I stared at the electric outlet. “How many volts did you get, Art?” I asked.
“You don’t want to know,” he said. He shuddered. “I was here for days.”
I looked at the refrigerators. “I take it you did the electricity thing second? After you lost a lot of luck?”
“Actually, I did it first, to make sure it worked. And then I did it afterwards, to cure myself of the lost luck.”
“Did you lose a lot of luck?”
Art looked me in the eyes. “I woke up with Walmart tags on my clothes.”
“Oh, the horror,” I said. But the truth was, it did shake me up. Not that I cared about clothes the way that Art did. I’d grown up with Walmart stuff, though I was lucky enough to get nicer things left on the door as hand-me-downs when my luck started to get really strong when I was a little older. But how much luck lost would it take before I got kicked out of St. James and sent home? It had been bad enough when I had my own luck, but if I had to go back to that without, I didn’t know if I could bear it.
“That’s why I had to make sure of the back-up plan to restore it, if I could.”
“You really think that this will work on anyone?” I asked. It suddenly struck me how powerful this information was. If he could really manipulate how much luck anyone had, it could change the whole world. It had been laughable, fringe type science before this, but now Art had the experimental proof that it was real. No one could deny it after this. In fact, governments would want this. Criminal organizations would want this. Art could make millions of dollars selling this. Billions of dollars.
“How can I know that? I’d have to tell someone in order to get official scientific trials going, and I haven’t done that yet. I don’t know if I ever want to do it. Do you see what I’m talking about now?”
I got a text on my cell, this one telling me that I had won a scholarship essay contest for an essay I had written for English class earlier this year. I’d entered it into the contest myself, because I figured in my situation you can never have too many scholarships for college, but it was a weird coincidence that the results had just come out. I had sort of assumed that I hadn’t won it, after all. Well, that was luck for you.
“Someone else might discover it,” I said.
“Yeah, they might,” said Art. “But they haven’t for the last two millennia of human existence, so I’m not terribly worried about that at the moment,” said Art.
Then I got a call from Rob. “I can’t talk long, Trudy. I just wanted to make sure you knew I loved you. I was thinking of you and I thought I would call for just a second, and then let you get back to your studying,” he said.
“Thanks,” I said. “I love you, too.”
“OK, well, bye. See you tomorrow.” He hung up.
I looked up at Art. “Hmm. Maybe I should lose just a little bit of this luck, go back to where I was before,” I said.
“Problem is, losing the luck can be difficult to control. Gaining luck can be, too. I mean, you can decide which you want, but not how much. Not at this stage in the development,” said Art. “I just haven’t had the time or the number of experimental subjects to get it down to a science the way that I’d want it to be.”
“So I could lose a lot more than I gained?” I asked.
He shrugged. “You might. Though I doubt it, since you are so lucky to begin with. I would think that would protect you. For me, the really bad luck sort of built on itself. The worse luck I had when I touched the bacteria, the more it affected me.”
So it sounded like I wasn’t in too much danger. “I’ll take the risk,” I said.
Art gestured to the refrigerator nearest us, which was not filled with old pizza and rotting lettuce, as I’d thought. Instead, it had filled with petri dishes. The stuff growing in each of them looked pretty funky. Who knew germs could be so colorful? And—uh—furry?
“What do I do?” I asked. “How do I choose which one to touch?”
“Any one will do.”
I reached my hand out, then pulled it back. “How long does it take before it works?” I asked.
“Well, it’s not as fast as the electricity, but you should feel some loss of luck within a couple of hours,” said Art.
“And I can reverse this if I want to?”
“Absolutely. Immediately, if you want,” said Art.
“You’ve done this?”
“I did it.”
“And you recovered your luck afterward?”
“Mostly,” said Art. He made a sharp movement with a hand. “Not because I couldn’t get it all back. Because I’m not sure I want to have all that much luck. I’m trying different amounts out to see what I really want. I’m not sure more luck really makes for a happier life. People without luck think that, but it’s not true. It’s like money, I guess. Sometimes, the more you have of it, the more you can argue about it.”
I was pretty surprised at Art saying something like this. It sounded deeper than I thought he was. I mean, I knew he was smart, but I didn’t necessarily think that meant depth. I thought he could memorize stuff and do well on tests. But this was life stuff.
It also made me think about what I had been like as a kid, before I knew I had luck. Before I knew what it was called, anyway. I had known that I could do dangerous things because I didn’t have to worry about accidents happening to me. My parents tried to warn me about things like touching a hot stove or sticking my tongue to an icy pole, but I never paid attention to them. I didn’t have to. Other people got hurt and learned from their mistakes. But me?
I didn’t have pain. I had never had a broken bone. Or a twisted muscle. I’d never fallen down and scraped my knee. I’d never broken a fingernail. I’d never gotten sick. I’d never gotten a bad grade on a test. Somehow it felt like I was missing something, a part of real life. But if I saw what it was like to live without luck, even for a few hours or a few days, I could see what life was like for my parents. It could make things better between us. Maybe.
I touched the petri dish with the black spider-like splotches on it. “Do I have to lick it or anything?”
