Just My Luck

  “Did she really say that?”

  He nods. “She has this idea that she can make me part of the popular crowd if she just works hard enough at it. Lately I keep thinking, I’m not sure I even like Lisa’s crowd. And then I keep thinking, I have a way easier time talking to Mary Margaret than I do to Lisa.”

  I can’t believe what he’s saying. Part of me feels like I’ll kill him if he breaks up with Lisa, who I still love because she paid so much attention to me over the summer. And then I remember what Mr. Norris almost said and then didn’t quite.

  Maybe Lisa isn’t a very nice girl.

  Martin’s old friends don’t play sports or date popular girls. Some of them are pretty geeky, but if you get to know them, they’re all funny and they’re all pretty nice. Not that any of them have been over since Dad’s accident but that’s not their fault. Like I said, no one has, except for Lisa, which made us too scared to try it again.

  Martin once told me he had a test for new friends. He invited them to our house and didn’t say anything ahead of time about George. If they were decently nice when George bounced in, flapping his hands and talking to himself, he knew they were okay. Then he would tell them, “Yeah, he’s autistic,” like it wasn’t that weird a thing. Mostly they’d nod and say “cool,” and keep doing whatever they were doing, which was usually playing a video game.

  I don’t know why we can’t do the same thing with Dad, but for some reason we just can’t. Autism is a thing other kids recognize; Dad’s problems aren’t.

  “So do you like Mary Margaret now?” I ask. I still can’t get over this weird two-name thing; I also can’t really remember what she looks like except she has brown hair and I’m pretty sure she wears glasses.

  Martin smiles and shakes his head. “I know this sounds crazy but I kind of do.”

  I don’t get it. “Why is that crazy?”

  “We’ve been friends for so long that it’s a little weird. I can’t figure out if I really like her or if I like her because she’s the opposite of Lisa.”

  I don’t have any advice on this. I can’t help it though, I start to feel sorry for Lisa. Part of me still loves her a little bit. I think about Lisa saying I was a great little brother. When someone is pretty like Lisa, it’s confusing.

  When they finally get home, Mom tells us the tests mostly went okay. Dad couldn’t do everything they asked, but when he had trouble remembering a list of unrelated words (blanket, rabbit, barrette) he made a joke instead of getting frustrated.

  I smile as she tells the story. I’m pretty relieved. “What was the joke?”

  “He said, ‘Blanket, some small animal, hair thing.’” She laughs at it, remembering. “I don’t know. I thought it was funny.”

  It is funny, I think. Maybe he will be okay. Maybe we’ll get through this because we’ve lived with George twelve years and we know how to laugh at people saying strange things that aren’t really funny.

  FOURTEEN

  THE PROBLEM WITH HAVING A GREAT setup for a Lego movie is that you can’t keep having characters repeat what they’ve already said. They can’t keep looking down at their feet and saying, “Holy mackerel—I’m Lego!” Even if it makes a super funny scene, which it does.

  They have to do something.

  That’s the secret of moviemaking, I’ve learned. People have to do something and then, at the end of the scene, they need to have another scene and do something else. I have two great scenes finished so far. In one, the four main characters realize they’re stuck, and in another Yoda tells them, in his Yoda way, that it happened because their movies are so successful.

  But what can they do to get back into the movies they came from? Should there be a magic spell? Should there be a surprising Lego minifig who has lots of power even though in his movie, he has none? Someone like Chewbacca, who’s just a Bigfoot joke in the movie, but maybe in Lego world he’s like the Wizard of Oz, the guy who everyone looks up to, even if he can’t exactly grant their wishes.

  I’ve seen The Lego Movie a few times and it doesn’t really help for what I’m trying to do here. That one didn’t use the same minifigs that I love. What I’m doing is more like The Indian in the Cupboard, but Mom has been reading more of that story and it’s going in a different direction than I expected. Now it’s all about Omri’s family and his friend Patrick. I don’t want to make this story about myself or anyone else in the family.

