These Unlucky Stars

by Gillian McDunn

  He makes a beeline right for me, then sits down in front of me. I reach to pet him, but he ducks his head away. He barks at me, but it’s not like any bark I’ve ever heard.

  “What’s up, Otto?” Dad asks.

  “He’s acting really weird, Dad!”

  Otto pushes his head against me.

  “How did you get out?” I ask. “Gloria has got to be worried sick.”

  He opens his mouth with those wild, crooked teeth. I wait for him to let his tongue unfurl and roll over for a belly rub, but he doesn’t. Instead he sinks those teeth into my pants leg and pulls. Otto, who’s never once put his mouth on me. Otto, who would never hurt a fly. I look at Dad.

  “Something’s wrong.” I can hear the rising panic in my voice. “Something’s really wrong!”

  I sprint for Gloria’s house as fast as I can. Otto races ahead. Dad shouts to Ray and then is at my heels, but I’m flying. I swoop up the driveway and the front steps, pulling open the screen door, mesh gaping wide where Otto broke through.

  I hope she’ll be sitting in her chair like normal. I wish that I’ll hear her crabbiest voice. I pray that she’ll glare at me with those fierce blue eyes.

  But Gloria Crumb is lying on the floor. And this time, she isn’t moving.

  CHAPTER

  38

  The ambulance takes Gloria away in a rush of sirens.

  Dad, Ray, and I follow in Dad’s truck. When we get to the lobby, Albert and Paul are already there, disappearing through double doors to a room in the back.

  We wait and wait, but there’s no news.

  “I wish we knew what was happening,” I say.

  “I know,” Dad says. He gets up to find a cup of coffee. He asks if we want anything. I think about too-sweet tea and feel like crying. I shake my head no.

  A ball of twisted feelings forms in my belly. All I want is for Gloria to be okay.

  Ray clears his throat. “I’m sorry about Gloria.”

  “She’s not dead, Ray,” I snap at him.

  He turns pale. “Sorry.”

  I shake my head. “I shouldn’t have snapped at you. I’m just worried about it all.”

  Ray nods, and that’s that.

  Dad returns with his coffee and a lumpy-looking scone. “These sure aren’t as good as Louise’s.”

  “I don’t think these can even be put in the same category,” I say, and he smiles.

  A few hours pass. Eventually, Albert comes back to see us. He runs his hand through his hair. “It seems like it’s going to be a while. They’re running some tests.”

  My heart rises. “So she’s alive?”

  He nods once. “Alive, yes. But not responsive.”

  “How can we help?” Dad asks.

  Albert runs his hand through his hair, which makes it stick up. He looks worried and unsure.

  “We could pick up Otto,” I say.

  I may be imagining it, but I think I feel Dad stiffen. I look at him sideways.

  “No, no,” Albert says. “I’ll send Paul for him.”

  “If you’re sure,” Dad says quickly.

  I scowl. “Dad, can’t we relax the no-pets rule? It’s an emergency.”

  He ignores me.

  “We’ll message you as soon as there’s news,” Albert says. And then a nurse is calling his name and he’s rushing off again.

  I can’t stop thinking about Gloria lying on the floor, not moving. I can’t stop thinking about how scared and lonely Otto must feel.

  We get in the truck and drive home. The only thing to do is wait.

  Somehow, the day passes. I jump each time Dad’s phone beeps, but there’s no message from Albert. Eventually, Dad says it’s bedtime and tells Ray and me to go to our rooms.

  I close my bedroom door behind me. I open my sketch pad, but I don’t feel like drawing. Instead I slide open the window and crawl outside on my roof.

  There’s a big fat moon tonight. The July air is cool and crisp. I breathe it into my lungs and try not to think of Gloria and Otto. It would be easier, I think, if I’d never known them.

  Ribbons of guilt twist around my heart. I don’t want to erase Gloria and Otto from the universe. I want to anchor them to it. To me.

  “I take it back,” I whisper.

  I hear a sliding sound, and I turn my head. It’s Ray. He’s pushed open his window and is climbing out his bedroom window—onto the roof with me.