“Nope. It’s done now. Your luck will be decreasing soon.”
“It doesn’t feel different,” I said.
“Trust me,” said Art. “It will work.”
“OK. But maybe I should touch a different one, just in case. I have a lot of luck, you know.”
“You don’t need to worry,” said Art. “It decreases your luck by percentage, not by a raw score.”
I shrugged and I backed up, but that was when I tripped over something. A crack in the floor. Bad luck.
I flailed, landing hard on the ground because I didn’t know how to land properly. I’d never fallen before.
When I heard the sound of my head thunking on the ground, I thought I couldn’t possibly survive that and that Art had killed me.
But I wasn’t dead because I felt the pain a moment later. That was when I started screaming. It was like I had stars shooting through my eyeballs, and my whole head was on fire. For someone who had never felt pain before, this was a pretty violent introduction to it. Maybe I should have gone for a slower transition.
Slowly, the pain dulled and I looked up at Art, embarrassed.
“The bacteria is working, anyway,” said Art wryly. “Your luck is definitely not what it used to be.”
“Oh, really?” I said faintly. I rubbed at the sore spot on my head gingerly. It didn’t feel like I’d broken my skull and I wasn’t bleeding, but it didn’t feel right. It was soft and tender.
“You know, you could do the electricity thing right now. Get all your luck back. Experiment over and all that,” said Art.
It was tempting. But this was interesting. And it was all in the name of science, right? “You get hurt, too?” I asked Art.
“Yes,” he said.
“How bad was it?”
He made an exaggerated, twisted face. “Horrible. I wanted to die.”
“Do people without luck have to deal wi
th pain like this all the time?” I asked. Maybe there was something to those books where people grew and changed because of dealing with pain.
“Worse,” said Art. “Remember, you still have a moderate amount of luck. You’re not really unlucky yet.”
“Just don’t tell Rob, all right?” I wanted to see what would happen between us. If luck had anything to do with us being in love. Would things go badly tomorrow for us? I could change it back as soon as I wanted, but it would be a good thing to know.
“I have no problem with keeping secrets,” said Art. “That’s how people in society survive. If we all knew the truth about each other, I think there would be a lot more murders.”
“So you’re saying lying keeps us from hurting each other.”
“That and luck,” said Art with a grin.
My cell rang again. Was it Rob again? “Hello?”
“Oh, Trudy. I’m so glad to hear your voice.” It was my mom.
I was astonished. “Mom?” I said. “Is there something wrong with Dad?” He had diabetes and I worried about him. Even if I didn’t go back to see him in Tennessee.
“No, nothing wrong, Trudy dear. The opposite, in fact. Your father and I are coming up to visit you. He happened to find out just a few minutes ago that he has a business conference is in the area and all the expenses are being paid by the company. We can stop in and see you, maybe even take you out to dinner on the company account. It’s a free visit, almost like your good luck has banished our bad luck. What do you think of that?”
It wasn’t my good luck banishing their bad luck. It was my good luck going bad.
“You don’t want to see us, do you?” said Mom. “That’s what’s going on, isn’t it?”
“No!” I said quickly. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to see them. It was that I was terrified of seeing them. And of anyone else at St. James seeing them. Or being around them. Or any number of other things. It would be embarrassing for me, but even worse for them. And all the luck in the world had never made it possible for me to really protect them.
“It’s all right, Trudy. I know you have a new life now. If you’d rather we didn’t step in to it, your father and I will understand. We’ll stay away. Just because we’re in the area doesn’t make you obliged to spend time with us.”
But then again, there was Art’s experiment. Maybe I could somehow get them more luck that way. It was the first time I’d had any hope that would actually work. “Mom, we can spend time together. It’s not a big deal. Maybe I can meet you at your hotel or something.”
“Oh, I couldn’t bear to have you go out of your way just to visit us, Trudy. No, we’ll come there so that the travel time is ours and you can do as much studying as you need to,” said Mom.
I stared at Art.
He shrugged.
“Uh—that’s not necessary, Mom.”
“Of course it is. We’ll be in and out so fast you will hardly know that we’re there. Except for the smoochy wet kisses on your face, that is.”
She loved me so much. She missed me. I could hear it in her voice. I knew that before. I could tell it in the letter she sent, but it was different over the phone. It hurt more.
Would I get in trouble if I tried to electrocute my parents without telling them why? I didn’t want them to get their hopes up. Or worse, tell me they wouldn’t take more luck, even if they could have it.
“Then I’ll call you with more details when we have them.”
“Sure, Mom,” I said. Mom hung up, and I had a flash of memory. The old trailer. Mom twisting the telephone cord around in her hand. Dad standing next to her, his head tucked over hers, his lips on her hair. I didn’t get to see them like that anymore. I’d done it to myself, though.
“Your parents?” asked Art.
I nodded thoughtfully.
“Now, that is bad luck. They’re coming to visit or something?”
“You don’t know anything about my parents,” I snapped at him. “Don’t presume to judge them before you’ve ever met them. Whether or not they have luck.”
