Read It and Weep! by P.J. Night

sure you don’t mind.”
    â€œI definitely don’t mind,” said Lauren. “Now I have to get going. My dad is trying to reheat something in the microwave, and I have to make sure he doesn’t blow up the kitchen.”

    Charlotte tossed and turned much of that night. Who was it that had sent that text? Who else knew about it? Could Stacy have somehow sent it? Charlotte was thinking back to the events of the previous day when suddenly she jolted upright.
    Stacy had been in possession of the card yesterday. Lauren had told her about Stacy borrowing her science notebook. Charlotte flashed back to when Lauren had found the card she’d thought she’d lost. It had been inside her science notebook. The one Stacy had borrowed.
    She remembered how Stacy had showed up late for gym. How she had missed so many free throws. How she’d had an allergic reaction to something at lunchtime. Was all that bad luck because she’d had the card with her?
    I really am acting silly, she thought. This is anxiety stuff. Charlotte often got this way. She was a middle-of-the-night worrier. Almost always, when she’d fretted about something, she would wake up in the morning and realize how silly she’d been. But right now, Charlotte couldn’t ignore the ominous thoughts. The card was a jinx. The person who wrote the message on the back cursed it so it brought bad luck to whoever had it. Should she really pass the card to Lauren, now that she was growing increasingly certain that it brought bad luck? What had Lauren’s aunt said? Maybe the Wheel of Fortune card just changed a person’s luck. Maybe if that person were having bad luck, and came into possession of the card, the person’s luck might change to good luck.
    Maybe she was simply rationalizing the problem away. After all, most Wheel of Fortune cards probably didn’t have some crazy message scrawled on them by who knows who.
    The next morning, when she woke up, Charlotte felt much less anxious about the card. She was certain she was just being silly. If Lauren didn’t care, neither did she.
    Her mother was sitting glassy eyed at the kitchen table when Charlotte emerged for breakfast. Her eyes were puffy, as though she’d been crying.
    â€œWhat’s wrong, Mom?” Charlotte asked quickly, barely daring to breathe. “Is Daddy okay? Did you hear something?”
    Charlotte’s mom closed her eyes and drew a long breath in. Then she let it out quickly. “He’s fine, honey. I heard from him late last night, after you were asleep. He’s fine, but he’s not coming home as early as we thought. It looks like it might be another—” She swallowed, gathered herself. “Another two months.”
    Charlotte sat down heavily in a chair, absorbing the horror of this news. Then her mind turned to the card. Maybe all that middle-of-the-night anxiety hadn’t been so silly. Maybe the card really was doing this. It had to be. It brought bad luck to whoever had it.
    Well, Lauren had agreed to take it, she thought. Time to pass it along . . . for good.

Chapter 9
    That day at lunch, Charlotte slid the card across the table to Lauren. There hadn’t been any time in homeroom, and they didn’t want Stacy anywhere near them when they did the exchange.
    â€œWhat’s that?” asked Gwen, who was sitting next to Lauren.
    â€œNothing,” both girls replied at almost exactly the same time.
    Gwen glanced at the card, shrugged, and went back to chatting with Cassie on her other side.
    â€œAre you sure about this?” Charlotte spoke to Lauren in a low voice, just loud enough for Lauren to be able to hear over the din in the cafeteria. “I don’t want anything bad to happen to you.”
    â€œStop being a dork,” scoffed Lauren, picking up the card and shoving it into her backpack. “The card is nothing. Okay?” Lauren reached across the table and broke off a piece of