“What do you mean luck?” I asked.
Art shook his head, and mimed locking his lips. He took back the piece of paper and wrote down: “How to get more, how to get less.”
Wait a minute. That was what had been in his lab? Why hadn’t he told me? No wonder Laura had stolen it. I could see the potential immediately. And I wished Art had suggested I be one of the experimental subjects. To live with lots of luck, even for a little while, would have been so much relief.
“You should have told me,” I said. If I’d known I would never have let Laura—or maybe I would. If I’d had more luck, she wouldn’t have been able to get away with it. Because it wouldn’t have been the truth anymore, for one thing.
I wanted to yell at Art. I wanted to kick him. Instead I kicked the ugly green dorm wall behind him. I had always hated that color. And that wall. There was a satisfying sound of a thud, and an even more satisfying, hot sensation of pain in my feet. I might have broken several bones, but I didn’t care. They don’t set broken toe bones anyway. I knew that because it was one of the things I had looked up when I was a kid. I’d looked up lots of stuff about first aid, in case I ever had to do it on myself, without telling my parents I’d been in an accident. I’d also tried hard not to get in accidents.
Obviously, Laura had known what Art was working on, long before I did. And I’d just been one piece of her plan. “So did you take away your own luck or something?” I asked.
Art wrote his answer: “I did decrease my luck recently.”
“What? Why would you ever do that?” I understood why you might want to decrease luck for someone else, but for yourself?
“You’d be surprised how luck can mess up your life,” said Art, finally giving up the paper and talking in a whisper so sleeping Colin couldn’t report our conversation to anyone. Talk about locking the barn door after the horse was stolen.
“You think having luck has messed your life?” I couldn’t stop myself from laughing. It was a short, harsh sound.
“You must know what it’s like,” said Art. “You’re always getting what you want. It spoils you. Makes you have expectations. And makes you lazy.”
I suppose Art was lazy in certain ways. And he expected life to be easy. It wasn’t like that for me, but I’d never really considered it an advantage.
“There are other, less drastic solutions to laziness than figuring out scientifically how to get rid of your luck,” I pointed out. “Self-control, for one. It is possible to develop self-control even if you are lucky.” I said it off-hand, but then I thought about it. I had self-control. I had it in buckets. But that was because I’d learned it years ago, as a kid without any luck.
“So you want to be less successful? You want to be rejected more?” I asked.
“Right,” said Art. “Or—well, I think I should be.”
“And you’ve figured out how to do that with your experiment. Wow, that’s pretty powerful stuff. No wonder someone wanted to steal it from you,” I said. I was pretty sure Laura had other plans for Art’s experiment than learning self-control.
Art’s head jerked up. “You don’t understand.”
“It’s true. I don’t understand.”
“You have Trudy,” said Art. “You’re—you have character.”
I sighed. Yeah, that was you got when you had no luck. Character. Lots and lots of character. “Do you know if the experiment for more luck works even on someone who has no luck at all?” I asked.
“Well, no one really has zero luck,” said Art. “Even the tests have a wide variety of scores for the low end of the scale. The lowest reported score on the standardized Princeton test is actually about a three, and that was from someone who was extremely unlucky. Such that it was almost impossible to test her, because she almost died of a paper cut.”
Art could go on and on like this, and I knew it. “Just tell me if it works on the luckless,” I said impatiently. My score was actually a 4, so it was pretty close to zero.
“It should work on what we colloquially call the luckless. Though I haven’t done a lot of testing. My understanding of the mechanism seems sounds enough.”
“You haven’t done a lot of testing?”
“Well, it’s mostly been on myself. I take away my luck and then get it back.”
“You haven’t tried it on anyone else?” What if it didn’t work? What if it was only because Art was born with luck, and it was his natural state to have it, so it was easy to give it back? What if I was still doomed?
“I’m not a big research lab, Rob. I’m just a student. I’d have to worry about the ethics of human testing, and get wavers signed and all that. I just don’t have the resources yet. I thought I would wait until college and try to find a big research institution that would sponsor me and maybe a professor to guide me.”
“You didn’t try it on Trudy?” I asked. “She’s not without luck right now, too, is she?” If all three of us had no luck, and Laura had access to something that would give her more luck—we were all doomed.
He shrugged. “She’s a little lower than she was.”
“How low?” Was that part of the reason that she and I hadn’t been able to work things out or was that just because we’d both been stubborn and stupid? You can’t blame everything on bad luck.
Art gave me a number that put him just above average on the Princeton tests. “That’s about where I am, too,” he said. “It’s been very instructive.”
I was glad he hadn’t gotten rid of all his luck, but it was amusing in a sad way that he thought slightly above average would teach him so much. The real question was what Laura was going to do with his experiment. Destroy it? Keep it for her own personal use? Sell it?
“Was there any sign it was just destroyed?” I asked, feeling nauseous at the thought of such an amazing discovery being gone forever. But surely Art had made notes. Surely he was a good enough scientist to recreate them.
“I don’t think so. The lab was carefully emptied, not wrecked. I suppose the thief or thieves could have taken it somewhere else and then destroyed it. But what would be the point? I have to figure out who it was and then maybe I can figure out what they might do with it.”
