by Bobbie Pyron
Gen squinted at the fuzzy newsprint. “I can’t wait until I get my new glasses. Can you read it to me?”
Nate cleared his throat and read: “Everybody in Paradise Beach knows how much Genesis Beam, daughter of Reverend and Mrs. Beam, loves loggerhead turtles. She is the creator of the Turtle Rules and self-appointed guardian of the reptilian wayfarers when they visit our shores every year to lay their eggs. But no one knew just how much she loved the turtles until the recent (and unlikely) hurricane struck. To quote Charles Bailey, age twelve, ‘She loves them so much, she almost got herself killed!’
“Miss Beam risked her life in the middle of Hurricane Amelia by running down to the beach and gathering up (in a bait bucket) the one nest of loggerhead turtle eggs that had been laid. During her valiant attempt to save the eggs, Miss Beam was struck by lightning.
“Because of the young girl’s heroism and devotion to the turtles, the town is organizing a turtle watch in her honor. The Paradise Beach Garden and Beautification League along with Miss Ruth Beam (age six), daughter of Reverend and Mrs. Beam, are organizing the effort. ‘We need folks to patrol the beaches not only to watch for turtle nests and tracks, but also to enforce Genesis’s Turtle Rules,’ Mrs. Belk, president of the Garden and Beautification League, declared. ‘We need all hands on deck,’ Big Jim Sands, captain of the Dixie Queen, said. ‘It’s what that little girl would want.’
“Hanson’s Hardware is providing free flashlights and batteries for those who don’t have them, and Dick McHarg, owner of the Sand Flea Motel, will provide free hot chocolate to those taking the evening watch shifts. ‘I’m proud to do it,’ he said. ‘We’re lucky as all get-out to have these turtles come back here every year.’ Indeed.”
“Wow,” Gen whispered. “All those people are helping the turtles because of me?”
“Oh heck yeah,” he said. “Ricky, Connor, and Buddy are helping out, and the whole town council.”
She shook her head with the pure wonderment of it. “Maybe they aren’t a band of philistines after all.”
“Oh, and my teacher, Mr. Peck, is giving anyone who helps extra credit, and Miss Lillian is composing a special poem about it. There’s even talk about starting an annual turtle festival.”
“I guess the turtles aren’t just mine and yours anymore,” Gen said. “Who would have thought?”
“It’s a miracle, just like my shoes,” Nate said, holding his legs out straight, tapping the toes of his two red high-top sneakers together.
Gen shook her head. “I still can’t believe you found the other shoe yesterday on the side of Highway 98.” She reached up to pluck at her long-gone eyebrow. “I can’t even begin to calculate those odds.”
“Hey,” he said, “I’ve been wanting to ask you. What are the odds of a person getting struck by lightning twice?”
Gen perked up. “Well, let’s see. If the odds of a person getting struck by lightning once are about one in six hundred fifty thousand, then if you multiply that by …” She frowned and drew on an imaginary chalkboard in the air.
“Three hundred and sixty billion,” Nate replied.
Gen’s jaw dropped.
Nate blinked, then said, “Where’d that come from?”
“You,” she said with a gasp. “How’d you know that?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know. It just sort of popped into my head. But how?”
Nate waited for his friend, who was obviously chewing on this information like a dog with a particularly meaty bone, to tell him the scientific explanation for this phenomenon. Energy transference? A shifting of magnetic poles perhaps?
Gen shrugged and smiled. She looked out her hospital window into the evening sky growing as lavender as her mother’s favorite going-to-church hat. “Magic, I guess.”
A week later, the residents of Paradise Beach again gathered at the Billy Bowlegs Park for a fish fry. Although the congregations of the town’s three churches and one synagogue had organized the event as a fund-raiser for Reverend Beam’s family, everyone agreed it was also to celebrate the town’s good fortune.
Once again, table after table groaned under the bountiful weight of salads, casseroles, gumbos, mounds of biscuits, corn bread and, of course, hush puppies. The men and women of all three congregations and one synagogue had outdone themselves and glory.
Grandpa and Reverend Beam manned the vats of frying fish and hush puppies. Chum Bailey, Ricky Sands, and Jinx Malloy poured cup after cup of lemonade and iced tea.
“Hey, Sparky,” Jinx said as she sloshed lemonade into a cup for Nate. “We’re getting up a baseball game after everyone eats. Want to play?”
He shrugged and gripped the handles of Gen’s wheelchair. “I don’t think I’m lucky anymore,” he said, still tasting burnt toast and sour milk from that morning.
Jinx snorted and flipped her red braids over her shoulders. “Aw heck, I never believed in all that Midas touch malarkey,” she declared. She nodded at Gen. “She can play too. We can take turns pushing her around the bases. It’s just for fun anyways.”
“I don’t think so,” Nate said, moving closer to his friend and touching her arm. He knew without a doubt that 1) to go around the bases implied one would hit the ball which 2) he was pretty sure Gen would never do. “I think we’ll just —”
“Heck yes!” Gen fairly yipped. Which was something he had never, ever heard Genesis Beam do. She’d also been known to giggle and guffaw and look all dreamy since the lightning strike. “We’ll play. I can be a receiver or a goalie even.”
Ricky groaned and Chum laughed.
