myself and mopped up my face. So far that morning, my face had been covered in both dog snot and human snot, and it was only seven-fifteen.
Mom started making her coffee and I poured myself some juice.
“Florence says hello,” she said.
Hi, Florence, I said in my head. Funny, how I saw Florence at the hospital nearly every day for weeks, and now weeks went by without me even thinking about her.
Mom continued. “She’s finally sending Jenny’s ashes, so we can take them out to the beach and release them over the bay.”
I nodded, not trusting myself to speak without starting to cry all over again.
If only there was a letter for me in the kitchen, the letter I’d been hoping for, the one that would explain my lucky month. But there was no letter on the floor by the door, and there was no letter on the counter, the table, or anywhere else I could see.
I showered, dressed, and walked the dog while Mom muttered at her laptop. I returned Penguin and was ready to leave for school when I casually asked, “Oh, uh, I didn’t get a letter, did I?”
Mom was busy responding to an email from yet another duck-knocking hockey puck. “When? Yesterday? Not that I saw. Today’s mail won’t be here until this afternoon. Why?”
“Nothing important. I thought I might have got another letter from Savv—Vannah.”
I headed out to school. I felt extremely blah and gray about everything. There had been no letter, which meant there would probably be no letter, and I would never understand what had been happening to me. On top of that, I was really mad at myself for being such a shallow, disloyal person that I forgot Aunt Jenny’s birthday. I’d promised I would never forget her, I would think about her every day, and I would keep her alive in my heart. But I was already letting her memory slip away, already back to concentrating on my life instead of her loss.
* * *
I sleepwalked through the day. Nothing mattered. Our lives were short and dumb and meaningless. And random—life was also really, really random. It could end at any time, for any reason, just like it did for Aunt Jenny. Maybe I’d start dressing like Melanie and go the tortured-artist route.
I was about to go into rehearsal after school when someone’s arm shot out from the shadows by the trophy case and grabbed me. I was shocked to discover that it was Lewis.
“What do you want?” I hissed at him, pulling away. “Get off me.”
He pulled me back. “Emma, it’s an emergency. Tyler and Dakota are at it again, and if you don’t help me stop them, Venice is going to get hurt.” His voice was low and urgent, and his eyes were the eyes I remembered from our time onstage. Suddenly he’d switched back from Lewis the Troll to Just Plain Lewis. I liked Just Plain Lewis, but I couldn’t trust him.
“Is this a joke?” I asked. “Are you getting back at me for ratting on Tyler? Because I didn’t.”
“I know you didn’t,” he said. “And this is not a joke. I wish it was. They’ve been working on Venice for two weeks. They want her to pose for a pic for Tyler, just like Savvy did. They’re gonna make her do it at Dakota’s this afternoon—unless we can stop them.”
Whoa. What? He was going too fast for me. Lewis was friends with those people, so why was he telling me this stuff? What was I supposed to do about it? “They’re your friends,” I said. “You stop them.”
“They were my friends,” he said. “And I’m not even sure that’s true. Listen, I know you can’t trust me, but you can trust Dakota and Tyler to be themselves. You know the kind of things they do. You saw what they did to Savvy. Don’t let it happen to someone else.”
I had to decide quickly. On the one hand, I had Lewis the Troll feeding me this “emergency” news designed to make me act stupid in front of everyone. On the other hand, here was Lewis, my friend from the play, asking me to help him stop Venice from getting hurt.
I thought about Savvy, shut up at home like Rapunzel, and how ashamed she felt. I thought about Venice, how eager to please she was, and how she could get caught in the same trap.
If I was being set up to look stupid, then I’d look stupid.
“What do you need me to do?”
Lewis let out a huge sigh of relief. “Okay. They’re all heading over to Dakota’s soon. I’ll stall Tyler as long as possible. You get outside, find Venice, and tell her she’s being set up. She’s not going to believe you. You’ll have to convince her any way you can. Text me if you need help.”
“Got it.”
Lewis and I shared a look. It was like that day onstage, when I could read his mind through his eyes. Thank you for believing me, his look said. Then he darted away.
Just then, Ms. Engel came around the corner and caught a glimpse of Lewis running down the hall. “Ah,” she said to me. “Our runaway Julian.”
