A Whole Lot of Lucky

by Danette Haworth

  Mom stretches her arms out and holds up Libby. “Uh-oh! Uh-oh! Someone needs a diaper change!” she says playfully. “It’s past your bedtime anyway.”

  Problem solved.

  I’m still grounded from my phone and Dad took the laptop out of my room. “Removing temptation,” he said as he carried it out. With Libby the entertainer gone, Alexis is quickly bored. She whips out her phone. Nikki checks a few things on hers, too. My sleepover is falling apart. I think of the games I listed—Light as a Feather, Bloody Mary, Penny Pitch—what was I thinking? Nikki and Alexis are too old, too cool for those kinds of games.

  I’ve got it! “What about ding-dong ditch?”

  Nikki cracks a grin. Alexis drops her shoulders and stares at me dead-on. “I haven’t played that since I was … a little sixth grader.”

  Oh, yeah. Like I really believe she said that by accident. The only reason I invited her was because Nikki invited her.

  Nikki stands up. She coaxes Alexis. “It’ll be fun. C’mon, it’s dark outside and no one will see us anyway.”

  I’m mortified as I realize I have to ask permission to go outside since it’s dark. “I’ll be right back,” I say. Dad’s not in the kitchen, so I go upstairs. Libby’s asleep in her crib and Mom and Dad are reading books on their bed.

  “Can we go for a walk around the neighborhood?” Technically, not a lie.

  Mom lays her book down. “It’s late.”

  “Just around the block. Please? Dad?”

  Dad sighs. He glances at the clock. “It is late.” He reads Mom’s expression, then my desperate face. “Can it hurt?” he asks Mom. “It’s almost summer.”

  Mom stares at him like she can’t believe he’s disagreeing with her orders. She shakes her head, raises her book, and mumbles something about discipline and structure.

  “Go ahead,” Dad says with a wink. “One time around the block and come right back, okay?”

  I shirk the guilt that tries to cover me and run downstairs, thrilled with my temporary freedom. Nikki and Alexis aren’t in the living room where I left them; they’re in the kitchen. A liter of soda is out on the counter along with a carton of eggs.

  “Change of plans,” Nikki says.

  “We’re eating?” I ask.

  Alexis sneers. She opens the carton and counts. “Nine left.” Her thin lips move like worms as she smiles. “We’re egging.”

  I gasp, which gives her a sharp laugh. She cocks her head and asks, “Where does Emily DeCamp live?”

  Chapter 28

  Nikki and Alexis crush the perfect green Emily DeCamp grass under their feet as we hide behind her mother’s van. The porch is a still life of wicker furniture. Emily’s window, the window from which the notes of her flute drop like soft petals, is dark with sleep.

  I stare at the house where I was light as a feather and stiff as a board and laughing all night. “I don’t think we should do this,” I say. We could change our minds right now. We could turn around, jog back to my house, and stick the eggs in the fridge where they belong.

  Alexis turns slit eyes on me. “Nikki doesn’t think it was your fault she got in trouble. But I’d be mad at you if I were her.”

  “Shut up,” Nikki says. Her eyes radiate with daring and excitement.

  She slips to the corner of the van and motions for us to come over. Laying down the carton, she lifts the lid. The ammo is ready.

  Alexis bends for an egg, but Nikki stops her.

  “Hailee throws the first one,” Nikki says.

  My heart beats in my throat. Blood whooshes to my feet, and a nervous, shaky feeling flows in its place. Nikki holds out a smooth white egg. I search her face for some way out, but her eyes spark like fireworks.

  “Emily got us both in trouble. Come on,” she says. She bobs the egg in front of me. “Eggs are good for you.”

  Alexis swipes two eggs and pitches them at the house. The night air cracks with egg yolks. My stomach drops but Nikki and Alexis laugh, grab more eggs, and hurl them. Nikki wraps my hand around one, but keeps up her own attack. A light comes on in the back—Mrs. DeCamp.

  “Hurry!” Alexis urges. Her arm is an egg-throwing machine gun.

  Nikki sees me standing, not throwing. She grabs my arm and launches it like a catapult. My egg arcs high in the air. It spins like a football and shatters against Emily’s window.

