Gimme a Call

by Sarah Mlynowski

  She adjusts her glasses. “I don’t want to do it by myself. It’s not a big deal. I don’t really care if we do it, I swear. It’s so not a me thing to do.”

  Ahhhh! Now what? She has to do it! She loves it! She’s good at it! It is a her thing to do; she just doesn’t know it yet. But how am I going to be able to juggle all these activities plus keep up with my schoolwork? I sigh. “No, we’ll do it.” I sling my arm through hers. “It’ll be fun.”

  She shrugs again. “Whatever you want, Dev. It’s really not a big deal to me.”

  Maybe not. But one day it will be.

  chapter twenty-five

  Thursday, May 29 Senior Year

  I stay in my seat long after I hang up with her, looking at the yearbook statements. I submitted mine in March. It was basically an ode to Bryan.

  Vampire Halloween, bowling, the park. It actually said Vampr Hlwn, bwling, the prk. You only have a few hundred characters, so you have to abbreviate.

  How did I end it? IwlLOVEu4evr.

  I flip to my page in the proofs. Instead of reflecting memories with Bryan, it says KF, TH&JC:LUVUBFFE and then lists all kinds of new things. Things like Bblgumdoesnotgoinhair, Itnightmoviemrthon, 1littlebluelie, RUkidding? Myfeetrkillinme.

  I have no idea what I meant. And I never will.

  I’m still feeling down when I get home. Until I see it.

  Congratulations! You’ve been accepted to UCLA!

  Holy SAT score. She did it. She did it!

  I’d pat her on the back, but since I can’t, I pat myself instead. Which is kind of the same thing. I call her right away. “You did it, Ms. Frosh. We’re going to UCLA.”

  “No way!” she squeals.

  “Way.”

  “I guess it’s a good thing I didn’t drop the play. I’m here right now, actually. At rehearsal. I can’t talk long. They want us to pay attention even though we’re not doing anything. It’s kind of annoying.”

  “Well, whatever you did, it worked. The acceptance is smack in the center of my bulletin board, looking gorgeous. UCLA, here I come. Wait a sec.” Uh-oh.

  “What? Did it change?”

  “No, it’s still there.” I rummage through the other papers on my board. I find a pile of college stuff and go through it too. “It’s just that there isn’t anything about a scholarship.”

  “But we didn’t get a scholarship to Tufts either, did we?”

  “No. We didn’t. But … we need one. How else are we going to afford it with Dad out of work? I guess we can get a loan. But then I’ll have to spend the rest of my life paying it back.”

  “Lot-te-ry! Lot-te-ry! Lot-te-ry!”

  “Frosh, no. You’re just going to have to work harder.”

  “Are you kidding me?” she screams. “I can’t work any harder. It’s physically impossible!”

  She so belongs in the play. Such a drama queen. “No need to get hysterical,” I say. “We can talk about this later. I’m sure there’s a way to get a scholarship. Maybe if you study a bit more, or join another team—”

  She groans. “Why don’t you do something for a change? Like give me the lottery numbers! I’m tired!”

  “My job is to help you!”

  “Okay, if you don’t want to do the lottery, let’s just invest in something. You can tell me what the good stocks are. Then we don’t have to worry about paying for college at all. Yeah. We can just buy a college and then go there.”

  I roll my eyes. “I don’t think UCLA is for sale.”

  “But we can still buy stocks! You can tell me what’s going to be hot, and presto, college tuition. And—”

  She’s drowned out by a very off-key group of students singing: “Ever as before, ever just as sure …”

  “Can you go somewhere quieter? I can’t hear you.”

  “Yes, I could go home. How about that?”

  I sit down on the corner of my bed. “Can’t you just sneak into the hallway?”

  “Tale as old as time—”

  She sighs. “One sec. I’m on the move. Okay. Where was I? Right, stock buying.”

  “Sounds a little bit like insider trading,” I tell her. “I don’t think it’s legal, never mind ethical.”

  “It’s wrong to give someone else tips. But not to give yourself tips, right?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “We should do it! We can make a million! Then we don’t even have to go to college.”

