by Jamie Pacton
Bran laughs at that. “Possibly true, and you should check it out when you have a chance. Some of these questions are wild. So, what do you say? Come to the farm? I’ll buy you a caramel apple and some coffee …”
My kryptonite. Of course I would say yes anyway, because I love Bran and his family, but throw in coffee and caramel apples? I’m powerless to resist.
I take a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Okay. I’ll be there soon.”
“Thank you, Janey. You’re the greatest best friend ever.” Bran’s voice carries the smile I know is on his face.
“I know,” I say as I hang up. But I’m pretty sure I’m not the best friend ever. I suspect that person wouldn’t be hiding the fact that she won $58 million from her best friend. That person would be thinking of group vacations they could go on and planning on buying her BFF a car or something.
I shove those thoughts away as fiercely as I shove the book with the winning ticket into its slot on my bookshelf. There. Now Sea Change is just another blue book on the rainbow shelf. Nothing to mark it as special. And I can figure out whether or not I want to tell Bran more later, when I’ve wrapped my head around all this lotto stuff.
Is the ticket safe on my bookshelf, though? I pause for a moment, looking around my room. I think so? I mean, who would think to take it?
Thanks to a strict house rule and the lock on my door, Mom doesn’t come into my room, and the odds of her knowing that Sea Change is my favorite book are slim, so it should be safe.
Then again, perhaps her knowing that is about as slim as the odds of me winning the lotto. How’d that work out? whispers a little voice in my head.
Before I can change my mind—I can’t be hauling this ticket around all over town; what if I lose it?—I grab my backpack and head back into the tornado that is the rest of my house.
I’M SHUTTING THE FRONT DOOR WHEN MOM’S TRUCK PULLS INTO THE driveway. Heaps of stuff stick out of it at odd angles.
Mom clearly left work early to get started on her BJD pickups.
“Fortuna!” she says when she sees me. “Just the girl I was looking for!”
I got Dad’s light-gray eyes and brown hair, but Mom and I have the same blindingly pale skin and short stature. That’s where our resemblance ends. Mom hasn’t had a haircut since dad died—I guess she’s been collecting hair too—and it’s so long that even when in a gray-blond ponytail, it falls past the back pockets of her jeans. She wears a Doctor Who T-shirt (one of Dad’s) and work boots. She’s painfully thin, but her face is completely made up. Like, full country singer/Dolly Parton contoured, with false lashes and everything else in between, because Mom won’t be seen around town “without her face on.” Though she will be seen around town gathering garbage.
I know. It’s a mystery to me too.
I untangle my bike from the piles of broken toys that surround it. “Hi, Mom.”
“Where are you headed?” she asks as I push the bike over to the side of the truck.
“To the pumpkin farm …”
“C’mon, Jane. You can’t go now. We have stuff to pick up.”
She says it like it’s the most natural activity for a mother and daughter to do together. Like everyone in town won’t be staring out their windows as we rifle through the trash they’ve left on the curb.
“Mom. I have to go to work; they’re super busy and need me. I’ll be back soon though,” I say. I’m too tired for an argument.
“Can you help me unload at least?” Mom asks, gesturing toward the truck.
I check my phone. It’ll take me half an hour to get to Bran’s farm, but Mom is not one to let the junk stay in the truck. If I leave, it’ll sit there, niggling at her, like an itch she can’t scratch. She’ll probably try to unload it and then hurt her back again, which barely slowed her down last Big Junk Dump day.
“I can give you ten minutes.” I rest my bike against a tree.
Mom lets out a cheer and clambers into the back of the truck. “You’re not going to believe what I found!” She throws down a life-size plush Siberian tiger that nearly knocks me over. “Can you believe someone threw that out?”
I can. Its white fur is now mossy green with mildew, and it’s missing both eyes. It’s the stuff of nightmares and will likely be placed in the middle of my living room.
“Totally unbelievable,” I mutter under my breath as Mom flings another pile of stuff in my direction.
Eventually, the truck bed is empty. All the stuff is in the yard, and Mom is gleefully taking armfuls into the house.