“It’s Laura,” I said abruptly. “Laura Chevely.”
“What? Why? How can you be sure?” asked Art.
I told him about the key. I felt horrible. I had spent most of my life postponing the hard stuff. I guess that was proof right there that it wasn’t just about whether you had luck or not. It was about whether people around you treated you as if they expected you had luck.
“You gave her my key? Why would you do that?” said Art.
“I thought it was—I thought she was going to ask you out or something,” I said, lying. “I was stupid. I should have asked more questions.” There was a simple reason I hadn’t, but I postponed telling him about that for now. “I’m sorry. I really am.”
“You should have told me,” said Art.
“Obviously. You can yell at me all you want later. But right now, we need to find her. Talk her into giving everything back.”
“Laura Chevely?” said Art. “No way. She’ll never do it. She is going to enjoy making us eat dirt and crawl on the ground.”
“So we do a lot of that. And then we get it back.”
“Why would she give back something that could be worth billions of dollars? It’s not like she’s in love with you anymore.”
Or like she ever really had been. “Is it really worth billions?” I asked.
“Well how much do you think unlucky people would pay for luck?” he asked.
“Unlucky people usually don’t have much money for anything,” I pointed out. I was the exception to this rule, and that was only because I had access to my parents’ money. Or at least, I did until they found out the truth.
“Some of them do and some of them don’t. And there are lucky people who would pay not to have luck.”
“Yeah, I’m sure there will be a huge killing there,” I said
sarcastically.
“Then there are lucky people who want to take luck away from their rivals,” said Art.
Right. I started to realize how big this was. It had nothing to do with us, not anymore. This wasn’t a high school problem now. I wished I felt more confident of our ability to face it.
“It was kind of dumb of you to give up luck at a time like this,” I said.
“I was afraid if I had too much luck while doing this experiment, someone would offer me a huge settlement for it. And then I wouldn’t be able to resist.”
“So you made sure you didn’t have any choices?”
“I thought I was managing them carefully,” said Art.
He sounded like a drug addict. “Let’s go to Laura’s dorm. See if we can talk some sense into her.” It didn’t seem very likely, I admit.
“At four a.m.?” asked Art. He didn’t say anything about the rules about boys in girls’ dorm rooms. I figured he had broken those so many times he didn’t even think about them anymore.
“We’ll wake her up. Maybe she’ll be disoriented enough to let something out,” I said.
“Laura? Disoriented?” said Art.
“Well, it’s our best chance.” It was our only chance.
“How does the experiment work, anyway?” I asked, as Art and I were walking over.
“The unlucky part or the lucky part?” he asked.
“Both.”
“You just need electricity to get lucky,” said Art. “But it’s the exact voltage that’s tricky. I’ve got a machine that does it precisely. But you wouldn’t want to just stand out in a thunderstorm hoping for lightning, though that might be how luck got started eons ago.”
“Lucky protozoas and such?” I said. This could be the answer to the question of how life first started in the universe.
“Maybe,” said Art. “And there’s a certain bacteria that takes away luck when you touch it, which is probably what has happened in people who didn’t have explanations for it. It’s an illness.”
“So people really get sick and lose their luck?” There were rumors about that, just like there were rumors that alligators lived in the sewers in New York and JFK was still alive, living with Elvis and a bunch of other really lucky people who had gotten tired of being famous, so they pretended to die—and got lucky enough that almost everyone believed it.
“They do,” said Art.
Chapter 11: Trudy
Early Thursday morning, I said goodbye to Mom and Dad and told them a few places they could go out shopping while I was at school. I hoped they didn’t meet up with anyone from St. James, though they probably would. With my luck nearly as bad as theirs, it would make everything more difficult.
Still, I couldn’t exactly ask them to stay inside and speak to no one. Dad had his conference to go to, and Mom had always been social. She could make best of friends with strangers in about four minutes flat. At least she could do it in Tennessee with people who didn’t have luck. It made me cringe to think about her trying it here, where so many people were brimming with luck—and snobbishness.
I met up with Mabel and Arlee and we grabbed donuts and Cokes on our way to school
“My parents are in town,” I said. These were the only two people at St. James I dared to tell the truth to.
“I thought they lived in Tennessee,” said Mabel. “Weren’t you trying to avoid them all summer?”
“Yeah, well, they wanted to see me so they came up for a business conference. There wasn’t anything I could do about it.” I guess I could have, but it would have hurt Mom’s feelings and I’d thought I could keep them contained. “I just don’t want them to meet Rob while they’re here. He thinks he wants to meet them, but he has no idea. And they’re already talking about meeting his parents someplace for dinner.”
“Sounds complicated,” said Mabel. “You want us to help? We could meet them instead and try to keep them distracted while they’re here. How long is it going to be?”
“A few days,” I said, feeling grateful. My friends were the best.