  She is so immature. “Of course we have to go to college. It’s not just about getting a job afterward; it’s about learning. And the experience.” I’m reminded of my grad statement and how little of it I understand. When I get to UCLA, I’m going to make sure to remember everything. “Maybe we could consider buying shares in a company. A company that’s going to be worth a gazillion dollars by the time you’re my age. Except—”

  “What? I love the plan. Don’t ruin the plan. I can help. I’m an economics genius, you know.”

  I roll my eyes. “What are we investing exactly? We have no money.”

  “Oh. Right. That is a problem.”

  “Maybe you should join the Junior Traders Club,” I tell her.

  “No,” she says desperately. “No more clubs. Can’t I ask Mom or Dad? Do they know anything about stocks?”

  I wish. “If they knew anything about stocks, we wouldn’t be in this situation now, would we?”

  “We need to be more creative. Maybe I should invent something before it comes out! Like the Internet!”

  I giggle. “Wouldn’t you feel bad stealing someone’s invention?”

  “I guess so,” she admits. “Then back to my original suggestion … the lottery! Think about it. It’s a victimless crime. You get to go to college. It won’t matter that Dad gets laid off. Mom won’t have to work either—unless she wants to.”

  “But what about the risks? What about Karin’s upcoming boob job?”

  “What about Tash’s future awesomeness?”

  She does have a point. “They must keep records of the winning numbers, no? Hold on.” I hop over to the computer and start searching. “One sec … Yes, they do. They post all the winning numbers for the last ten years.” I pause. “Should we really do this?”

  “Yes!”

  I scroll down for more info. “They seem to have one every three days. And there’s one tonight. Your tonight. And the jackpot is”—holy moolah—“twelve million.” I could be a millionaire. By tonight. Although, technically, if she becomes a millionaire tonight, I’ll have been one three and a half years ago. Show me the money! Then again … “Shouldn’t we feel bad for the people who were supposed to win tonight?” I continue scrolling. “Wait. No one else was going to win! Next time, the jackpot just goes up to fourteen million.”

  “So the next winners will just win two million instead of twelve?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Not too shabby,” she says. “I told you—it’s a victimless crime.”

  “Okay,” I say before I change my mind. “Let’s do it.”

  “Yay!” she chirps. “What will we buy first?” she asks, her voice filling with awe.

  “A car,” I say. “Definitely a car. My own car. And an extra one for Mom and Dad so they don’t have to share.”

  “I could use some new clothes. Designer clothes! Ridiculously expensive ones!”

  Ooh, there was a gorgeous coat I saw in Seventeen last month. And Bella has some new superb tops in for summer. But Frosh better not blow all my car money—I mean my tuition money—on a new wardrobe. Although with twelve million, we can certainly blow a teeny-weeny bit of it. We should also use the money to do some good stuff. We’ll sponsor Tash to find the cure for cancer. We’ll help other students pay for college too. Hey, if this works, I can get back to my Change the World list and start … changing the world!

  “So what do I do?” she asks.

  Does she need me to spell out everything? “I give you the numbers and you walk into a store and buy a ticket.”

  “Don’t yo
u have to be eighteen?”

  Oh, yeah. “You better bring Mom.”

  “You think Mom is going to buy me a lottery ticket? Are you crazy? She never buys those things. She says they’re like throwing away money.”

  “You’ll have to convince her, then, won’t you? Call her and ask her to pick you up from rehearsal. Tell her you need to get some school supplies. Then, when you’re at the mall, get her to buy the ticket. Easy peasy.”

  “I’ll try,” she says. “I’ll have to think up a good reason.”

  I can think up twelve million.

  chapter twenty-six

  Thursday, September 15 Freshman Year

  “So,” Mom says after we’ve loaded up the cart with extra school supplies, “you’re really taking class seriously these days.”

  “Yup,” I say.

  “You’ve been so busy all week,” she says.

  “It’s all the activities,” I explain.

  “Are you sure you’re not taking on too much?” she asks, expertly navigating our cart around the pharmacy. “You need to have time for yourself. And your friends. And boys,” she says, and wiggles her eyebrows.