  Which means I have to figure out how these minifigs can solve their own problems.

  It’s been a week since Martin and I had our talk in my room about life and bike riding and Lisa and I keep thinking about him saying he might like Mary Margaret more than Lisa, even though she isn’t as glamorous or as pretty. He liked talking to her more, he’d said.

  It’s made me notice something. I sort of like talking to Olga.

  Not that way of course. Please. I’m in fourth grade, give me a break.

  But Olga’s nice. And a lot of the things she says make sense. I’ve figured this much out: she’s not bad at math or spelling. Her main problem is that her eyes don’t work together right so lines of print slide around on the page for her. It turns out she’s pretty smart, though. She’s much better than I am at remembering the stories we’re reading. She’s also fine with her multiplication tables—she just can’t write the answers in the right order on the page, so she does horrible on the tests, but she knows all the facts. We’ve even developed this system where she helps me out by putting her fingers on her knees. I think she’s been doing it for a while, but I didn’t catch on until last week. I was trying to do 3 times 7—counting in my head, trying to add 14 plus 7—but the numbers kept getting mixed up and then I looked over and saw her holding two fingers on one knee and one finger on the other.

  “Twenty-one?” I said.

  Ms. LeNice, our math tutor, smiled. “Very good, Benny!”

  Ms. LeNice hasn’t figured out our system, so we still do it, but here’s the funny part. Every time we get away with one of our cheats, I remember that math fact afterward: 3 times 7? Twenty-one. No problem. So maybe this is just another learning technique.

  It’s ended up making Olga and me better friends, which makes me wish the other girls were nicer to her. She says she doesn’t care about the other girls. “I have friends. Just not the other girls in our class. We don’t have enough in common.”

  I wonder if she’s got a point with this. I think about Jeremy and what we have in common. Not too much is the truth. Mostly what we have in common is that we both needed a friend this year. Me because Kenneth moved away. Him because he’s never had one. Not a real one, anyway. When I went over to his house a few weeks ago, he said, “You’re the first friend who’s come over here in a long time,” which was a sad thing to say, but Jeremy didn’t seem to think so.

  We didn’t do too much. Mostly I watched him play computer games I don’t know. It wasn’t all that much fun.

  That’s why I understand what Martin’s saying about Lisa. He feels like he’s supposed to like her because he got lucky and she decided to like him. The problem is—he just doesn’t. He doesn’t think she’s that much fun and he doesn’t act like himself around her. What’s to like?

  This is how I feel with Jeremy and all his rules. I shouldn’t talk about Lego and I shouldn’t talk to girls and I shouldn’t wear slightly pink socks. I end up never saying much of anything. Mostly I nod and eat my lunch. What’s to like?

  With Olga, it’s different. Because she told me about her comic books, I surprise myself and tell her about my Lego movie just like I told Rayshawn. At first I make it like a question, about how I can get permission to use the school’s movie-editing software. Ms. Bukowski, the computer teacher, isn’t very friendly and I can’t imagine asking her.

  “No, don’t ask her,” Olga tells me. “She says no to everyone. You have to make friends with Ms. Johnson, the librarian, and show her you’re pretty serious about your project. Like spend a few lunch periods there and bring in the work you?
??ve done at home. Then she’ll talk to Ms. Bukowski about letting you use the computers. That’s what I did.”

  I think about this. I can’t very well bring my camera, tripod, and Lego guys in. Lunch would be over by the time I’d set everything up. But I could bring in my plans and spend lunch period figuring out what should happen next.

  At home that afternoon, I finish my homework quickly and I’m setting up my Lego guys so I can film a little more when Dad comes in. At first I think maybe he wants to help, which would be great. Maybe he can do the same thing George was doing before we started fighting and he refused to help me anymore.

  “Do you want to be my cameraman, Dad?” I say.

