The Higher Power of Lucky

by Susan Patron

  Never before had Lucky realized that Lincoln’s knot-tying brain secretions gave him such a special way of seeing. She had thought he tied knots for practical reasons, in case there was ever a boat that needed to be tied to a dock, or a swing to be hung from a tree. Now she knew that Lincoln was really an artist, who could see the heart of a knot.

  Lucky wished she were an artist too, and could organize all the complicated strands of her life—the urn she still had, the strange crematory man, Brigitte and Miles, HMS Beagle and Short Sammy, the Captain and the anonymous people and Dot and even Lincoln himself, and weave them into a beautiful neat ten-strand knot.

  11. Smokers Anonymous

  Lucky had had the day off on Saturday because there was no twelve-step meeting that day. So on Sunday afternoon, she picked up cigarette butts and other trash left over from Friday’s Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. She collected plenty of butts, because the ex-drinkers stood around talking and smoking before their meeting. The ashtrays were big coffee cans and flowerpots filled with sand—and they were always loaded with butts that the ex-smokers didn’t want to see or smell before their meeting.

  Lucky went around back to the Dumpster and stored her broom and rake against it. She heard someone moving chairs inside the museum, so she eased herself quietly into her lawn chair to listen.

  The best part of the meetings came after they were done reading from a book called Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions. Even though that part was a little bit boring, Lucky listened carefully for information about how to find your Higher Power. Then came the part where people told their most interesting and horrifying stories of how they hit rock bottom.

  First it was the Captain’s turn. Before he got the part-time mail-sorting job at the post office, he was an airline pilot who had the calm, in-charge voice of a TV airline pilot, so Lucky recognized it easily. He said how he was addicted so bad to cigarettes that he even smoked in the shower. He smoked from the first moment he opened his eyes in the morning until he fell asleep at night. He smoked while he ate. He even burned a big hole in his bride’s wedding dress the day they got married.

  The story was excellent so far. Then the Captain told about how his wife gave him a choice: quit smoking or she would divorce him.

  “I told her, how about I switch to low tar, filtered,” said the Captain. “I thought it was a pretty big sacrifice for a Camel smoker. She didn’t agree and she walked out. That was almost rock bottom. I remember thinking, ‘My wife just left me! I can’t quit smoking now!’”

  People laughed and clapped.

  The Captain went on. “But then I came to a meeting and started working the twelve steps. I found my Higher Power. And here I am.”

  Lucky’s enzymes started churning. She leaned forward to listen carefully. Maybe the Captain would explain exactly how he found his Higher Power and also where, which would be extremely helpful. So far, Lucky hadn’t found a trace of her Higher Power, though she tried hard to be alert for the slightest hint of it.

  Having a Higher Power could help a person know what to do about the problem of a Guardian who, every time it got too hot, or there was French music or a snake in the dryer, seemed like she might quit and go back home to France.

  Someone cleared her throat and shouted, “I’m Mildred. I choose not to smoke.”

  Lucky almost tipped over in her chair. It was Mrs. Prender, Miles’s grandma. Lucky had never heard her talk at any of the meetings.

  Mrs. Prender went on, “I was in the hospital with quadruple pneumonia. After the doc told me I’d die if I didn’t quit smoking, I snuck out the back and lit a cigarette. I coughed so hard I broke a rib, so I had to quit for a while until they let me go home. Next day I dropped a cigarette on the couch and set it on fire, and then I set my hair on fire. I called the fire department and went outside to wait. Well, it was raining, so I stood there in the road bawling and trying to smoke a sopping-wet cigarette. But that wasn’t rock bottom.”

  Mrs. Prender’s story, Lucky decided, was even better than the Captain’s.

  “It was my grown daughter. I knew she’d been sneaking cigarettes since she was a girl, but I never done nothing about it. Figured, what could I say, a smoker myself. Couple years ago I get a call from the police in L.A., can I come pick up her little boy. She’s been arrested for selling dope.”

  Lucky frowned. The little boy had to be Miles. But Miles’s mother was supposed to be in Florida, nursing her sick friend.