“I’m leaving,” I call out as she bangs through the screen door again and comes down the porch steps toward the yard. “We’re out of food!”
She makes a noncommittal noise and gathers more stuff in her arms. “Get back soon, Jane! We still have lots more to rescue.”
Of course we do. She’s already headed back inside before I can reply. Suddenly delighted to get away from home for a while, I hop onto my bike and peddle as fast as I can toward Bran’s family’s pumpkin farm.
INSTAGRAM POST @BRANDONKIMWI
[Picture of Bran sitting on the Kim family pumpkin farm’s giant rocking chair, grinning and holding a sign that says: LOTTO FUN FACTS!]
CAPTION: Hi lucky, wannabe lotto winners! Brandon Kim here with all your lotto questions answered! (For articles and more, check out my news site: Bran’s Lakesboro Daily. Link in my bio.)
So, here’s a lotto fact that no one’s asked about yet, but I wanted to share:
Did you know that if a minor does (somehow) buy a lotto ticket in Wisconsin, they can’t cash it, even after they turn eighteen? It’s true. (In the US, that is. If you bought a ticket in the UK, it’s totally fair game if you’re at least sixteen.) But yeah, if the lotto commission finds out you bought it as a minor, then the prize is forfeit AND both the seller and the person who bought the ticket as a minor are guilty of a misdemeanor. So, hope none of you high-schoolers under eighteen bought a ticket. Lol!
Keep those questions coming, and I’ll have more lotto updates later tonight.
#luckywinner #lottofacts #askmeanything #brandonkiminvestigates #themoreyouknow #allthelottoquestions #smalltownbigwinner
CHAPTER FIVE
AND SUDDENLY, I HAVE A NEW PROBLEM. AN ENORMOUS ONE.
An I’m-actually-a-criminal-if-I-cash-this-lotto-ticket-size problem.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
I’m standing outside the Kim family pumpkin farm, holding my phone in my trembling hand.
Loud, shrill giggles from the children’s area split the evening, and there’s a bonfire going near the back of the farm, which perfumes the air with wood smoke. I take a deep breath and read Bran’s latest Instagram post again.
… if the lotto commission finds out you bought it as a minor, then the prize is forfeit AND both the seller and the person who bought the ticket as a minor are guilty of a misdemeanor.
Shit.
What am I going to do?
I can figure this out.
I think. Maybe? Possibly?
I pull my sweatshirt hood closer to my head as a brisk wind whips over me. Not far from where I’m standing, a pair of elementary-school-age kids run through the pumpkin patch, weaving around the hundreds of orange lumps within it. I envy their carefree joy. Imagine if my biggest problem tonight was deciding which pumpkin I wanted to take home?
Maybe there’s a way around this rule? A loophole or something?
I read Bran’s post a third time, biting one of my nails as I stare at the colorful pumpkin-farm sign.
“What should I do?” I say out loud.
The hand-painted pumpkins, skeletons in sunglasses, cornstalks wearing cowboy hats, and unicorns dressed as zombies on the sign are all resoundingly quiet on the issue.
I am so screwed.
How could I have missed this tiny, little MOST IMPORTANT FACT on my list of facts about the lotto? And why didn’t I do more research? I’ve known about the winning ticket for hours. You’d think I’d have stumbled over th
is crucial piece of information by now.
But there was so much going on at school, and I didn’t get enough time to research because Bran called me into work and then I ran into Mom, and HOLY SHIT. Am I going to jail?
Am I guilty of a misdemeanor? What does that even mean?
Further: I CAN’T BELIEVE I CAN’T CASH THIS TICKET WHEN I TURN EIGHTEEN. WHAT’S EVEN THE POINT OF TRYING?
Shit.
I don’t want to give up all this money.
I really don’t.
But what can I do?
Bran’s mom spots me lurking by the pumpkin-farm sign. She gestures at me to come on up to the barn.
