Wow. I leaned back in my chair and let out a big breath. My day was off to some kind of start.
Then Emmeline said, “You wanna hear my dream, Grandpa?”
“Shore, shore, of course I do,” he said.
“I dreamed that I was a king and everybody was bowing down to me,” she announced, giving me a superior kind of look.
I snorted and said, “Emmeline, you only had that dream because we learned about Joseph and his coat at Sunday school last week. Remember how Joseph had that dream where his brothers were bowing down to him?”
Emmeline sniffed. “Yeah, and remember how Joseph really did become king and his brothers really did bow down to him?”
“No, but I remember that his brothers sold him into slavery for being so very obnoxious,” I said. I doubted she even knew what obnoxious meant.
Emmeline stuck her tongue out at me. “Bow down to me, brother!” she shouted. That’s when Daddy came into the kitchen and said, “What’s this I hear about bowing and selling somebody into slavery?”
“Nothing,” I muttered.
Emmeline mouthed, Bow down, brother.
I raised my hand to give her a good pinch, but Grandpa stopped me in the nick of time. He said, “Emmeline has big dream because she is a big spirit. Just like a dragon to have a dream like that.”
“Did you hear that, Daddy? I am a big spirit,” she said with her mouth full of kimchi. She likes kimchi for breakfast, and she likes it for lunch, and she likes it for dinner. It’s peppery cabbage and it gives her spicy breath, but she doesn’t even care.
“You’re also a big pain in the you-know-what,” I muttered. She thinks she’s hot stuff because she’s a dragon and I’m a cow. In the Chinese zodiac, there is an animal for every year, twelve in all. We’re not Chinese, we’re Korean, but Korean people still follow it. I was born in the Year of the Cow, which means I am hardworking and determined. Emmeline was born in the Year of the Dragon, the so-called mightiest sign of all.
Daddy and Emmeline didn’t hear me, but Grandpa did. “Not nice, Clara,” he said with a shake of his head.
Whoops. I hate it when Grandpa catches me in the act. I hunched my shoulders down and finished my Trix.
Then my mom came into the kitchen all dressed for work and said, “Appa, don’t forget to do your leg exercises today.”
“Appa” means “Daddy” in Korean, so that’s what Mom calls Grandpa because he is her dad. Sometimes I call my daddy Appa or my mom Uhmma, but only on special occasions like when I’m in trouble or I want something really badly. In Korean, everyone has a special name. I’m Uhnee because that means “big sister.” In Korea, everybody who is a big sister is called Uhnee. It’s like a big-sister club. But even though I am in that club, Emmeline almost never calls me Uhnee. Even though she is supposed to.
Grandpa said, “Gina, I need you to take me to 7-Eleven today.”
“For what?” Mom looked suspicious.
“Appa gotta pick up something,” Grandpa said.
“What do you need? I’ll get it for you.”
“I gotta pick up Mega Millions lottery ticket,” Grandpa said. He winked at me, and I winked back.
“Appa, I don’t think you should waste your money on lottery tickets,” Mom said, shaking her head.
“Not waste,” Grandpa said, giving her a stern look. “Anyway, it’s Appa’s money.”
Mom sighed and Daddy said, “Dad, I’ll pick you up a ticket on the way home from work.”
“I write down numbers for you,” Grandpa said, pulling out his little notebook again. “We feel lucky today.”
Grandpa raised his hand and we high-fived. I felt lucky already.
On Bus Number 19, this is how we sit: Shayna and me in one seat and Georgina and Max in the seat behind us. We sit like that every day, so long as one of us isn’t in a fight with the other. If we are in a fight, we switch: me and Georgina, Shayna and Max. Or me and Max, Shayna and Georgina.
Besides Shayna, Max and Georgina are my best friends. The two of them look alike; they both have light blond hair and brown eyes. I guess it makes sense, seeing as how they are twins and all. They might look the same, but they are pretty different. Georgina collects bottle caps and she loves baseball. Max likes science, and he has a fancy laboratory set that he lets us play with sometimes. Also, Max does ballet, and Georgina does tae kwon do. Still, the two of them are two peas in a pod.
