The Higher Power of Lucky

Lucky’s original plan had been to pretend to go to her job at the Found Object Wind Chime Museum and Visitor Center early, right after coming back from school, rather than her usual time of late afternoon. But instead she’d run away. Then when the bus arrived hours before the regular time and Lucky saw Brigitte’s Jeep and Short Sammy’s Cadillac parked at the Captain’s house, she decided to leave right away. Brigitte wouldn’t miss her for a long time. But first there were important supplies to get at home.

Even though the bus had come back way earlier than usual, HMS Beagle was waiting in the usual place. It was too windy for Lucky to explain about the Three Signs, and anyway, they had to watch out for things blowing around, like dead bushes and pieces of trash. Lucky knew that it could get so windy that even roofs blew off houses, and you couldn’t tell what direction you were going because the sun was blotted out. Tiny twisters of sand rose up from the ground, as if miniature people were throwing handfuls in the air. A loose flap of tin banged on someone’s roof, and the wind tugged the tamarisk trees sideways.

Lucky spread a towel on her bed next to her survival kit backpack. It was already ready, but she checked again to be sure. Crammed inside were:

empty mint boxes for collecting specimens, scrounged from trash left by ex-smokers, plus a large tin for HMS Beagle’s water bowl

nail polish remover and cotton balls

mineral oil for the glistening of eyebrows

a survival blanket (kind of like very strong tin foil folded up into a tiny square)—not the keep-you-warm kind of blanket, but shiny so the rescue helicopter can spot it; also, if you know how, you can use such a blanket to collect drops of water to keep from dying of thirst. Lucky would figure out how this worked if the time came.

Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, borrowed in order to study more about how to find your Higher Power

pencil and notebook to describe specimens

tiny packets of ketchup from McDonald’s

can of beans

the Ten-Strand Round knot

brand-new toothbrush from a teeth-cleaning at the Sierra City clinic, still in its original wrapper so that if she started to lose heart—“to lose heart” being Lucky’s favorite sad but exquisite phrase—she could get out a beautiful never-used toothbrush and make herself feel better

half a tube of toothpaste

bottle of water and bottle of Gatorade

The survival kit had everything she would need to keep from getting bored or too lonely, which are probably the worst dangers of running away.

On the towel she laid out her jacket and a roll of toilet paper. She wished she could take her pillow, but it was too bulky.

In the fridge she found two hard-boiled eggs, four carrots (HMS Beagle loved carrots), the Government Surplus cheese, which no matter how awful it was both she and HMS Beagle could eat in case they started starving to death, Fig Newtons, and a box of dry Jell-O (in a plastic Ziploc bag to ward off ants). HMS Beagle’s kibble in another Ziploc bag.

Lucky looked around.

On the counter was Brigitte’s metal parsley grinder, which Dot had fixed so it worked like new.

Lucky put it on the towel. Then suddenly she went back into the kitchen. She reached up and grabbed the urn with her mother’s remains and her own dried-up tears inside. She added that to the pile and carefully rolled the towel up into a tight but bulky tube. She jammed it into a plastic grocery bag.

Lucky was ready to start running away when she realized that she might never return to the half circle of trailers if the rescuers took her directly to the orphanage in Los Angeles. So she was about to go one last time into Brigitte’s trailer, when she heard blasts of a tugboat coming closer and closer.

Oh, la-la, la-LA, la-LA, la-LA, she thought. I’ll never be able to run away with him here.

“Go away, Miles,” she yelled. “I’m busy!”

“Lucky, the storm is really bad! Everyone’s at the Captain’s house saying the power and the phones will probably go out. Can I come in?”

“No! Go away!”

“Why? I won’t make noises!” Miles let himself in and took short skips to the Formica table. He pulled Are You My Mother? out of his Buy-Mor-Store sack. Its spine had been freshly mended with duct tape. “My grandma fixed my book,” he said.

Lucky had no time to be nice. “That book is wrecked,” she said. “It looks even worse now.”

Miles smoothed the duct tape. “It’s still fine inside,” he said. “Could you read it to me?”

“Miles, get a life. You already know the story by heart, and it’s boring.”

“No, it’s not! The part about the Snort is good, and so is the part where he finds his mother at the end.”

“That bird is an idiot snotwad,” said Lucky. “He doesn’t even know”—Lucky took a breath—“he doesn’t even realize that his mother is in jail!”

Miles sat still, looking down at his book. “She is not,” he said in a small voice.