  He sits down, hugging his knees to his chest. “I thought I’d find you here.”

  My mouth drops open. “Raymond K. Logan, are you really out here breaking a rule?”

  He shrugs, grinning. “You don’t own this roof, you know.”

  “Pish.” I say it like Gloria, which makes me feel like a whole bucket of sad-happy just rained down on me.

  In the moonlight, I can see his eyebrows arch upward. “Pish? What in the world does that mean?”

  “I’m not actually sure,” I admit. “But I think it’s what you say when someone is annoying you.”

  Ray cracks up, and I do, too. We laugh until our shoulders shake and our bellies ache. We laugh until we cry.

  “Pish,” he shouts. The sound bounces off my mountains and echoes back at us.

  “Pish!” I howl.

  “Kids?” says a low voice.

  Ray and I spin toward the sound. It’s Dad, standing inside my bedroom, looking out the window like he’s not sure what he sees.

  Ray and I look at each other. We are in such trouble.

  But Dad’s crouching low. He’s crawling onto the roof. And when we look at his face, he’s smiling.

  “So,” he says. “Pish?”

  “Pish,” Ray and I answer, nodding.

  Waiting isn’t easy, but at least we’re together. We stay like that for hours—my family, my mountains, and the moon.

  CHAPTER

  39

  “Annie,” Dad calls. “Wake up!”

  “Mrph,” I mumble. “Too early.”

  But yesterday comes flooding through my brain in a rush. Maybe there’s news about Gloria. My eyes pop open, and my feet land on the floor. I’m swinging the door wide open.

  Dad stands there, holding his phone in one hand. “I got a message from Albert. They want us to come to the hospital.”

  My eyes widen. “Did they say if she’s okay?”

  Dad’s worry lines furrow on his forehead. “Sorry, Annie. He didn’t say.”

  I throw on clothes and come downstairs, where Ray is already waiting. No one has oatmeal. We get in the truck.

  Dad backs down the driveway. “Annie, I think you need to prepare yourself for any outcome. She might not—”

  Anger flares inside me. Even though he’s just giving voice to the fears of my heart, I don’t want to hear it. “We don’t even know what happened, Dad! Gloria is tougher than you know. I won’t give up on her.”

  Dad pauses. “She’s very old, honey. She may not have much time left.”

  I smack my hand on the seat. “You think she’s dead, don’t you?”

  Dad shakes his head. “I didn’t say that.”

  I frown. “She can’t be dead, Dad. I never got the chance to tell her I’m sorry.”

  He doesn’t say anything, just drums his hands on the steering wheel for the rest of the drive.

  When we get to the hospital, Albert is in the waiting room having a cup of coffee. The skin under his eyes looks purple. It’s like he’s been awake all night.

  He stands up as soon as he sees us. “Come with me, Annie. She’s asking for you.”

  Never have I been so happy to hear the present tense. If Gloria is asking for me, she must be okay. I breathe out a sigh of relief.

  Albert leads me to the hall outside her room. “You can go inside. I think I’m going to get more coffee.”

  I want to ask him to stay but he disappears before I can say a word. This is not how I thought it would go.

  Gloria lies on her back in the hospital bed. Her eyes are closed. She’s hooked up to monitors measuring
her heartbeat and oxygen level. She looks small in the hospital bed, like a doll.

  “Gloria?” I say, just above a whisper.

  She opens her eyes suddenly, which makes me jump backward.

  She chuckles but winces like it hurts. “Didn’t mean to scare you.”

  I cross my arms. “You didn’t scare me!”

  She eyes me carefully. “Oh, yes I did.”

  “Maybe a little,” I admit.

  She chuckles again. “Now, Annie. I need to ask—why did you run off the other night, when there was an award there with your name on it?”

  I sigh. We’re going to get right to it, I guess.

  “It would be wrong for me to accept it,” I answer but then stop short. My tongue suddenly feels too big for my mouth. These words are hard to say.

  Gloria frowns impatiently. “Come on, girl! Spit it out!”

  “How can I get an award for saving you when I’m the one who caused your fall? Everyone thinks I was just walking by, but really I was going to ring your doorbell as a prank.” I am so miserable, I can barely look at her.