  He looks surprised so I point to the camera to remind him what I’m talking about. “Oh my!” he says, touching it. “That looks interesting.” He remembers enough to get behind it and look at the screen. I’ve zoomed it in on Count Dooku holding up a light saber. I want to film a short scene where he’s practice fighting by himself.

  “You just press the shutter when I say go. . . .”

  He doesn’t remember where the shutter button is so I point it out. “Oh, right here,” he says. “Sure.”

  We take a few shots and then he asks if I have a chair he can sit down in. I should remember this is his main problem—he gets tired so easily. After he sits, he does great though. He presses the shutter every time I say go and pretty soon I’ve finished the scene. We high-five and laugh. It feels like the old Dad is coming back more and more.

  “You know what I think we should do?” he says, standing up and pulling me into a one-arm hug. This is the first time since the accident that he’s suggested something. At least it’s the first time that I’ve heard him do it.

  I fall against him, happy. “What?” Dad is back, I think. He’s going to be okay.

  “I think you should ride your bike at the track while I run my laps.”

  I freeze on the spot. I pull away. His face is blank, like he has no idea what he’s just said. “Dad,” I say. “I don’t want to do that.”

  He looks confused. “Why not?”

  “That’s how you got—”

  I look at his face. He doesn’t remember anything. If Mom has gone over it—which I’m sure she has—he doesn’t remember that either.

  “Not right now, Dad,” I say. “I have a lot of homework.”

  “All right.” He smiles and nods. “Maybe tomorrow.”

  FIFTEEN

  HERE’S THE WEIRDEST PART: DAD WILL say something like that at night and the next day he’ll seem really, truly better. In the morning he’s in a great mood, asking everyone about their day ahead. When we get home from school, he’s in the kitchen fixing us all a snack. After we eat, George gets on the computer to watch YouTube videos, which he’s allowed to do if he’s earned sixteen stars at school. Even though it’s October and way too early for Christmas, he types in Santa Claus and watches videos of people dressed up as Santa doing dumb things. George loves Santa and everything Christmas related and could watch these videos all day long. Usually our parents make him wait until after Halloween before he’s allowed to start obsessing over Christmas, but this year those old rules don’t apply so much, I guess.

  Dad stands behind George, watching the videos, laughing along with the jokes. He’s leaning against his cane, but otherwise he looks more like his old self than he has in a while. If this was two months ago, Mom would probably say, “Oh, Brian, don’t encourage him.” With her friends, she sometimes said, “I feel like I have four boys.” Since his accident, she never makes that joke of course. But now Dad looks so normal, she almost could. George laughs at the video of Santa sneezing on some sugar, then Dad laughs, too. It’s so great to see, I laugh along. Dad turns and sees me. “Hey, Benny, there you are! I wanted to ask you something.”

  “What?”

  “What about bringing your bike to the track? You know, the one at the high school?”

  Why won’t he let this go? It’s like his brain is caught in the loop of what he was thinking right before it broke. “I don’t think so, Dad,” I say.

  “Why not?” He makes a sad face. “You need to push yourself a little, Benny. Don’t be afraid. I wasted too much time as a kid being scared of sports.”

  No, Dad, I want to say. You weren’t scared enough.

  When Mom comes back in the room, I don’t say anything. She asks George and me to take Lucky for a walk before dinner. Usually I would tell her it’s Martin’s turn because I’m pretty sure it is, but today I don’t mind getting away from Dad, who can’t stop obsessing over this bike-riding thing.

  One of the few things that hasn’t changed since Dad’s accident is the program Mom started last year where we’re all supposed to do six chores a week to get our allowance but we get credit if we help George do a chore. When I tell him what we’re doing, George gets off the computer and finds Lucky’s leash.

  Once we get outside, I can’t stop thinking about this weird obsession everyone has with my bike riding. I ask George how he got so good at bike riding. He doesn’t answer, of course. George almost never answers a question like this. I know he heard it, though, because he says “Bike riding!” and jogs a little ahead of me.