  “There are no boys,” I say. Unfortunately.

  “But what about the nice boy who came by over the weekend?”

  Nice? If she knew what he was going to do senior year, she might not be calling him nice. “He’s just a friend.”

  “You don’t have feelings for him?”

  “No,” I say quickly.

  “Well, there you go. You have to trust your feelings. Too bad, though. He was cute.”

  Tell me about it. Can’t dwell on him, though. He’s not meant to be. On the other hand, what is meant to be is my future new wardrobe. “Hey, Mom,” I say extra nonchalantly, “can we also buy a lottery ticket?”

  She laughs. “What? Why?”

  “Because it’s twelve million dollars?”

  “Yes, but your chance of winning is about one in twelve million.”

  “Someone has to win.” I wave my hands in the air. “Why shouldn’t it be us?”

  She shakes her head. “Why don’t you just take the dollar and toss it in the wishing well? It’s just as much of a waste.”

  That’s what she thinks. “Please, Mom? I had a dream last night that we won. I think it’s a sign. Just once. I have a really good feeling about it. And you just told me I have to trust my feelings. Please? I’ll even pay for it myself.”

  The corners of her mouth twitch. “With the allowance we give you?”

  “Exactly.”

  She pushes the cart toward the cashier. “All right, dear. One lottery ticket. This one time.”

  After all this, we’d better win. Which we will. Ivy checked the numbers. Although, as I’ve seen, time travel can sometimes mess things up. Or what if she read me another day by mistake? Or what if I wrote the numbers down wrong? I glance at my palm, where I transcribed said numbers. I didn’t want to pull out the notebook in front of my mom. And I was afraid that if I wrote it on a piece of paper, it would get lost among all my other papers. I hope the numbers didn’t smudge.

  We approach the counter together.

  “All this and one lottery ticket,” Mom says. “My treat.”

  So sweet, my mom.

  “Which one?” the clerk asks.

  “NY6,” I say.

  “Your numbers?”

  I covertly read them off my hand: “Five, forty-four, sixteen, nine, eighty-four, and twenty-six.”

  Mom raises an eyebrow. “Where did you come up with those?”

  “Oh, um. Well, five is the number of …” Of what? “Pens I have in my pencil case. Forty-four are the last two digits of Tash’s number. Nine is a lucky number. Everyone knows that. Sixteen is Dad’s birthday.” Wahoo! One that doesn’t sound like a lie! “Eighty-four is what I got on my, um, French quiz … and twenty-six is how old I’m going to be when I get married!”

  She laughs and squeezes my arm. “You got an eighty-four on a French quiz? I’m impressed.”

  If she’s impressed with an eighty-four, wait till she sees my UCLA acceptance. She’s going to pass out with awe.

  The cashier prints out the ticket and hands it to me.

  “Do you want to see a movie?” Mom asks after we pack up the Volvo with our new purchases.

  I’m about to tell her that I have a lot of homework when I see her eager smile. “What do you want to see?” I ask.

  “I have no idea,” she says. “I haven’t seen a movie in ages. I don’t even know what’s playing.”

  I can’t help feeling bad. I mean, with my dad working all the time, my mom never gets to go out. And anyway, once they announce the winning ticket tonight, it’s not like I’ll be able to concentrate on schoolwork. I may not even go to school tomorrow. I think you’re allowed to take off the day to celebrate after you win twelve million bucks.

  “Sure,” I say. “I haven’t seen a movie in a while either.” I was supposed to see one last Saturday with Bryan but that wasn’t allowed to happen. “I hear 101 Possibilities is really good. Let’s see that.”

  We should do a normal mother-daughter activity before everything changes, anyway. Of course, she has no idea life as we know it is about to change.

  We’re going to be rich!

  Really rich. Not just a teeny-weeny rich. Multimillionaire rich.

  Normally when life as you know it is about to change, you’re not even aware of it. You ask Karin, the girl sitting next to you in class, if you can borrow her highlighter, and you become best friends. Or your best friend cuts your bangs and then you hate the mirror for the rest of the third grade. Or you go to a party at Celia King’s house, spill salsa on a couch, and develop a full-blown new crush.