The last of the sun’s rays threw wide, spangled planks of light across Billy Bowlegs Park. It skipped across the gulls squabbling around the trash bins and settled lightly on the sleeping head of Brandon Sands. It touched the shoulders of Chum, Jinx, and Ricky as they picked their teams for baseball. It warmed the back of the mayor of Paradise Beach as he begged yet another hush puppy. It moved on to rest on the wide, humble shoulders of the good Reverend Beam.
Everyone grew quiet as he took the stage and stepped up to the microphone. He cleared his throat and clasped his hands in front of him. “I stand before you, friends and family, a most grateful man. A most lucky man. For we are gathered here again to celebrate not one, not two, but three miracles. We celebrate the town surviving a direct hit from a hurricane with barely a scratch; we celebrate the miracle of two precious children struck by lightning and living.” The reverend smiled lovingly down at Nate and Gen. “For that, I will be eternally grateful.”
“Amen,” murmured the crowd.
Picking up steam, the reverend continued. “But truly, the greatest miracle we celebrate is the strength and compassion of our town.” He spread his arms wide, taking in the entire community of Paradise Beach. “We celebrate the bounty and wonder of this place we call home and the folks we call friends and neighbors. And we count our many blessings and tender mercies, every day.”
“Amen,” Gen whispered. She held up her bandaged hand. “How about a high five?” she asked with a smile.
Nate grinned and pressed his scarred hand gently against hers.
A mighty crack! “Go, Gen, go!” Nate and Jinx cried.
Genesis Magnolia Beam — the smartest girl in all of Franklin County and maybe even in all of Florida — dropped the bat burning her hands. Chum and Ricky dug in shoulder to shoulder, wheeling her from base to base to base. Gen’s silver eyes gleamed with a million tiny lights.
And Nathaniel Harlow, who many had said was the unluckiest boy in all of Franklin County, watched his friends with a grin wide and bright as the bay and the Gulf and all the waters beyond.
He rubbed his thumb over the knobby rabbit’s foot. Yes, there were great bounties and blessings indeed. School would be out in just a few days with the whole summer stretching ahead like a brand-new world: days out on the Gulf with his grandpa and the Sweet Jodie, crabbing and scalloping with Chum, Ricky, and Jinx over in the bay, and at the end of the summer, the town would see
the loggerhead hatchlings safely out to sea.
There would be trials too. Gen had a long summer of physical therapy ahead of her. The doctors promised if she worked hard (and when had Genesis Beam not worked hard?), her legs would be as good as new. And Nate promised her that when they were, he’d teach her to ride a bike.
And then, just then, if anyone had asked, he’d have said he sure enough was the luckiest boy in all of Franklin County, and most likely all of Florida too.
THE END
Although I feel I have been extraordinarily lucky these past few years to be able to write stories and bring them into the world, it takes a lot more than just luck! As Nate discovered, what makes you truly lucky is the miracle of friendship and community.
First, I want to thank my lovely, tenacious agent, Alyssa Eisner Henkin, who has stuck by me through thick and through thin. Amen.
I am so lucky (and yes, blessed) to once again have Arthur A. Levine as my partner in crime on this journey. Many, many thanks to “Team Levine” for making this the best possible book it could be: Nicholas Thomas, Kate Hurley, Elizabeth Starr Baer, and Ellen Duda for her inspired design.
A boatload of heartfelt thanks to my community of early readers, Jean Reagan, Lora Koehler, Chris Graham, Lisa Actor, Miss Bettis, and Molly O’Neill, for giving me invaluable feedback. I hope I’ve done y’all proud!
My consultant on all things fishing was my stepbrother, Captain Cliff Cox, and his boat the Sweet Jodie. Thanks Captain!
As always, none of this would be possible without Todd, my lucky charm.
Finally, I want to thank my mother for giving me the gift of the sea. She taught me the magic of the Gulf of Mexico, and shared her passion for its many treasures and bounties. Mama, I have no doubt your spirit lives on in every porpoise smile, in every stroke of loggerhead flippers rowing their way to the shores of the Gulf.
Text copyright © 2015 by Bobbie Pyron
All rights reserved. Published by Arthur A. Levine Books, an imprint of Scholastic Inc., Publishers since 1920. SCHOLASTIC, the LANTERN LOGO, and associated logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Pyron, Bobbie, author.
Lucky strike / Bobbie Pyron.
pages cm
Summary: Nathaniel Harlow lives with his grandfather in a trailer park in Franklin County, Florida, and he has always been unlucky — but when he is struck by lightning on his eleventh birthday and survives, it seems like his luck starts to change.
ISBN 978-0-545-59217-8 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Lightning — Juvenile fiction. 2. Life change events — Juvenile fiction. 3. Fortune — Juvenile fiction. 4. Grandparent and child — Juvenile fiction. 5. Franklin County (Fla.) — Juvenile fiction. [1. Lightning — Fiction. 2. Luck — Fiction. 3. Grandparent and child — Fiction. 4. Franklin County (Fla.) — Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.P999Lu 2015
813.6 — dc23
2014013764
First edition, March 2015
Cover art and design by Ellen Duda
e-ISBN 978-0-545-59219-2
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher. For information regarding permission, write to Scholastic Inc., Attention: Permissions Department, 557 Broadway, New York, NY 10012.