  Mrs. Prender went on. “I go on down to L.A. for my grandson. My daughter gets a long jail sentence. So I figure—this is it. I’m not bringing up another kid with myself setting a bad example.” Mrs. Prender blew her nose loudly. “Once I decided to quit, it was like turning off a light switch. I just did it. That was almost two years ago.”

  Lucky had the same jolting feeling as when you’re in a big hurry to pee and you pull down your pants fast and back up to the toilet without looking—but some man or boy before you has forgotten to put the seat down. So your bottom, which is expecting the usual nicely shaped plastic toilet seat, instead lands shocked on the thin rim of the toilet bowl, which is quite a lot colder and lower. Your bottom gets a panic of bad surprise. That was the same thump-on-the-heart shock Lucky got finding out that Miles’s mother was in jail.

  12. Parsley

  After dinner, Lucky stood at the sink washing the dishes. She was still thinking a little bit about Mrs. Prender, but mostly about parsley. Before Brigitte came to Hard Pan, Lucky had never imagined that parsley could be so important. Usually if she even noticed it, it was because of being in a fancy place like Smithy’s Family Restaurant in Sierra City, where a hamburger came on a plate with a frizz of parsley for decoration.

  You noticed Smithy’s fanciness right away because of how the waitress, Lulu, neatly rolled up everyone’s fork-knife-spoon set in its paper napkin, like a little present. This made you feel especially welcomed. Another excellent quality of Smithy’s was that, if you asked her, Lulu would bring two extra lemon wedges for your fish sticks at no extra charge, on a tiny plate especially made for that type of delicacy. Some people’s tiny plates had olives speared by toothpicks with cellophane ruffles. Or the sprig of parsley with your burger, which Smithy’s Family Restaurant probably realized wasn’t necessary, the way ketchup was, but which gave a certain elegance. Lucky noticed that most people in Smithy’s didn’t actually eat their parsley—it was there just for the fanciness of making a pretty green decoration and also because it looked healthy and made health-conscious people not worry so much about the bad cholesterol teeming around in their juicy hamburger.

  To Brigitte parsley was essential, but not in the same way as at Smithy’s. She chopped it into tiny bits and sprinkled it over practically everything, including food that regular people don’t even realize goes with parsley. She fanned it over cucumbers, noodle soup, beans, and garlic toast. She added it to gravy, eggs, melted butter dip, and especially to free Government food. And deep down Lucky had to admit that it gave everything a cleanness and an herb-ness, without being show-offish or making you think, Oh, parsley again.

  Since Brigitte was so crazy about parsley, Lucky should not have been surprised that in France there is a special little hand grinder for it, where you stuff the parsley into a funnel and turn a handle and presto, perfect tiny fresh flakes come out underneath. You didn’t need a knife or cutting board or anything—you could just go right up to the dish and turn the handle—no fuss, no muss. Of course, Brigitte’s old mother had sent her a parsley grinder right off the bat when Brigitte told her how much she missed having one. And Brigitte had cried and acted like it was the best present she ever got in the world.

  It was the parsley grinder’s fault that Lucky hit rock bottom on Sunday after she came home from the Smokers Anonymous meeting. Brigitte made melted-cheese-and-sliced-tomato open-faced sandwiches with flecks of parsley on top for dinner. Lucky ate only half of hers because she wasn’t too hungry, and she let Brigitte think this was because of the heat
, instead of because of Short Sammy’s Fritos-and-chili. But Lucky did have room for a piece of clafouti, which is a pancake-ish type of pie with fruit in it—this one had Government Surplus canned apricots, but you couldn’t tell they weren’t regular canned apricots.

  It was the parsley grinder’s fault, because the only thing Lucky did was to clean it in her usual thorough way after dinner. While she was at the sink, Miles came by—making screeching tire sounds—to forage for cookies. Brigitte ruffled his hair and said he could have a piece of clafouti. As she washed the grinder, Lucky bent one of the little spokes a teeny bit. She did it completely one hundred percent by accident and didn’t even realize.

  But when she put the two clean parts together, snapping the spokes back into the funnel, she discovered that the handle wouldn’t turn.