  Even though Gloria is weak, she glares at me so hard I can feel it in my bones. I gulp. She’s surprised, disappointed. Whatever she’s about to say, I deserve it.

  But Gloria rolls her eyes skyward, looking for all the world like an irritated teenager. “Tell me something I don’t know!”

  “What?” I exclaim. Gloria knew? I don’t understand.

  She looks smug. “I had my suspicions already. But then you told me yourself that day you thought I was napping.”

  My mouth drops open. I think back to the day Gloria fell asleep in her chair, Otto snuggled in my sweatshirt. At least, I thought she was asleep.

  “I didn’t think you heard me!” I say.

  She looks very pleased with herself. “I could tell I was about to hear something interesting, so I kept my eyes shut and my ears open.”

  I shake my head slowly. Outsmarted by Gloria Crumb.

  A flicker of a smile crosses her face but then she frowns again. “Anyhow. What’s that you were saying about not saving me?”

  I’m confused. Did she forget? Does she need me to explain again how it was my fault? “I was going to ring the doorbell—”

  Gloria shakes her head. “You may not have been there for the right reasons, but the fact remains that you did come to my rescue. You could have walked away.”

  I bite my lip. “I never would have done that.”

  Her eyes shine. “I already know that, Annie. Believe it or not, I have been paying attention this summer.”

  Her voice is gentle—not syrupy-pancake sweet, but a kind of sweet that feels real. A kind of sweet that feels like maybe I earned it a little.

  She fixes me with her bright-blue gaze, letting the words sink in. “There’s more than one way to save a person. You took care of me just as much as you took care of Otto. That’s a different kind of saving. One I didn’t know I needed.”

  My breath catches. Tears pop in my eyes. “But—”

  “No buts!” she roars. “No nuts, no buts, no coconuts!”

  “I—u-um—” I stammer.

  “We used to say that in school,” she says primly. “Anyhow, Annie P. Logan. I need you to claim that award. You deserve it. There are enough times in life that you’ll be passed over for such things. I won’t have you throwing them away.”

  “But—”

  She eyes me. I feel my words shrink up under her glare.

  “And another thing,” she says. “I’m going to go into the home for old folks.”

  Oh no. This is exactly what I didn’t want to happen.

  She sees my face and shakes her head. “It’s my choice. I wanted to make the decision before someone else had to do it for me.”

  I gulp. Gloria moving to a home and leaving Otto really is my fault. There are no two ways about it. I have to tell her everything.

  “Gloria,” I say. “It’s my bad luck that brought this on you.”

  Her eyes narrow, her gaze surprisingly sharp. “You told me about this bad luck nonsense before. Something about stars, wasn’t it?”

  “Right,” I say, but then pause for a moment. “But I got some of it wrong.”

  She squints at me, waiting for me to continue.

  “A long time ago, a dog in the park bit me. I thought these scars proved my bad luck, but maybe that’s not right,” I say. “Maybe it didn’t happen because I was unlucky. Maybe it happened because I was brave.”

  “Or,” says Gloria. “Maybe you’re neither. Or maybe you’re both!”

  She laughs when she sees my expression. “Whoever said that you could be only one thing? Haven’t you been paying attention at all? I would hope, as your mentor, I would have at least taught you that.”

  She grins wide. The word mentor zooms me back to that day in Mr. Melendez’s office. It seems like a century ago. Gloria Crumb is no Jackie Zpudzz—she’s even better. She’s Gloria the roller-disco queen. Gloria the adventurer. Gloria the big sister. Gloria, my friend.

  I take a deep breath. “The thing is, I’ve believed in my bad luck for a long time. I thought it explained so much. Without my bad luck, who will I be?”

  “My girl,” Gloria says, eyes twinkling. “Don’t look so sad. You’ll figure it out. Figuring out who you are is the fun part of life.”

  She reaches for my hand, tracing the dots, bumps, and lines that look like a constellation.

  “I’m really sorry that I made you fall,” I say.

  She shrugs, her eyes bright and fierce. “I don’t know if we’re ruled by the heavens. I’ve been around a long time and have never seen proof one way or the other.”

