“Um, his dad told him he needed a girl with courage and passion.”
His dad said girls shd have courage and passion
Nothing. I prayed that Venice would reply. I was a thousand percent sure that Tyler used the exact same lines on every girl, but what if I was wrong?
We held our breaths and waited. The reply bubble popped up. She was replying!
Ur jells cuz he ddnt like you
“It’s not working!” I cried. “Gimme more!”
Savvy desperately tried to come up with something. “That’s all I can remember!”
Ava and Charise shared a look. Charise nodded, and Ava ran into the bedroom. When she came back, she was holding Savvy’s confiscated phone.
“Here,” she said, turning it on. “Screenshot his texts and send them. You only have three percent battery, so hurry.”
Savvy’s fingers couldn’t move fast enough. She took a screenshot and sent it to Venice’s number.
I was thinking about you last night. You owe me new sheets.;)
Then another one:
Dakota’s jealous of you. She’s never seen me get like this over a girl.
And a third:
Don’t be immature. Send the pic or you’re a tease.
We stared at the phone, hoping for a miracle. Venice replied a minute later:
LOL.
The four of us looked at one another helplessly. “What do we do now?” asked Ava.
Just then, I got a text from Lewis. It was a picture of the cool-kids table taken that afternoon, with Tyler standing in the lunchroom and Venice sitting nearby. Venice did not see the face that Tyler was making behind her back, nor did she see his gesture. She didn’t see that Dakota and Sierra were there, laughing and pointing at her.
We all winced. I didn’t want to hurt Venice’s feelings, but she needed to see this. I texted it to her.
We didn’t have to wait long for her reply:
Ouch. That picture must have been painful for her to see. I was glad she knew the truth, but I wasn’t glad that she was hurt by it. I texted:
I’m sorry.
Venice:
No its good thanks Emma
Going home now cu tmrw
“Oh, thank God,” said Ava. She hugged Charise, then they both hugged Savvy. It looked like they were coming after me next, but I sidestepped them. I had to text Lewis and let him know that Venice was safe.
It worked! She left! You saved her!
He replied:
YES!
And then a bunch of dancing girls.
I wanted to hang out for a minute more with Savvy and her moms, have some of Charise’s homemade mint lemonade and catch my breath, but I’d already missed forty-five minutes of rehearsal. If I left right away, I could run back in time to apologize to Ms. Engel and explain. I grabbed my stuff and prepared to leave.
“Thank you for letting me in,” I said to Charise.
“I’m glad you came to us,” she said. “You did the right thing.”
Savvy and I hugged. “Thanks,” she said. “I’ll write to you soon.”
As I ran back to school, I planned what to say to Ms. Engel. I wanted to tell her the whole story, how Lewis warned me that Venice was in danger, and how we acted together to rescue her. I flew through the school door and burst into the auditorium. Everyone turned to see who it was. Jason was onstage, rehearsing our love scene with Melanie.
Ms. Engel saw me and gave me a vicious smile. “Emma, how sweet of you to join us. I was just telling the cast that I needed to thank you. If you hadn’t skipped out on rehearsal today, we wouldn’t have known what a terrific actress Melanie is.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “Please, let me explain…”
“No need,” she said. “You’re no longer in the show. Melanie is now playing the part of Nadine. Thanks so much, and goodbye.”
Ms. Engel turned her back on me. Melanie looked at me from the stage and frowned. What happened? she mouthed.
I’ll text you, I pantomimed.
“Goodbye, Emma,” said Ms. Engel.
I turned around, hung my head, and left the auditorium.
* * *
The second Mom heard my key in the door, she started applauding. “Hooray for Bloop!” she crowed when I walked in. “I heard from Savvy’s moms! You’re a legit hero!”
Ava and Charise must have called Mom the second I left and filled her in on what happened. She hugged me for way too long, raving the entire time.