  She showed Brigitte.

  Brigitte said, “Oh, la vache,” which means, as Lucky had learned, “Oh, the cow.” But she said it the way you would say, “Oh, what a pain,” or “Oh, good grief.” It was never really about cows whatsoever when Brigitte said, “Oh, la vache.”

  Brigitte tried to bend the spoke back to its normal position. She made a pfff sound of being frustrated.

  Miles swallowed a mouthful of clafouti and said, “You should get Dot to fix that parsley thing. She has lots of pliers and little jewelry tools.”

  “Wait a sec,” Lucky said. “Let me try first.” She got a table knife and very carefully wedged the spoke back in place. But she bent the next spoke in another wrong direction.

  Brigitte sighed and went to the phone. “’Allo, Dot?” she said when she’d dialed. You mostly didn’t need a phone book in Hard Pan because everybody’s phone number began with the same first three numbers, so you only had to remember the other four. Dot’s were 9876—easy. “Can we come over with a little thing to fix? We need to borrow those pliers with the tiny end.”

  Lucky and Miles watched Brigitte talk. She used one hand to hold the phone and the other to show the tapering ends of the pliers, even though Dot couldn’t see her doing it. “You are not too busy?” Brigitte said to Dot. “Okay, yes, right now.” She hung up.

  “Lucky, I am going to wrap some clafouti to take to Dot. Can you look for the keys of the Jeep—I think on my desk. Miles, we drop you home on the way.” As Lucky went to Brigitte’s bedroom trailer, Miles began making screeching tire noises again.

  The keys were not on the table. Lucky looked all around the room. “I can’t find them,” she called to Brigitte.

  “Look in the drawer,” Brigitte called back.

  Lucky opened the drawer. Scissors, a tape measure, stamps, pencils, rubber bands. No keys. She closed the drawer and noticed Brigitte’s little suitcase on a chair beside the table. It was closed, but the lid wasn’t zipped.

  “Never mind, Lucky!” Brigitte shouted. “I find them in here!”

  Lucky had a bad feeling about that suitcase, which had always been stored at the back of Brigitte’s closet.

  “Lucky, are you coming to Dot’s?”

  Lucky stared at the suitcase. “No,” she called, backing away from it. She went to the kitchen doorway. “I’ll stay here and…work more on my ant report.”

  “You should anyway get ready for bed,” Brigitte said. “School tomorrow. I come back soon.”

  Miles tire-screeched all the way to the Jeep.

  Lucky went straight back to the suitcase. It was a bit bigger and deeper than a laptop carrier. Brigitte had come all the way from France with that one small case, thinking she was staying only a short time—until Lucky could be placed in a foster home. Probably she brought just a change of clothes. Now she had plenty of cotton surgical outfits from the thrift shop, which Lucky knew she liked because they were loose-fitting and cool, and because Brigitte said they made her feel Californian. Plus she had the Jeep and the three trailers and the computer that Lucky’s father had given her. Plus she had Lucky.

  This was the first time Lucky had seen the suitcase in two years.

  Lucky lifted the lid. There were no clothes in it. Only a stack of papers, and, on top, something very precious that was usually kept in a safe-deposit box at the bank in Sierra City.

  Brigitte’s passport.

  Lucky didn’t touch it or look at the other papers. Usually she would have examined them all very thoroughly. But the passport was enough. The only reason people need a passport is when they travel from one country to another country. Now she realized what was going on.

  Lucky trudged back to the kitchen trailer. She suddenly understood that she’d been doing everything backward. She’d thought you looked for your Higher Power and when you found it you got special knowledge—special insight—about how the world works, and why people die, and how to keep bad things from happening.

  But now she knew that wasn’t the right order of things. Over and over at the anonymous meetings she’d heard people tell how their situation had gotten worse and worse and worse until they’d hit rock bottom. Only after they’d hit rock bottom did they get control of their lives. And then they found their Higher Power.

  Another part of finding your Higher Power was to do a fearless and searching moral inventory of yourself. But Lucky was too mad for a fearless and searching moral inventory. She was too hopeless. She’d do it later. Right now she had proof that Brigitte was going back to France.

