A Whole Lot of Lucky by Danette Haworth, Cara Shores

airline passengers as she paces behind me. “They’re not called stewardesses anymore; they’re
flight attendants
.”
    â€œYeah,” Drew sneers at me.
    I look across the table at Amanda, but she puts her head down. Searching for just the right comeback, my mind stumbles through huge blank spaces. At this point in the situation, Megan usually fires her kill shot, but here’s where winning the lottery comes in handy—my new fans come to the rescue, pushing Megan and Drew away, literally squeezing past them to join me on the bench.
    â€œWhat’s it like being rich?” “Are you moving to a mansion?” “Are you buying a jet?” I laugh at the thought of piloting an airplane to school. For one thing, where would I land it?
    â€œNot a jet,” I say, thinking. “But probably a limo.”
    One boy asks why Mom is still delivering the newspaper. When Dad asked her the same thing last week, she said,
I just … wanted to wait until I knew it was real.
    It’s real,
Dad had said and cracked a lopsided smile.
You’d better believe it.
    Now curious faces want to know why a millionaire gets up at four in the morning to hurl newspapers into their driveways. I say, “She wanted to give her two weeks’ notice.”
    The boy snorts. “I would’ve quit!”
    I frown.
    Another girl says her dog had diarrhea on the good rug, and her mom is going to call my dad to come takecare of the stain. Everyone groans and a couple of the boys make retching sounds. I feel each of the seven layers of my skin turn red.
    Amanda goes, “She can’t help it if her dad cleans carpet.”
    â€œAmanda!” Oh, my gosh—she’s making it worse.
    I wriggle from the bench like a worm. I am pink and gross, with everybody stepping on me. The worst part, the part I can’t take, is that they are right. Mom should have quit her stupid newspaper job. Dad cleaning dog poop? What’s wrong with my parents? We’re
rich
now—other people should be doing this stuff for us.
    Amanda follows me to my locker. Some kids try to stop me in the hall, but I don’t talk. Talking will just make this feeling grow bigger. Later, when the dismissal bell rings, I’m the first one out the door, the first one in the pen, and the only one riding a three-dollar bike.
    I yank my stupid bike off the kickstand and rasp away. Red bike and green shirt—look at me, I’m the biggest dork in the universe. I pound the pedals all the way home. I’m going so fast that when I hit our driveway, the wheels roll right through the brakes as I try to stop, the seat bucks me off, and I scurry away before it falls on top of me. Dusting off my shorts, I kick the bike. It makes a screechy sound as it slides across the garage floor. “Stupid bike!”
    I grab it by the horns, wrestle it up, and knock it into its resting place. “I’m getting a new one,” I tell it.
    A lizard skitters through a hole between the cinder blocks. “New garage!” I yell.
    As I walk out, a bougainvillea branch sticks me with a pricker. “New plants!” I yell at the vine, which sways in the wind as if readying for another attack.
    * * *
    Oak trees shimmer with tender leaves the second week of March. The parched grass sucks up the spring rain and colors each blade with green. Orange blossoms decorate their trees like ornaments, filling the air with a scent so pretty, you could actually believe in fairies. Even the lovebugs are starting up.
    Everything in nature has been renewed.
    Nothing in the Richardson house has been renewed. My cheery red maple is not so cheery anymore, dropping its leaves as if it no longer has the energy for them. A shock of red puddles around the tree, but as days go by, time drains the color and makes the leaves crispy and brown.
    One night at supper, I ask Dad why he bothers going to work.
    â€œWe still need an income,” he says, grabbing