“I am so proud of you! That was such quick thinking, to go to Savvy’s. That Venice girl is incredibly lucky that you got her away from those kids before anything could happen. You are so smart, and brave, and selfless, and you did great work today, just great.”
“Thanks.” It didn’t feel so great, now that it cost me my leading role. But it could have been worse. I imagined showing up to school in the morning and seeing everyone buzzing over a picture of Venice. At least that wouldn’t happen now.
Mom broke out of the hug, drew her head back, and looked at my expression. “What’s wrong?” she asked, concerned. “The girl’s okay now, right?”
I dropped into a chair and put my head down on the table. Might as well give her the news, I thought.
“Ms. Engel cut me from the show because I skipped rehearsal.”
I couldn’t see her face, but I heard the shock in her voice. “Oh, Bloopster! That’s awful! I’m so sorry. But won’t she reconsider once you tell her what happened?”
I didn’t dare hope for that. “I want to tell her the whole thing, but I don’t want to get anybody in trouble. And she was extra mad at me when I said I needed to miss rehearsal. I don’t even know if she’ll listen to me.”
“Oh, wow. That’s so unfair. You went out of your way to help someone! You did the right thing! You shouldn’t be penalized for it.”
“Yeah,” I said miserably. Then I said something I never thought I’d say, something Mom used to say when I was younger that drove me crazy. “Life’s not fair.”
Life was totally unfair. Aunt Jenny was fine in September; in October, she was diagnosed with a terminal disease. Savvy thought she was falling in love; instead, she was falling into a trap. Mom lost her best friend, and she couldn’t even have one nice date with a guy to help her feel less lonely. Somebody promised me good luck, but they never told me why.
It was only five o’clock, but it felt like midnight. I couldn’t imagine trying to explain to Melanie and Brooke and the rest of my friends why I missed rehearsal—all that typing seemed impossible with my thick, heavy hands. Why bother.
“Bloop,” said Mom sympathetically. “You’ve had such a stressful day. Why don’t you lie down on the couch and watch cartoons for a while? I can take Penguin out. We’ll have whatever you want for dinner, even if it’s cupcakes with ice cream. You deserve a treat.”
If only everybody got what they deserved. I slunk over to the couch and got under the quilt and turned on the TV. Mom dimmed the lights and put on Penguin’s leash and they went out for a walk.
By the time they got back, I was asleep.
Lucky Thirteen
Sometimes you never find out why things happened the way they did.
There was no third letter the next morning. There was only a sneezing dog and a gray sky. Mom was still asleep, which was understandable—she wasn’t the one who crashed out in front of the TV before six last night, awakened just long enough to stumble into bed, and then slept until the alarm rang. More than twelve hours of sleep, and I was still exhausted.
I went through my morning routine, then took Penguin for his walk. Just like any other ordinary day.
We passed the bench where we’d met Conrad. I thought back to that day, how I’d been scouring the second letter for clues and didn’t notice that Penguin had eaten a chicken bone. What kind of lucky letter distracts you so your dog can choke half to death? That wasn’t lucky at all. Then Conrad came along, which seemed like the best possible luck, but we wouldn’t have needed Conrad�
��s help if I hadn’t been busy with the letter, and then Mom wouldn’t have been disappointed when he turned out to be a womanizer.
Mom was awake when Penguin and I got back. “Bloop,” she said. “How are you feeling today?”
Good question. I had no idea how I felt, because I didn’t feel much of anything. “Okay,” I lied.
She knew I was lying, but she let it go. “Well, I’m meeting Darren up at Herbie’s today to give him the archives on hard disk, and then we’re done. Shouldn’t take too long. I’ll be back by the time you get home from rehears … school.”
Ugh. Rehears-school. It was time for me to go to school and face the music (or, in this case, the drama). I said bye to Mom and trudged toward my destiny.
I lingered around the corner from school, waiting until it was exactly time to go in. I didn’t want to face my theater friends yet. I didn’t want to face anybody. The idea of walking into Ms. Engel’s English class made me nauseated.