I wave to her, trying to imagine what it’d be like to be a part of Bran’s family. His grandparents bought this farm years ago when they moved to the US from South Korea (they were great friends with my grandparents, and there are stories about all the parties the four of them used to throw back when Bran’s dad and my mom were growing up). Now that Bran’s grandparents have retired to Florida, Bran’s parents run the farm. His dad’s an outdoorsy guy who loves everything about farming. His mom is a part-time children’s book illustrator, and she also plays in an all-moms punk-rock band (Betty and the Killjoys, bless them). Basically, she’s the coolest mom ever. Her sense of humor is all over the pumpkin farm, including in this year’s corn-maze theme: outer space cats vs. aliens.
Yes, that means exactly what it sounds like; catstronauts in spaceships, battling aliens, are carved into the cornstalks. It’s pure genius when seen from aerial photographs.
Families come from all over the state to visit the pumpkin farm and tonight, it’s full of people. As I watch clumps of families and teenagers move through the pumpkin farm, I rack my brain for an idea of what to do with this lotto ticket.
People. Persons. One person. A person who is at least eighteen …
Ahhhh. There it is. An idea.
This is what I need to do: I have to find a person who’s at least eighteen who will say they bought the lotto ticket; let them cash it; and then they can give me the money.
Sure sounds easy, but who do I know who could do it? If I were Bran, I’d ask my mom, and it would be fine. But I’m not Bran, and I can’t even imagine what my mom would do with that much money. We’d likely have a whole castle full of other people’s questionable photo-based gift choices. No, thank you.
So, okay, I can’t ask Mom.
But can I really give up $58 million?
Of course I can’t.
I’ve just got to find a way to get the money that doesn’t involve my mom becoming a millionaire or me going to jail. And that means finding someone else who—
“Hey, you okay?” Bran says as he walks up to me and pulls me out of my thoughts. He’s wearing an orange-and-black-striped apron over his clothes, and he has his pumpkin-shaped nametag on.
I am absolutely not okay.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” I say, closing Instagram and shoving my phone into my pocket. “I was just heading in. Holy catstronauts, it’s busy out here.”
Bran laughs. “I know.”
“Are you offering free hayrides or something?” I say as we walk through the parking lot. I chain my bike up outside the gift shop.
In addition to the corn maze and pumpkin patch, the Kim family pumpkin farm has a barn for making crafts, an awesome playground, and a snack stand that sells cider, caramel apples, hot dogs, and cotton candy. Tonight, every table in the outdoor eating area is full, kids scream with glee from the bounce house, and lots of couples walk around drinking steaming cups of cider.
Bran shakes his head, leaning against an antique farm wagon filled with pumpkins. “It’s the time of year. Everybody just wants to be out and doing something before winter hits.”
“It’s definitely perfect pumpkin-patch weather,” I say.
And it is. The air is crisp and cool. If I could bottle autumn in the heartland, it would look like this: twilight in mid-October at a Wisconsin pumpkin farm. I take a deep breath, inhaling the wood smoke and the hint of cold weather on the wind. It’s immensely calming.
I could just ask Bran about his latest Instagram post. Or see if he knows any loopholes for criminal teens who bought lotto tickets that against all odds happened to win. Maybe I’ll ask him anonymously later.
(I won’t. I don’t want to plant that idea in anyone’s head.)
Before I can say anything else, a news van pulls into one of the parking spots near the gift shop. A young female reporter wearing a flannel shirt, leggings, and tall rain boots hops out of the front seat, looks around the farm, and walks over to us, microphone in hand.
“Excuse me,” she calls out. “You work here, right?” She gestures toward Bran’s apron and nametag. He nods. The reporter continues, “Can you point me in the direction of the owners of the farm? We’re hoping to do a segment about the lotto winner.”
Bran stands up a little taller. “This is my family’s farm. I’m Brandon Kim, and we’re happy to let you film here.”
The reporter pauses for a moment, as if she’s trying to figure out if she should ask someone else for permission, but she shrugs. “Good enough for me. We’ll set up near the corn maze.”
“Can I be on air?” Bran asks, his voice tinged with excitement.
The reporter nods as she’s waving to the camera guy, who’s walking toward her. “Sure thing. Just find me in about ten minutes when we’re all set up. I’ll put you on first.”