  Let’s forget about that last one.

  Normally you don’t know when your life is about to change. But now I know. And it’s so exciting. Life is exciting. I swing my purse, lottery ticket inside, and try to hide my smile.

  chapter twenty-seven

  Thursday, May 29 Senior Year

  Whoosh! You know how people say life can change in an instant? Yeah, well, my life just changed in an instant.

  I mean everything.

  One minute I was hurrying down the carpeted stairs to get a glass of water, and the next I was slipping down a marble staircase.

  I grab the banister and straighten myself out.

  My house is different. Or maybe I’m in a different house? My house does not have floor-to-ceiling windows. My house does not have four floors. Where am I? I carefully hike back up the steps. I appear to be in some sort of mansion.

  A mansion! The lottery ticket must have worked. She must have bought it. Yes!

  I run down the stairs and up the stairs and then back down. This place is the size of a train station. Did we buy a train station?

  “Careful, Miss Devi,” a voice from the sky says. “I just washed ze floors. You don’t want to slip and break your neck.”

  Just kidding—not from the sky—the voice comes from a small plump woman wearing a black dress and a white apron. My housekeeper? My housekeeper!

  “Hello,” I say, freezing in my spot. I definitely don’t want to break my neck. Although if I did, I could just tell Frosh not to run on the stairs and then everything would be A-OK. I really am a superhero. A superhero with a housekeeper. How superb is that? I wonder if I have a cook too. Or a driver. Or a butler. I giggle to myself as I run back up the stairs. Carefully. Even if I can call Frosh and tell her not to slip down the stairs, I bet it would still really hurt.

  The floor-to-ceiling window to my left shows a big circular driveway. With three cars. Clarification: three Mercedes.

  One of those must be mine. Wahoo!

  On the top floor, I discover six closed doors. Which is my room?

  I open one—a closet. A huge stacked closet, filled with all kinds of intricate-looking soaps and shampoos and fluffy towels.

  Next—my room. Definitely my room! The most perfect room ever. My books
are on the shelf, so I know it’s mine. My bed. Oh. My. God. My bed! It is a dream bed! A high canopy bed piled with pastel throw pillows. Forget superhero—it’s a princess’s bed. I can’t help myself; I dive right into it. The comforter is satiny smooth. I sleep on a giant marshmallow. Yay!

  I really might stay in bed forever.

  Except I have to explore the rest of my mansion.

  I slide off my bed—I’ll be back, sweet marshmallow, take care!—and head toward my closet. My huge, ginormous closet. My—I pull open the door—walk-in closet. I glide inside and can’t believe my eyes. There are rows and rows of clothes. A row of high-end jeans, a row of glimmering tops (all hung up! How fancy am I!), a row of silky dresses. Where do I wear these, exactly? Afternoon tea, anyone?

  Does my mansion have afternoon tea? I think it might.

  Oh. My. God. My prom dress!

  It’s in a delicate clear plastic cover that says Izzy Simpson across the side, but it’s my dress. It looks just like the silver drapey one I had before but darker and slinkier. And probably twenty times the cost.

  I must wear it immediately.

  I toss off a pair of designer jeans and a buttery T-shirt, neither of which I remember putting on. Oh, look—I’m even wearing different underwear. Lacy. With a French label. Who knew rich people wear different underwear?

  I slip on the dress and admire my reflection in the floor-to-ceiling backlit mirror that’s right beside a pretty vanity table topped with antique brushes and combs and professional-looking makeup and velvety jewelry boxes.

  Am I the queen of England? I think I might be.

  I look around my room to see what other treasures I have. Lots. A flat-screen TV. A paper-thin laptop. A really lush carpet.

  A mural.

  Yes, instead of the plain lavender color that used to be on my walls, my room is now painted to look like a garden. With trees and flowers and a lake.

  I still have the pictures on my table. I grab them to see who they’re of—no Bryan. Phewf. They’re mostly of me and my friends, although there’s also one of me and my dad on some kind of boat. I go on expensive vacations? Excellent!