  “Run!” Alexis jackrabbits down the street.

  My leaden feet don’t move. My shameful eyes stay on Emily’s window.

  Nikki shoves me into action. We sprint down the street. I rocket past her, leap over a split-rail fence, and dart through shadows all the way to my own back porch.

  All three of us gasp for breath, Alexis laughing between gasps and Nikki saying, “That was great!”

  Their eyes are wide and bright under the porch light; energy beams from their bodies like sound waves. They’re jazzed, pumped-up, happy. Alexis keeps breaking up as she describes the egg throwing.

  Tonight, I’ll pray for rain to wash Emily’s house so the DeCamps will never know what happened. Tomorrow, I’ll put one of my own dollars in Mom’s purse for the eggs. On Monday, I will be extra nice to Emily. If I do all that, it will erase tonight.

  Alexis is still laughing.

  “We have to go in now,” I say. I open the back door and hold it.

  “Got any more eggs?” Alexis cackles as she passes through.

  I close the door behind Nikki and myself. We head upstairs, and I let Mom and Dad know we’re back. I’m quick about it, because the guilty feeling I have is so strong, it’s like another person standing behind me, ready to pop out.

  I pad into Libby’s room and peer into her crib. Her sleeping face is innocent. She breathes easily. Her pajamas are white and decorated with green and pink outlines of elephants.

  I wish I could stay in here all night.

  Chapter 29

  “Did you enjoy your party?” Mom asks Saturday after Nikki and Alexis have left. We stand by the front door, having just seen them off. “Nikki’s mother is very pretty…. She’s different from how I thought she’d be.”

  I wait to hear the end of that.

  Since I don’t say anything, Mom goes, “She just seemed down-to-earth, that’s all. I liked her.”

  I’m glad Mom thought nice things about Mrs. Simms, and I know she wants to hear all about how fantastic she thinks the sleepover probably was, but I can’t even remember the good parts to tell her. Instead, I say I’m sick and stay in for the rest of the weekend. My fingers want so badly to dial Amanda’s number and whisper the whole story to her, but I know she doesn’t want a phone call from me. Probably she would think it serves me right to feel the way I do, heavy with a stomach full of rotten eggs.

  I dread Monday, but it comes anyway. It’s easy to avoid Emily during business tech, since we don’t sit by each other anymore, but at lunch, I slide my hair forward, unable to bring myself to look at her.

  You know how they say the crook always returns to the scene of the crime? Well, if you ever become a criminal, I can tell you right now you should stay as far away as you can. Cynthia natters on, but Emily’s quiet. My conscience pecks at my soul, saying, Tell her what you did! Tell her what you did! It sounds like a parrot. I cram my peanut butter sandwich into my mouth; it’s the only way to keep words of confession from leaping off my tongue.

  I peek at Emily, and her eyes flick away. I slide my Rice Krispies bar across the table, but she ignores it.

  Cynthia makes a move for the treat. “Can I have it?”

  I nod. For once, I’m glad Cynthia talks with her mouth open because her chatter makes this lunch period feel almost normal.

  Emily didn’t take my dessert, but I promised myself I would be extra nice to her to make up for the egg-throwing. When we’re done eating, I try to take her empty milk carton to throw it out for her.

  Her hand moves lightning fast, clutching the plastic container with superhuman strength.

  “Oh, I’ll get it for you,” I say
in my best waitress voice. “I’ve got to throw out my stuff anyway.”

  Pulling the carton closer to her side of the table, she picks at her raisins without eating them.

  Cynthia offers me her used-up hot lunch tray, gross, half-eaten chicken strips with ketchup bloodying the stumps. I tell her to take care of it herself, then I clear my stuff, throw out my trash, and say good-bye as the bell rings. Emily turns her head in the opposite direction.

  I don’t know how I’m supposed to do good deeds for her when she’s in such a weird mood.

  * * *

  In history, Mrs. Fuller talks about the St. Augustine field trip. We are to divide ourselves into groups of three or four, and a chaperone will be assigned to each group. She passes out questionnaires that we all have to fill out to show we’ve visited the assigned places. I try to become invisible as my classmates’ happy voices chirp in the air, shouting for this person or that person to be in their group.