The words rushed out of my mouth. “Ms. Engel, I’m sorry, I can’t come to rehearsal today.”
Ms. Engel did a double take. “Are you kidding me? You’re kidding me. This is a joke.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “It’s urgent.”
She looked at me like I wasn’t speaking English. Then she laughed in my face. “Hah!” she said. “It’s urgent? Are you going to the Philippines with your friend Lewis?”
“It’s not like that, please, I can explain—”
Ms. Engel cut me off. “You know, we found a replacement for him. I could just as easily get one of the other girls in the cast to replace you.”
I didn’t want that to happen. But I didn’t want anything to happen to Venice either. “I’m sorry,” I said, backing away down the hall. “I promise, I’ll explain.”
I thought Ms. Engel was going to have a stroke, she was so mad. “Hey, Emma!” she called after me. “Good luck with your urgent thing!”
Ms. Engel’s curse would not stop me. I ran outside the building and looked around, but I didn’t see Venice. Lewis was hanging out with Tyler and Dakota’s group, and I paused for a minute. He saw me and motioned with his head toward the corner. There was Venice, coming back from the store with some Swedish fish.
I ran up to intercept her. “Venice, listen. Really important. Tyler and Dakota are trying to get you to send him nudes.”
Venice drew back in surprise and wrinkled her nose. “What are you talking about?”
Dakota was already looking our way, scowling at the sight of me talking to Venice.
“You know what they did to Savvy? They got her picture and they spread it. They’re trying to do the same thing to you.”
Venice rolled her eyes and pushed past me. “You’re pathetic. I’m sorry I was ever nice to you.”
“Please!” I urged. “Just don’t go over to Dakota’s house today!”
But she was already walking away.
Lewis saw her coming and looked alarmed. “Guys, wait. Before we go to Dakota’s, we need to, uh, get snacks! Yeah, I’m not trying to mess with those soggy-ass chips her mom buys. Ty, come hit the deli with me.”
Tyler shrugged at Dakota. “We’ll meet you over there in a minute,” he said. He followed Lewis toward the store.
Venice was surrounded by the girls. I couldn’t get anywhere near her. She’d given me her phone number the day the cast list went up, so I could at least text her, but how was I going to convince her to stay away from Tyler by text? What could I possibly text her that would make her believe he was lying scum?
I didn’t know. But I bet Savvy did.
I took off running down the block. It was only a short run to Savvy’s place, so I could make it in five minutes if I pushed myself. I ran as fast as I could, and when I got to her building, I slammed the buzzer, barely able to breathe.
Charise answered. “Who…?”
“Emma,” I gasped. “Emergency!”
She buzzed me in right away, and I flew up the stairs. Ava was home early from court, so both moms were standing in the hall looking alarmed.
“Emma,” said Charise. “What happened? Are you hurt?”
I shook my head. “Not me. But someone. Please, I need Savvy’s help.”
Charise and Ava looked at me skeptically. “All right,” Charise said. “But this better be good.” She let me into the apartment, where I ran to Savvy’s side.
“What’s happening?” Savvy asked. “Are you okay?”
I shook my head no. “Tyler and Dakota … doing it to Venice … Have to stop her.”
Charise’s and Ava’s faces hardened at the sound of those names. Savvy flinched, but she could see by the look on my face how urgent this was.
“What can I do?” she asked.
I was already texting faster than I’d ever texted before.
Tyler is fake & I can prove
Seconds later, Venice texted back: one single, smiling poop.
Of course. Why would she believe a loser like me? Especially since she knew I hated Tyler and Dakota. I needed some good, solid evidence. And that’s what I came here for.
My fingers were poised over my phone. “Okay, now tell me exactly what Tyler said to you when he was trying to hook up with you.”
Savvy looked embarrassed. “He said I was ethereal.”
I texted Venice:
He said ur ethereal
“Good. What else?”
“He said I made the other girls look superficial, and he was tired of superficial girls.”
Ava rolled her eyes. I texted quickly.
Hes tired of superficial girls
Still no reply from Venice.
“Hurry!” I said. “Something else!”
Lucky Little Things Page 11