“Hey,” said Lewis, coming up behind me. “I was looking for you.”
“Hey,” I said.
I didn’t know what else to say. We’d just gone through this big ordeal together, but mostly it was by text, and now we were face-to-face. It looked like he didn’t know what to say, either. I looked at my shoes.
“So,” he said. “You want to go to the play with me?”
I had to laugh. Then I sighed. “I don’t think Ms. Engel wants to see either one of us ever again. Besides, aren’t you supposed to be in the Philippines?”
“Coincidentally, my family’s plans have changed.”
We were going to be late if we didn’t hurry down the block and through the doors. In a few minutes, the school security guards would sweep the vicinity, looking for stragglers like us. But I didn’t know when we’d get another chance to talk in person and in private, and I was curious about a few things.
“So why did you back out of the play?” I asked. “That was kind of a dick move.”
“I know,” he said. “I wish I hadn’t. But it was hard being your stage boyfriend without feeling … things. Ty and them were already on me to quit—I didn’t want to, but then after the Savvy thing, you hated my guts so much … It was way too confusing. Seemed easier to just walk away.”
Yeah, I did kind of hate him a lot back then. I still wasn’t exactly sure how I felt about him now, but it wasn’t hatred. It might have even been … things.
“I get why you hated me, by the way,” he continued. “What they did to Savvy was awful, and I didn’t stop them. I thought it was a joke. I don’t think I understood how serious it was until I saw your face that morning, then I was like, ‘Oh, this is the worst possible thing you could do to someone.’ I was already starting to look at those guys and wonder why I was friends with them. But that’s when I made up my mind. So I told Mr. Kelly.”
Splat. Pieces of my exploded brain hit the inside of my skull. “You told on Tyler?”
Lewis smiled wryly and nodded. “I did. I’m the rat. And I knew that if those guys found out it was me, it’d be bad. You hated me anyway, so I quit the play, and I’ve been acting like everything’s the same as always with Dakota and them, like we’re all friends and I think it’s hilarious to get girls to send nudes to Tyler. Then I heard they were planning to do it to Venice. And I couldn’t sit there and let that happen again.” He picked up my hand and caressed it with his thumb, the way he’d done that day onstage. “But I couldn’t have stopped them without you.”
My hand throbbed in his. If he didn’t let it go, it was going to burst into a profound sweat, along with the rest of my body. “We should go in,” I said nervously. “We’re going to get marked late.”
“Then one more second won’t matter,” he said.
He pulled me toward him and kissed me.
I died.
I recovered.
I kissed him back.
I died again.
Then I heard the sounds of a walkie-talkie coming toward us—school security was on its way. We broke apart and started running toward the school.
“Text me,” he huffed, booking it up the stairs and through the doors.
“Yep,” I confirmed.
* * *
I wish I could say that the rest of the day went smoothly, but it didn’t. I tried to talk to Ms. Engel before English, but she refused to hear me out.
“If what you have to say is important, you can put it in writing,” she said.
“I’ll try,” I said glumly, knowing it was hopeless. Where to begin? There was no way I could name names on paper and hand it to a teacher. I slunk back to my desk, where I was ignored for the rest of the period.
At lunch, my first priority was Melanie. She was out eating lunch with her upper school friends, so I sat down alone in the library to compose several lengthy texts that I hoped would explain the situation. I sent parts one and two, which covered the urgent request for help from the shadows and the mission I was charged with, and I was working on part three when Melanie appeared next to me.
“Quick,” she urged me. “Come to the third-floor girls’ room and tell me everything. This is drama.”
At least Melanie understood.
“Maybe we can convince Ms. Engel to listen to you,” she said after I wrapped up my tale and she swore to keep it quiet. “I’m really not meant to be an actress. And Jason is nice, but he can’t kiss at all.”
I was not optimistic. “Even if she listens, she already made the decision to cut me. She’s not going to go back on it now.”
“We’ll see,” Melanie said, arching one eyebrow. “I’ve been told I have a way with words.”