  “Hailee!” Nikki shouts. She waves the sign-up sheet. “I’ve got you!”

  My stomach churns.

  After class, Nikki waits for me as I pick up my pencil, slide it into the outside pouch of my backpack. I pick up the St. Augustine papers and straighten them by knocking the edges against my desk. I smooth the bent corners of my workbook; I wish I’d been more careful with it because it looks damaged now.

  Nikki doesn’t notice how long I’m taking. Or maybe she doesn’t mind. I sling my backpack on and listen as she tells me which boutiques she wants to show me in St. Augustine.

  Why do you like me? I want to ask her. Why are we friends?

  Outside, Alexis sidles up to Nikki’s other side. She groans when Nikki mentions the field trip. “It’s too hot,” Alexis says. “I hate all those old buildings. We’ve already seen them, anyway.”

  I haven’t. Nikki stops under the shade of an oak. She brings up the cool shops, but Alexis interrupts her by talking about the egg throwing as if it were an Olympic event and she won the gold medal.

  I grab a low branch, hoist myself up, and perch amid the leaves.

  “What are you doing?” Alexis’s voice is a whine in my ears. Her face scrunches like it did when Libby pooped in her diaper.

  This tree has good branches; I move up like I’m climbing a ladder.

  Alexis leans toward Nikki. “Does she think she’s a gorilla?”

  I sit and stare down at them through the twigs. Nikki watches me. Alexis huffs like a bull and shrugs her shoulders. Their parts cut white lines through their heads.

  “What do you see up there?” Nikki calls.

  “Alexis’s dandruff.”

  “I don’t have dandruff!” She glides one hand over her hair.

  I drop an acorn on her.

  “Hey!”

  The next one hits her forehead.

  Almost all of her straight white teeth show as she curls her lips back like a chimpanzee. “Stop it!”

  “Nine left,” I say and shoot another one.

  She raises her backpack over her head. “Come on,” she says to Nikki, who tilts her face up at me. “Let’s go.”

  I toss an acorn to Nikki and she catches it.

  I stare at her and she stares at me, and then I grip the branch, turn, and climb down, twisted sprigs snagging my backpack and scratching my legs. Swinging off the bottom branch, I nail my landing and raise my eyebrows. “Should we go now?”

  “Hang on,” Nikki says. She raises a hand to me and I flinch, but all she does is brush off the top of my hair. A leaf flutters down beside me. “Let’s go.”

  Alexis fiddles with her collar, flicking off acorns that aren’t even there. To me, she says, “You’re so weird.”

  “Shut up,” Nikki says. It’s the same voice she used on Jordan.

  * * *

  My head is swollen with thoughts of this past weekend and the uncomfortable way I felt at school. When I get home, my brain is bigger and heavier than my body. I lay my head on the table as Mom brings a snack along with her coffee.

  “Mom?” I don’t open my eyes. “What if you accidentally hurt someone and you didn’t mean to and it wasn’t your fault?”

  I sense her lean forward with attention. “Someone got hurt?”

  “Not like a broken leg or anything. But—”

  “Hurt their feelings?”

  I think about that. “No, not their feelings, just … never mind.” There’s no way I can tell her about the eggs.

  She tries to pry more information out of me, but I put on the tired act so well she finally leaves me alone. “Maybe some fresh air would perk you up,” she says. “You’ve been indoors ever since your party.”

  I trudge outside. My bike feels like too much work so I drag my feet along. I have to look down, the sun is so bright. My hair follicles burn like hot little pins in my head, and I slog through the humidity as if it’s quicksand. This is not fresh air. I feel worse than before and I need relief.

  I press Emily DeCamp’s doorbell. As I wait, I slide my eyes left and right, looking for egg evidence, but it’s all been washed away.

  After a few moments, Emily cracks open the door, just a slice. A dull surprise blooms on her face, but she doesn’t say anything.

  “Hi,” I say.

  She waits.

  I shift from foot to foot and shrug. “Just thought I’d come over and visit.”

  She presses her face against the narrow opening she’s allowed. “I saw you.”

  Alarm streaks through my body. “What?”