Once the reporter has walked away, Bran grips my arm. “Yes! This is great. I can put this clip on my website and use it for my CNN internship application.”
“Are you sure your parents are okay with this?” I ask, gesturing toward the news van.
Bran nods. “They expected some news coverage because the lotto winner is such a big story. And we’re so busy tonight, they told me to keep an eye out.”
“If you say so.”
“How do I look?” he asks, taking off his orange-and-black apron.
I take a moment to appraise him. Under his apron, he wears boots, jeans, a T-shirt, and a vintage suit jacket that’s somehow tailored perfectly. Out of nowhere, a grey fedora with a black hatband has appeared on his head. The look is somehow both stylish and also film noir detective, and I half expect him to drop into a weird 1930s accent and start smoking while drinking whiskey.
“Nice fedora.” I snatch it off his head and plop it onto my own. “Where did that even come from? Are you hiding spare hats around the farm in case you need one?”
Bran snorts and grabs it back. “I had it on the wagon. And no fedora jokes, remember?”
I groan. “I still can’t believe I lost that bet. Can I make just one fedora joke? Please?”
Bran shakes his head. “You knew the stakes when you agreed to guess the weight of the great pumpkin last year. Since I won—and let me remind you, your guess was off by an astonishing fifty pounds—I have clearly earned a year without fedora jokes. You promised.”
The only excuse I have for such a sentence even leaving his mouth is that Bran went through a truly alarming fedora phase last year and doing things like guessing the weight of oversize pumpkins is how we entertain ourselves during the long (usually slow) hours as seasonal pumpkin-farm employees in rural Wisconsin. If I’d gotten the closer guess for the weight of last year’s great pumpkin, Bran would’ve had to watch a new ocean documentary with me every weekend for the year. His loss.
“Year is almost up,” I say. “Expect a rain of fedora jokes in approximately two weeks.” Bran’s mostly over the fedora phase (thank goodness), but I’ve been saving up jokes for months. They will have to come out eventually.
“I’d expect nothing less,” says Bran. He adjusts his jacket and stands up taller. “But seriously, how do I look?”
“Minus the fedora?”
“Oh my God, you’re such an ass,” says Bran affectionately. He shoves me slightly, and I push him back, which draws a glare from a pair of moms pulling some toddlers in little red wagons.
“I’m just kidding,” I say. “You look truly dashing and news ready. So, what’s the plan for tonight?”
Bran shrugs. “I’m just going to play it by ear. See what their questions are. But I think I’ve figured out how to find the lucky winner.”
And just like that, my stomach plummets like a pumpkin shot out of the pumpkin-chuckin’ cannon.
It’s one thing for Bran to be offering random lotto tidbits on his website and social media. It’s another for him to be investigating it himself.
For a moment I want to just blurt out my secret and tell Bran I’m the one everyone is looking for. But with this new complication of not being able to cash in the ticket and perhaps being guilty of a misdemeanor, I need time to think before I tell anyone anything.
“Abraham Shakespeare,” I whisper under my breath.
“What?” asks Bran.
“Just reminding myself of something,” I say. And that’s exactly it. Abraham Shakespeare was generous with his money. He told everyone about it. And he ended up buried under a concrete slab for his kindness.
Not that I think anyone in town will do me harm, but a lot of money makes a lot of people do strange things. Even in a town as seemingly wholesome as mine.
“So, how are you going to find the lucky winner?” I casually ask Bran as we walk toward the news van. There’s already a crowd of people there, making a semicircle around the reporter.
“You’ll see,” says Bran. “You want to be interviewed with me?” I shake my head. “Uh-uh. Nope. No way. I’m terrible on camera. You know this.”
“Jane, just because you’re the queen of bad selfies doesn’t mean you can’t be on the news with me for ten seconds.”
“My selfies aren’t that bad, but there’s absolutely no reason for me to be on camera with you. I’ll be standing to the side cheering you on.”
Plus, if I’m on camera, I might accidentally blurt out something about being the lotto winner.