When Shayna and I got on the bus, Georgina and Max were sitting in the seat in the way back. The seat in the back of the bus is the best seat on the whole bus! It is superlong and a little bit bouncy and everyone always wants to sit there. But of course, it’s always the fifth graders who get to sit back there because they’re the oldest.
Shayna and I slid into the seat in front of them. “How’d you guys get this seat?” Shayna wanted to know.
“The fifth graders have their field trip to the dump today,” said Georgina.
“Lucky ducks,” I said.
Max said, “I’ll trade with you, Clara Lee.”
“For real?” I asked.
“Sure,” he said. “I’m starting to feel sick from the bouncing.”
“Wow, thanks!”
I couldn’t believe my Good Luck. It was happening already. My Good Luck day had officially begun.
During reading, Ms. Morgan picked me to read from our read-aloud book The Witches. We were at the part where the Grand High Witch turns Bruno into a mouse—also known as The Best Part of the Whole Book. I love to read aloud. Grandpa says I have the best reading voice he’s ever heard.
And then, at lunch, Shayna had my favorite meatloaf and pickle sandwich and she let me have a bite. Max had gingersnaps and he gave me two broken ones. Max never shares his gingersnaps, not even with Georgina, and she’s his twin sister.
All in all, it was a Great Luck lunch, and I had to wonder—how long was my luck gonna last? Would it be a Good Luck week? A Good Luck month? I personally hoped it would stay forever, but I doubted that Good Luck worked like that. I was sure Good Luck had other people to visit. The magic would have to fade at some point. But I figured it would at least last me the rest of the day. Wouldn’t it?
When I went to P.E., I got my answer. We were doing the rope climb, and not once in my whole life have I ever been able to do the rope climb. I only get but so far and then I dangle like a gummy worm on a hook. It just isn’t pretty and it’s very embarrassing. And scary. So I stopped trying. What was the point when I knew I couldn’t do it?
But it was my Good Luck day, so on that day, I knew I could. I just knew it. When Mr. Eddly asked for volunteers, I raised my hand high. I thought to myself, Now that I have Luck on my side, it should be no problem.
Mr. Eddly looked very surprised to see my hand in the air. “Really, Clara Lee? I thought you said climbing rope wasn’t ‘your style.’ ” When he said it he did that thing where he makes bunny ears with his fingers. He always does that when he wants to make a point.
I stood up and shrugged. “What was out of style yesterday could be back today, Mr. Eddly. You just never know.” Then I walked past him with a little sashay in my step.
“Well good for you, Clara Lee,” said Mr. Eddly. He looked impressed.
I walked right up to that rope without so much as a fear in my heart. Because if my grandpa said I had Good Luck, then I knew it was true.
I grabbed that rope and started to climb. And climb, and climb. When I got scared, I didn’t look down, I just kept climbing. Even when I got tired, I kept going. But then I got to that part of the rope where I usually jump off. For a minute there, I didn’t know if I could keep on going. But then I said to myself, “Come on, Good Luck. Take it to the top.”
And then I did it! I could hardly believe I was there on top, the first time in my whole life, with Shayna and Max and Georgina and Mr. Eddly all clapping for me. Max whistled loudly.
“Good job, Clara Lee,” called up Mr. Eddly. “You can come down now.”
I grinned and I gave a li
ttle wave. Everybody waved back. Then I thought to myself, Whoa, this is pretty high up, and I started to climb down. About halfway there, I thought, What the heck, I’ll jump off. And then I said something I heard in a movie once. “Yippy-ka-yay!” I yelled, and I jumped off.
I landed on the cushiony pad with a thud. I couldn’t wait to get home and tell Grandpa all about it.
After, Shayna asked me, “How did you do that, Clara Lee? I thought you were afraid of the rope.”
I scrunched up my lips to the side. “I never said I was afraid of the rope.”
“Well, you said you didn’t like being up so high,” she said.
“That’s not the same as being afraid.”
“Sounds like the same thing to me,” Shayna said stubbornly. “How’d you do it today?”