  Shaking her hair off her face, she repeats herself. “I saw you throwing eggs at my house with Nikki and Alexis.” She says this flatly, in a monotone, a straight charcoal-colored line from her to me.

  I don’t know how to react. It would be easier if she were angry or laughing it off or something that would tell me what I should do next. Nikki launched my arm. That’s the truth.

  “It wasn’t—” But I cut myself off. It was my fault. It was my eggs, my guests, and my party. I didn’t do anything to stop it.

  “I’m sorry,” I say.

  Her eyes well up.

  Mine water in response. “I am so sorry.”

  “I don’t know if I can forgive you right now.” A tear slips under her glasses and she quietly shuts the door on me.

  * * *

  The next day, I hide by the cafeteria loading dock during lunch. As we head into history class, Nikki asks me about pitching those acorns.

  “I don’t know.” Which isn’t true. I do know; I just don’t want to tell her.

  She glances down, then leans her head and says, “Sometimes, I go into my mother’s room and break her cigarettes. Then I put them back in the pack.”

  “Why?”

  “I feel mad at her a lot.”

  “How come?”

  “I don’t know,” Nikki says. I picture her sneaking into her mom’s room, padding across the floor so she doesn’t make a sound. Shadows slide over the walls. Even though blinds hung in every downstairs window I saw, in my version, long, sheer drapes billow mysteriously, carried by a wind that whistles through the house. Nikki pulls each slender white cigarette from the box and snaps it in half, carefully sticking each one back so her mom can’t tell they’re broken.

  She’s not so much older than I am.

  I say, “I know what you mean.” Then I take a chance. “I didn’t like egging Emily’s house.”

  She nods, the slow kind of nodding that’s loaded with thoughts. “Sorry about that.”

  A kind of appreciation passes between us. My brain can’t put words to it, but my heart understands it completely. I take my seat. I’m ready for this day to be over. If I were the sun, I’d call it a night.

  Here’s how my week goes: Each day I eat lunch alone by the stinky Dumpsters. I do all my homework and all my chores without being asked, mainly because Amanda and Emily are mad at me and I can’t text or get on Facebook. I take the Silver Flash out for a spin, but I have to ride in the opposite direction, away from Emily’s house and nowhere
near Amanda’s.

  Some kid blows out his trumpet lessons; the notes bleat loudly, so off-key, it would be a good deed to tell him he would probably make a really good accountant or librarian or some other quiet job.

  Bright red roses splash against a deep green lawn. Their powdery smell says, It’s a pretty day, but they lie because all roses have thorns. Why did God make something beautiful that can also prick your finger and make you bleed? Do you ever wonder about stuff like that? I do. Then I start thinking about why did he make cactuses prickly when desert animals need the water inside. Why do cherries have pits—you could choke on those, you know. And that would be the pits.

  If I had my phone and could post that, I would add LOL.

  Thursday, Mrs. Fuller goes over the field trip again. Some of the girls chatter about the cool shops and the stuff they’ve bought there before. My group will be chaperoned by Mrs. Grant, Gia’s mother.

  Mom’s good mood when I get home makes me feel even worse. I push away my snack and she doesn’t even notice.

  “You aren’t the only person in a new school,” she says brightly, handing just-woke-up Libby her sippy cup. Mom waves an envelope. “I’ve been accepted to the community college!”

  I snap straight up. “College? Who’s going to be here when I get home? Who’s going to cook supper?” My baby sister makes noises, too, so I do the asking for her. “Who’s going to take care of Libby?”

  “Daddy will. You know he sets his own hours.” Mom’s smile radiates a hundred watts. “I’m going to college!”

  “Why?” Why would a grown woman volunteer to go to school?

  “Hailee,” Mom starts, “I want to make something of myself.”

  “But you’re a mom. You don’t need to go to college.” Her face gets all serious. “Yes, I do. I do need to go to college.”

  “But why?”

  “Because”—she softly brushes my cheek with her fingertips—“I need to.”

  All my life, when I came home from school, my mom was there. Now I’ll have no one. I really am like Opal now, except no dog to make me feel better and no old lady friend who lets me have a party at her house.