  She winks. “But if it’s true, then these unlucky stars are the same ones that brought you to me. And I wouldn’t change a thing.”

  She squeezes my hand. I hold on tight.

  CHAPTER

  40

  After a while, the nurse says it’s time for me to go.

  Gloria says she’ll see me soon.

  Dad and Ray sense that I don’t want to talk, and the ride home is quiet. As much as it was good to see Gloria, my thoughts are a tangled mess. There’s no way to tell the future. I want her to be okay. I want her to be with Otto, but that’s impossible if she’s going to Shady Lane. The thought sinks my heart like a stone.

  When we get home, there’s a red hatchback car in our driveway. Faith is on our front porch, holding two huge bakery boxes. Louise is in the driver’s seat. She smiles shyly when she sees us and rolls down her window.

  “We were just going to drop off a few things on your porch,” she says. “I know it was a long night.”

  Faith holds up the box. “We have muffins!”

  Dad turns off the truck and goes over to Louise. “Come on in and visit for a while. I’m glad to see you.” When she gets out of her car, he wraps her in a big hug. I’m not sure if I’m ready to be around that quite yet. I open the front door, and Faith and I go inside.

  We put the box on the kitchen counter and investigate its contents. It’s stacked full of deliciousness—triple-berry muffins and lemon scones, cinnamon bread and white chocolate–peach squares. And plenty of my favorite corn muffins with little cups of extra strawberry butter. Dad is making coffee and talking to Aunt Louise. Faith and I pile a plate and head upstairs. Food in bedrooms is against Dad’s rules, but something tells me that he won’t even notice.

  Upstairs, we sit on my bed and stuff ourselves with sweets. I tell Faith everything—I explain why I ran off the way I did. Then I tell her all about seeing Gloria at the hospital.

  “Gloria said she wouldn’t change a thing,” I tell her.

  Faith looks at me carefully. “You sound like you don’t believe it.”

  I shake my head. “I do believe it—she squeezed my hand so hard, I can still see the marks.”

  “I get it,” says Faith. “You believe it for her. But you don’t believe it for you.”

  I shrug. I don’t know if I feel like ta
lking, but Faith is still looking at me, waiting for an answer.

  “My head and my heart are battling,” I say.

  Faith nods. “What does your head say?”

  I gulp. “My head says—it would be easier if I never met them. Even if Gloria lives … she’ll die someday, right?”

  Faith’s brown eyes widen. I could kick myself. Of course she’s thinking about her mom. But she’s not crying. Instead, she looks thoughtful.

  She tilts her head sideways, speaking slowly. “That’s true for everyone, though—right? Everyone dies. No one knows how much time they have left.”

  I shrug. “It may be true for everyone, but it seems more true for Gloria.”

  Faith breaks a white chocolate–peach square in two and hands me half. My room is quiet except for the sound of chewing.

  “I felt that way a little this summer, about my mom,” she says finally. “I avoided video chat, and I wasn’t texting her back.”

  I raise my eyebrows. “What happened?”

  Faith smiles, dimples popping. “She said I didn’t get a choice, that I was her baby no matter what, and she needed to see me.”

  I wait for the balloon thoughts to crowd my brain, wishing that Ma needed to see me no matter what. But the thoughts don’t come. Instead, I think about my friend and how hard this summer must have been. How Faith’s life is lucky and unlucky mixed together. How maybe mine is, too.

  “I’m glad she’s coming home soon,” I say. I mean it.

  Faith flashes a wide grin. “Me too. I want you to meet her.”

  “What was it like when you talked to her again?” I ask.

  Faith laughs. “First, she was mad. But we talked it out. It didn’t feel good to keep myself separate from my mom. But loving people is a risk.”

  I turn over Faith’s words in my mind. She was trying to protect herself from being hurt. But she ended up hurting her mom—and herself.

  Sometimes love hurts, but I think maybe it’s worth it.

  CHAPTER

  41

  It’s been almost a month since the night of the festival. The days are still warm, but they’re starting to turn cool around the edges, like fall wants to let us know it’s on the way.