I looked at her for a minute. Shayna was my best friend. I could trust her. “It’s because of my Good Luck,” I said at last.
“Huh?”
“See, I had a dream where my grandpa died—”
Shayna clapped her hand over her mouth. “That’s not Good Luck, that’s terrible luck!” she said with a worried frown. Shayna really likes my grandpa.
“No, silly, in my Korean culture, when someone dies in a dream, that’s Good Luck.”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” she said. “I don’t think I believe in luck anyway. My grandma says we make our own luck.”
“Well is your grandma a world-renowned dream genius?” I challenged.
“No, I don’t think so.…”
“If she was, you’d know it. Trust me. My grandpa is, and he’s training me to be one.”
“I still don’t believe it,” Shayna said. But there was doubt in her eyes.
“Just wait and see,” I told her, tapping her on the nose the way Grandpa does sometimes. “All kinds of good stuff is gonna happen to me today.”
Shayna swatted my hand away. “Yeah, we’ll see.”
I smiled. “Yes, you will.”
When we got our squirrel stories back in Language Arts, mine was an A-plus. I lifted it up and showed it to Shayna. I pointed at the paper and mouthed, Good Luck.
Shayna shrugged. “You always get A’s on your stories,” she whispered.
“But not an A-plus,” I reminded her.
Shayna just shrugged again. “Can I borrow your eraser? Mine’s all nubby.”
Sighing, I reached inside my desk, and my fingers touched something definitely non-eraserlike. So I pulled it out, and would you believe, it was a candy necklace, wrapped in plastic!
Wowza. Where did that come from? It hadn’t been there yesterday, that was for sure.
“Where’d you get that?” Shayna whispered.
I shook my head slowly. “I don’t know.…”
Shayna’s eyes were bigger than the jumbo gumballs we get at the Chinese restaurant we go to sometimes. “Clara Lee, maybe you really do have Good Luck,” she breathed, watching me rip the plastic wrapper off.
I put on the necklace and touched the candy pieces. Not even one piece was broken. Everybody knows that with a candy necklace, there’s always at least one piece broken. Not this one. This one was perfect. I had a feeling it looked good on me. “I told you,” I said, trying to catch a look at myself in Shayna’s glasses.
“Keep me posted,” she said, turning back to her math worksheet.
“I will.”
“And give me your eraser, will you?”
I passed her my eraser, and instead of working on my math too, I started making a list. I love making lists. I wrote down:
And then I drew a little picture of me wearing a candy necklace. I did look pretty good in that necklace.
I was finishing up my list as Ms. Morgan was finishing up the afternoon announcements. “Our hardworking custodial staff asks that we only use as many paper towels as we need. It’s easy to be green, kids.”
She winked at us. “And the final announcement, for those of you who are interested in trying out for Little Miss Apple Pie, speeches are this Thursday during morning assembly. This year the theme is ‘What makes our town so special?’ You can sign up on the sign-up sheet hanging outside Mr. Charlevoix’s music room.”
Vince Peretti raised his hand. “Hey, Ms. Morgan, I wanna try out for Little Miss Apple Pie. Can I, oh please, can I?”
Everyone laughed, except Dionne Gregory and me. She turned around and said, “It’s not funny. Little Miss Apple Pie is a Bramley tradition. You shouldn’t make fun of it.”
Dionne Gregory is a bit of a know-it-all type. She’s always doing things like winning spelling bees and jump rope contests. She is just plain good at a lot of things. But for once, I kind of agreed with Dionne.
“Chill out, Dionne,” Vince said, rolling his eyes. “I was just kidding.”
Ms. Morgan said, “Vince, if you’d like to try out for Little Miss Apple Pie, you should talk to Mr. Charlevoix. He’s on the committee.”
“I said I was just kidding, Ms. Morgan,” Vince said. “You couldn’t pay me to try out for Little Miss Apple Pie.”
I looked down at my list. What if I finally gave Little Miss Apple Pie a shot? With Good Luck on my side, maybe I would be brave enough to give it a go. It could be just like the rope in P.E. Maybe Little Miss Apple Pie was the reason Good Luck even came to me to begin with. It was definitely something to think about.