Art put up his hands. “That’s not what I meant. Geez, Trudy. It’s not about whether your parents have luck or not. It’s any parents who come to St. James to visit any of us. We all hate it.”
But not for the same reasons at all.
“Look, my parents are coming tonight. Don’t tell Rob about that, either. I don’t want him to meet them.”
Or was it that I didn’t want them to meet him? I couldn’t tell who would be more hurt, my parents if I told them that Rob didn’t have time to see them or Rob if I told him my parents had come all the way to Vermont and I’d made sure they didn’t meet. But Rob couldn’t possibly understand what it was like for me to be with people who had no luck, how much it bothered me.
“Fine. I won’t say a word to Rob about them. But I hope they get here safely,” said Art. “Since you don’t have as much luck to help them now.”
With that cheerful thought to worry me, I nodded and told him I’d see him tomorrow at school. I could have gotten more luck now and then my mom would call me back and tell me that something had happened, that they couldn’t make it, after all, that the money wasn’t available. But I did want to see them, and maybe my not having luck was the only way it would ever work. That way I wouldn’t feel as bad around them and they wouldn’t feel as guilty around me.
“Call me when you want to come back. I’ll be here. I’m always here lately,” said Art.
I stared at him, realizing that he hadn’t been dating lately the way he used to last year. “You know, I’m surprised. And impressed. You’re not the way I thought you would be.”
He put a hand to his heart. “Look, don’t start thinking this is more than it is. I mean, I like you. As my best friend’s girlfriend. But it’s never going to be anything more than that.”
I frowned. “Art. You’re not Rob,” I said. Enough said.
“Yeah, well, good,” said Art. “Because I don’t need a girlfriend for this. I need a smart friend. I need an honest answer to the question I asked in the first place. What do I do with this discovery, Trudy? Do I sell it to the highest bidder? Call up the FBI and give it to them? Use it on myself to give me the luck to have whatever I want? Or destroy it and never speak of it again?”
“Why would you do that?”
“Because I think this might be really dangerous and I don’t want to be known as the person who ended human civilization,” said Art.
“Hmm, I suppose not. I’ll think about it, then.” And maybe try to convince him to bring Rob in on the experiment, and the decision, too.
I didn’t quite make it back to my dorm room before lights out was called, so I passed our dorm mother and waved to her. I couldn’t talk her out of marking me down as late, which was my first black mark ever at St. James. I almost wanted to celebrate that, because it meant that Art’s experiments were working, and that would mean that my parents had a real chance—and everyone else in the world who had been born without luck.
Suddenly, my window flapped in a strong gust of wind that hit only my corner of the dorm. It smashed the window and spewed glass everywhere.
I was cleaning it up and that was when my cell rang. I put my hand into my bag and got glass in it, and ended up cursing my parents out as they tried to tell me that they weren’t going to make it tonight.
“The car got a flat tire,” said my dad, sounding apologetic.
I was frustrated, but I told myself this was the way that normal people lived. They dealt with adversity. They learned patience. And also, they bled all over their favorite pair of white jeans. It would be a good learning opportunity. It wasn’t like it would last very long.
“So I should go to school tomorrow morning or are you going to be here by then?” I asked.
“I’m sure we won’t make it until the afternoon,” said Dad. “So go on to school. We’ll see you after, and Trudy, we’re so looking forward to it.”
“Me, too,” I said, and hung up. Wha
t to do now? Should I wipe off the blood? Suck on the wound? Shake my hand to get the blood off? I tried shaking and it hurt more. So then I went into the bathroom and washed my hand. It hurt more. I tried to look and see if there was any glass left in the cut, but I almost fainted when I did that, so I just hoped that there wasn’t.
In the morning, my hand was still throbbing. I wrapped it in a bandage and then put a glove on over it to hide it. I put the other glove on, too, to make it look like a fashion statement.
School was not going to be easy today. Seeing Rob was not going to be easy, either, especially when I hadn’t told him the truth about Art’s luck experiment.
Chapter 6: Rob
Through the night and in school on Tuesday, all I could think about was how I was going to get Art’s key without telling him I wanted it. Finally, we were at lunch and I was down to the wire. Laura needed the key in less than an hour and I still didn’t have it. All I could think about was that Art was wearing a pair of tight yellow pants that contrasted terribly with the orange tiles and general décor of the lunchroom.
Art loved those yellow pants, and thought they showed off his unique sense of style perfectly. I thought they were as terrible as the orange tiled and painted lunchroom itself. I suppose at some point in time that color orange must have been in style for decoration. But at this point, the only thing it did was make the food taste better in comparison. And no, school lunch at St. James Academy is not good. It’s probably lots better than most schools, but it’s still school lunch. The corn was still too sweet. The hamburger buns were stale. And the carrot sticks were rubbery.
Trudy and Art don’t talk much on any occasion, but they were really quiet today. It made me wonder what Art had done lately to annoy her.
“The soccer team is awfully lucky this year. Everyone who plays against them gets injured,” I said. “Not that it’s any different than last year. You’d think after a while that everyone would refuse to play us at all. Even in the Luck League.”
An Ideal Boyfriend Page 6