I’d met Mabel’s family when they dropped her off at the beginning of the year. She wasn’t as embarrassed about them as I was, but her parents weren’t quite as luckless as mine were and they pretended better. Arlee’s family, on the other hand, were just like she was when it came to fitting in. They had come dressed in costumes, playing air guitars, and handing out temporary tattoos with luck numbers on them for people to put on their foreheads. They thought it was hilarious to see people move away from them in distaste.
“Whatever you do, don’t tell Rob about them,” I said.
“You can depend on us,” said Mabel.
I sighed relief to have some people on my team and we headed off to our first period classes. I was busy thinking about my parents and didn’t see Rob at school that morning. It wasn’t until Laura Chevely came up to me that it occurred to me something might be wrong.
“No one has seen Rob today, Trudy. Do you know if he’s sick? Maybe you should call him up and see what’s up,” she said. She wasn’t even trying to be genuinely concerned. It was obvious she knew there was something going on, but she wasn’t going to come out and just tell me.
“I’m sure he’s fine,” I said. I wasn’t sure, but I wasn’t going to admit that to her. Rob and I hadn’t been talking yesterday, and maybe he had gone somewhere he didn’t want to tell me about.
“Well, if you’re sure,” said Laura. “He’s your boyfriend, not mine.”
“Yes, actually, he is,” I said. I stepped closer to her and made much of the two inches in height I had on her. “You know, Laura, maybe you shouldn’t worry about him so much. It makes people wonder if you’re not really over him.”
“Oh, I’m so over him, Trudy,” said Laura, and smiled brightly.
We had a stare-off. I think I won just because I didn’t say anything else. Laura went on her way.
My parents so did not belong here, I thought. What would they do with someone like Laura Chevely who was so lucky but so mean? They were so used to killing people with kindness.
Still worried about Rob, I figured I would ask Art if he knew what was up. But when I went over to his locker, one of Art’s friends told me he wasn’t at school, either. And that did make me worry.
I tried texting and calling both of them three or four times each, but they didn’t answer. I tried telling Rob I was sorry and ready to talk. But he didn’t call me back.
Finally, I found Rob’s roommate Colin and asked him if he had seen Rob. He mumbled something nearly incomprehensible. I sometimes wondered if Colin had lost his hearing from listening to loud music, and was trying to get by just by pretending to read lips. He and Rob weren’t that close, though, so I didn’t assume Rob would have told him what was going on.
By then, the morning was gone and it was time for lunch. I wasn’t hungry at all, and lunch without Rob and Art there would have felt really strange. I told myself that this couldn’t possibly be about the fight that Rob and I had had. It had to be about something more than that. And maybe it was a good time to leave school without being caught. So I found Mabel and Arlee heading into the lunchroom and told them about what Laura had said and what I thought it meant.
“She’s trying to manipulate you. The best thing you can do is ignore her,” said Arlee.
“But what if something really is wrong?” said Mabel.
My point exactly. “Look, I’m going to try to find both of them.”
“Skipping school?” said Arlee. “Ooh, now you’re going rogue on us.”
I’d never skipped school before. That may sound lame, but I had always been so worried about what would happen to my scholarship. But now I was more worried about Rob and Art and whatever they had gotten into with Laura Chevely. Besides, one truancy wasn’t going to ruin my scholarship, was it?
Mabel put a reassuring hand on my shoulder. “I skipped once last year and survived. They lectured me about it and threatened me, but they didn’t kick me out. Not
with only one.”
She and I were both thinking of Ella Johnson, who had been on scholarship last year and got kicked out for truancies. She went home saying that she was lucky to be kicked out because St. James was just a place for luck families to keep an eye on any luck that wasn’t their own. Maybe she was right, but none of the rest of us on scholarship had wanted to be associated with her.
“Cover for me, if you can?” I asked, not sure what they could really do. Say I got violently ill and had to go back to my dorm?
“You could go into the office and tell them your parents are in town. They might give you a couple days off,” said Mabel. “Worked for me last year when my family came.”
It was a good idea, but it took longer than I wanted. The assistants went on and on about how wonderful it was to have family, and then I had to fill out some forms in triplicate. Seriously? Weren’t computers invented to stop forms in triplicate?
But then I was finally out, and I headed over to Rob’s dorm, looking over my shoulder every ten seconds to make sure I wasn’t being watched. I knocked on the front door, but of course, no one answered. After that, I tried to peek in one of the windows, but the dorm head caught me and sent me out. He said I should go back to school and stop trying to sneak into my boyfriend’s room. I tried to say I was worried about Rob being too sick to answer the door or his phone, but the dorm head wouldn’t have any of it. He refused to go in and look for Rob or see if there was any hint of where he had gone.
“If he’s not at school, then you and he will both be in trouble tomorrow,” he said.
After that, I went over to Art’s room and did the same thing. No answer to my knock there. But at least the dorm head was less likely to see me here in the basement, so I snuck around the back and tapped loudly on the windows. I peeked in, and saw that everything was gone. All of Art’s equipment, his refrigerators, everything.
I didn’t have any reason to believe that Laura Chevely had done it except that it seemed exactly the kind of thing she would so, and a good reason for Art and Rob to be MIA.
I tried calling and texting both of them for the nth time and still had no luck.
An Ideal Boyfriend Page 10