I drew a teeny tiny little apple pie on my list. I didn’t even dare write down the words “Little Miss Apple Pie.” I didn’t want to jinx it.
On the bus ride home, Georgina complimented me on my new necklace. She loves jewelry. “Where’d you get that from?” she asked.
I touched my necklace. “Um, I don’t know,” I said. I wasn’t ready to share the secret of my Good Luck just yet. For now, it was between me, Grandpa, and Shayna.
Max popped his head between Shayna and me. “Hey, that looks good on you, Clara Lee. Can I have a piece?”
“Um… no. Sorry,” I said. Max’s hands were always sticky, and the last thing I wanted was him getting any stickiness on my new necklace.
When Emmeline and I walked home from the bus stop, she noticed my necklace right away. “Where’d you get that?” she demanded. “I want one!”
“It’s a secret,” I said with a secret little smile. Emmeline hates secrets worse than she hates tofu. Not me. I love secrets and I love tofu, especially the way Mom makes it. (She boils it and puts a little soy sauce and green onion on top. Delicious!)
Emmeline shouted, “You’re not supposed to have secrets!”
“Says who?”
She didn’t have an answer for that one right away. Then she brightened and gave me her best know-it-all look. “Says God!”
“God never said that,” I told her. “And I should know, I’ve been going to Sunday school longer than you. I’ve been going to Sunday school since before you were even born.”
She didn’t have an answer for that one right away either. “Let me wear it to school tomorrow,” she said at last. “Please? I’ll give you the rest of my Raisinets.”
“No way! I don’t even like Raisinets and I know for a fact that you don’t either.” It was just like Emmeline to try and give me her hand-me-down Raisinets.
“Please?”
“No. This candy necklace is going to be my signature look.” I was already picturing myself wearing it at my birthday party, at my third grade graduation, maybe even at my wedding. And posssssibly on the Apple Blossom float.
“What’s a signature look?” Emmeline wanted to know.
“It’s a look that’s signature. You know how when you sign something, it’s called a signature? It’s like how Grandpa uses a cane. That’s his signature look,” I explained. “Doesn’t it look good on me?”
“Yeah,” she said grudgingly.
I smiled at her. Maybe I would let her borrow it, in a couple of months, if I hadn’t eaten it already.…
“But not half as good as it’s gonna look on me!” Emmeline said with an evil cackle. “Ahahahaha!”<
br />
As soon as we got home, I headed straight for the backyard. That’s where the garden was, and that was where I would find Grandpa. The garden was his domain. He was the master of the land. My grandpa has the power to make things grow. He’s like a magician.
In the fall, like now, we have squash and pumpkin and Dad makes pumpkin soup. Just like I knew he would be, Grandpa was out in the garden, stooped over, snatching up weeds like they were made of gold.
I ran up to him and yelled, “Hey!”
“Hay is for donkeys,” Grandpa said.
I giggled. “Hay is for horses, Grandpa.”
I gave him a hug. He smelled just like always, like grass and bread and those Vienna sausage links he loves to eat. I gave his sweater-vest a good sniff. It’s the best smell in the world.
“Don’t donkeys eat hay too?” he argued, grabbing another weed.
“Yeah, I guess so,” I said, throwing my book bag on the grass and sitting on it.
“What happened at school today?” Grandpa asked me.
I reached into my pocket and pulled out my list. “So much happened. Listen,” I said, and then I read him my list. “Backseat, sandwich, gingersnaps, read aloud Witches—part when Bruno turns into a mouse, rope, candy necklace.”
“What that mean?” Grandpa wanted to know.
“It means that I had some Good Luck today! The best luck,” I explained. “I got to sit in the back of the bus, I had a really good lunch, I got to read out loud in class—”
“You are really good reader,” Grandpa agreed.
“And I climbed the rope in P.E.!”
Grandpa stopped weeding and said, “Isn’t that rope dangerous?”
“No, it’s safe, there are cushions and everything!” Then I lifted up my candy necklace. “Isn’t it gorgeous?”
“What’s gorgeous?”
“It means really, really, really pretty,” I said.