I didn’t see Venice until sixth-period social studies. She gave me a small wave and a sad smile. I returned both.
Sierra noticed our exchange and frowned at Venice. “Don’t talk to her,” Sierra said. “You’ll get her rat fleas.”
So it went, on that not-magical, not-lucky day—which, when I thought about it, felt a lot like the lucky days I’d just lived through. Good things and bad things happened, like always:
I’d had my first real, offstage kiss with a boy I liked!
But Ms. Engel was still keeping me out of the show.
Melanie wanted to fight for me!
But Dakota and Sierra wanted to fight me.
My day went up and down, like everyone else’s. My lucky days, I realized, had been the same. Before the letters and during the letters and after the letters, my luck wasn’t any different. It was bad and then good and then bad and then good again. Strange things happened, and I didn’t know why. As Bobby Dudderman said, that was the definition of life.
Suddenly, I got it. My luck had not really changed.
I had.
* * *
I was getting ready for my last class, gym, when somebody started blowing up my phone. To my surprise, that person was Mom.
It didn’t look like Mom at first. Mom is meticulous about her spelling and punctuation in texts, and these texts were a mess. She must have sent them in a rush. They read:
Pauline si his ex
separate 3 yrs
they run busines together
but hes selling andmoving to harlem
There was a pause, then another text:
HIS EX
I gasped. Pauline was Darren’s ex? Could that really be true? I replied right away:
NO WAY
Mom:
YESWAY
it rly ws busines after al
omw home
will tell u evrything latr
soooooooooooooo happy
Then there was an emoji avalanche like I’d never seen.
I blinked and reread the texts, finding it hard to believe my eyes. My mind was beyond blown. This was the best news in the history of news. Darren was not a creeper, he didn’t have a girlfriend, and it rly ws busines after al. I nearly burst into happy tears, but I didn’t.
I DIDN’T.
It was those allergies again.
* * *
/> After the last bell rang and I realized I had nowhere to be, the allergies started to come back—the sad ones, this time. I felt like a ghost, floating around all the other groups on the sidewalk, unseen by people as I passed. I wanted to share my good news—I kissed Lewis! And Mom might have a boyfriend!—but all my friends were at rehearsal and there was nobody around I could tell. Just like the day I’d gotten the first letter.
I headed home. At least I could share the good part of my day with Mom, and she could share hers with me. I knew she’d be pacing around the kitchen, giddy with excitement, wishing she could call her best friend, as I wished I could call mine.
Mom and I were lucky to have each other.
It was drizzling a little by the time I rounded the corner to my block. To my surprise, there was Fran, hanging out in front of the building, smoking a Lucky in the rain. My heart started to beat fast, and I picked up my pace, ready to run and tackle her to the ground, if need be, so I could get some answers from her. But before I could open my mouth to say anything, she said, “All right, kid. Come get your letter.”
Fran stubbed out her smoke, opened the front door, and motioned for me to go inside.
“It was you,” I marveled, following her to her apartment behind the stairs.
Fran unlocked her door, plucked an envelope from inside, and handed it to me. “See for yourself,” she said.
It was a white envelope the same size as the other two, but when I opened it, I found a handwritten letter instead of a printed one. The handwriting was familiar, but shaky and faint. I looked down at the signature.
It was from Aunt Jenny.
Dear Emma,
I miss you.
It seems strange to say this, since you’re ten feet away in the waiting room as I write this letter, and I will be gone by the time you read it. But at the moment I miss you so much I can’t stand it.
I know after I’m gone, you’ll be missing me, too. That’s why I’m writing this now.
As you know, the doctors say I don’t have a lot of time left, and these pain meds they’re giving me are strong. So I’m asking the nurses to mail a package for me today. It’s addressed to your super, Fran, and it will contain three letters and some instructions. The first instruction is to keep this all a secret. (If Fran doesn’t, I will haunt her so hard.)
Lucky Little Things Page 12