  Walking with George isn’t like walking with other people. You don’t walk side by side and you don’t really talk to each other. When George is outside, he likes saying lines from whatever he’s been watching lately. If you ask him what it’s from, he always acts surprised, like he can’t believe you just heard what he’s thinking. I don’t think he realizes how much he says out loud.

  After two blocks, I put my hand on George’s elbow because there’s someone up ahead with a dog. I warn him because sometimes, when another dog is around, George will get scared and drop Lucky’s leash. “Look,” I say and point. “Dog ahead.”

  As we walk closer, I hear George say, “Lisa Lowes!” into his hand and I realize he’s right: it is Lisa Lowes walking toward us.

  It’s too late to pretend we haven’t seen her. “Benny!” She smiles like she’s happy to see me. Her dog pulls her over to sniff Lucky. “I miss you! I feel like I haven’t seen you in forever!”

  I blush because I know exactly how long it’s been: four weeks. “We miss you, too,” I say. I have to be careful and remember to say “we.”

  She looks at George, who has bounced away from us and onto someone’s lawn so he doesn’t have to say anything. “Do you think George remembers me?”

  I can’t believe she’s asking this because of course he remembers her. He’s only walking away because she makes him nervous. “Oh sure. Don’t you remember how he cleared your plate the last time you ate at our house?”

  She gives me a strange look like, What are you talking about?

  Then she looks at George, pacing on someone’s lawn, talking into his hand, which he sometimes does. “He should probably get off of there, right?”

  She doesn’t say it very nicely. Unfortunately, she’s probably right but there’s a zillion things George shouldn’t do and he does them anyway. Walking on other people’s lawns isn’t the worst of it. I’m sorry, it just isn’t.

  Still, she looks at me like I should do something.

  I shrug. “Somebody will say something if they mind. Mostly people don’t mind.”

  She turns away, shaking her head, like something else is wrong.

  “Lisa? Are you okay?”

  “Did Martin tell you that he and I got in a fight today?”

  “No.”

  “He thinks we need to give each other space.” For a second I thought she was crying but now I see that she’s definitely not. She’s too mad. Her lips are folded and her arms are crossed. She looks a little bit like Poison Ivy from Batman, planning her revenge. “He’s such a jerk. He really is. He’s not going to have a lot of friends after this.”

  I’m not going to tell her that I’m pretty sure Martin’s friends don’t care too much about her one way or the other.

  “I’m talking abou
t friends that matter,” she says, almost as if she heard what I was thinking. “Not those stupid old friends of his. Those guys are losers. He should have listened to me when I told him to stop hanging out with them.”

  I can’t believe she’s saying this. She doesn’t even look pretty anymore. Her face is all scowly.

  “They make him seem like a loser. I’m sorry, but they do. Nobody could believe I was going out with him. None of my friends are going to be friends with him anymore. He probably thinks they will, but they won’t.”

  I’m not sure what to say. I almost want to tell her that Mr. Norris never liked her all that much, but I don’t. Instead, I look up and see that George isn’t on the lawn anymore. I look down the street, then back up. I don’t see him anywhere. I’m holding Lucky’s leash, so I can’t call the dog to figure out where George is. I turn back to Lisa. “Did you see where George went?”

  She turns around to where he was on the lawn, then turns back and shrugs. “No.”

  She doesn’t look nervous, but maybe she doesn’t understand that George can’t just leave if I’m in charge of him. “I have to find him,” I say. We’re standing near an intersection, which means he could have gone up any of the four streets. “He doesn’t usually wander away unless he hears something like a lawn mower. Or a leaf blower.”

  I stop and listen. Nothing.

  My heart feels like it’s bouncing around in my stomach. I move up the street. He isn’t anywhere.

  When I turn back, I can’t believe it. Lisa isn’t helping me look, she’s staring down at her phone, reading a text. “Can you help me please? I really need to find him.” I sound more scared than I mean to. I can’t help it. I am scared.