  That put Lucky at rock bottom.

  The anonymous people struggled with the next step after rock bottom, the getting-control-of-your-

  life step. Lucky pounded the Formica table with both fists, which made HMS Beagle leap to her feet and look at Lucky worriedly. It’s almost impossible to get control of your life when you’re only ten. It’s other people, adults, who have control of your life, because they can abandon you.

  They can die, like Lucky’s mother.

  They can decide they don’t even want you, like Lucky’s father.

  And they can return to France as suddenly and easily as they left it, like Brigitte. And even if you carry a survival kit around with you at all times, it won’t guarantee you’ll survive. No kit in the world can protect you from all the possible bad things.

  “But don’t give up hope,” Lucky said to HMS Beagle in a calming voice, because she didn’t want her dog to worry. HMS Beagle looked a little reassured and she sat, but she still watched Lucky to see what was going to happen.

  “I have an idea,” Lucky told her slowly, thinking her thoughts from the bottom of her deep, rock-bottom pit. “I have an idea of something we can do to take control of our lives. It’s kind of scary. We can run away.” Lucky peered intently at HMS Beagle to see if she was willing.

  HMS Beagle was.

  13. Bisous

  Because Brigitte and her mother were always sending each other bisous, which means kisses, when they talked on the phone, Lucky figured that French people kiss more than regular people.

  One thing Brigitte always did before Lucky went to bed was she came into Lucky’s canned-ham trailer and sat on the narrow bed along the wall, and Lucky sat on her lap the same way you would sit on a chair. Brigitte hugged her strongly from behind and put her cheek against Lucky’s cheek, and when she talked her chin poked Lucky’s shoulder.

  Even though it was babyish to sit on anyone’s lap, Lucky was okay with being wrapped privately in Brigitte’s arms. She liked having her face beside Brigitte’s and smelling the clean-hair smell of her. At those times, she knew there were parts to the job of Guardian that Brigitte liked a lot, and hugging Lucky was one of them, and that made Lucky’s heart fill up with molecules of hope and pump them all through her veins.

  So that night, after Brigitte came home with her good-as-new parsley grinder, Lucky brushed her teeth, put on her short summer nightie, and waited. But Brigitte did not come. Lucky went into the kitchen trailer.

  Brigitte sat cross-legged at the Formica table, one hand under her chin, the other clicking the mouse. A booklet was propped up next to the laptop. Lucky stuck her head into the tiny freezer, wh
ich contained two miniature ice cube trays, a Tupperware bowl full of more ice cubes, and a small plate of frozen grapes. She said, “I’m ready for bed now.”

  Without turning her head, Brigitte said, “Lucky, please close the door of the freezer. I am following my lesson.”

  “What lesson?” asked Lucky, thinking how odd it was to study after you finished school. Her report on The Life Cycle of the Ant was finished and ready to be turned in tomorrow, although the glued ants on the last page would not get a smiley face from Ms. McBeam for neatness. She grabbed an ice cube from the Tupperware bowl, took a deep breath of cold air, and closed the freezer.

  “Lucky, ma puce,” said Brigitte, peering at the screen, then at the booklet. “You must allow me to finish this without an interruption.”

  “Why do you call me your flea, anyway?” Lucky said, rubbing the ice cube over her forehead and cheeks. “Is it because I bite you and suck your blood, or what?”

  “Oh, la-la, la-LA, la-LA, la-LA!” When Brigitte was a little bit upset, like the time Lucky accidentally squeezed most of the French mustard out of the tube, she clicked her tongue and said, “Oh, la-la.” When she was frustrated, like the time Lucky spilled dry Jell-O on the floor and a trillion ants came inside during the night, Brigitte said, “Oh, la-la, la-LA, la-LA!” And when she was pretty mad, like when the monthly check came late, Brigitte said, “Oh, la-la, la-LA, la-LA, la-LA!”

  Lucky continued, even though the four la-LAs made her nervous. “Is it because I bother you and make you itch? Do I give you bumps on your skin?” Rubbing the back of her neck with ice, Lucky moved toward Brigitte.