Lucky Girl by Jamie Pacton (novels for beginners txt) 📕

also leaves open the possibility that if I did somehow find someone to cash the ticket, and I become a millionaire, then my problems are really only just beginning because someone might kill me for the money, or even if not that, the rest of my life might be ruined because

“FORTUNA!” Mom’s voice rings through the house. “Time to go!”

Ugh.

I just got home from the pumpkin farm half an hour ago, but Big Junk Dump day still awaits. After the interview, I helped Mrs. Kim in the snack bar for a few hours and then had to help Bran clean up the trash around the picnic area. When I got home, Mom’s truck was in the driveway, and her door was closed. I’d hoped she’d gone to sleep, but no such luck.

Mom knocks on my door. I shove my notebook under my pillow and stand up.

“Hey,” I say, opening the door. A yawn splits my face. “Any chance we can skip tonight? I’m super tired and have a long day at school tomorrow.”

Mom twists her ponytail into a bun and then lets it fall. Her brow furrows, and she takes a deep breath, clearly warring with herself as she tries to figure out if she can choose me or the stuff. We’ve had this conversation before. If I don’t help her pick up BJD junk, she’ll keep bugging me all night as her anxiety ramps up about stuff being taken by the trash collectors early in the morning.

“I think we have to go now,” says Mom quickly. “It won’t be long. I promise. Please, Fortuna Jane?”

I sigh and nod. If we leave now, we could be done by one in the morning. Meaning I’ll only get a few hours of sleep before school, but there’s really no choice. “Let me get my shoes.”

FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER, WE’RE CRUISING INTO TOWN. I’M DRIVING, and Mom has a flashlight pointed at the junk piles along the street. We pass one that’s all old mattresses—thankfully, Mom doesn’t want to start collecting those—and she also lets me pass the pile of tomato cages heaped among bags of yard waste.

We don’t chitchat about our day or what’s going on in our lives, and an anxious silence fills the truck cabin. For a moment, I imagine what it would be like to tell Mom about the winning ticket. I could do it right now. Just blurt it out. It’s only five small words.

I practice saying them in my head. “Mom, I won the lotto.”

Or, “You’re not going to believe this, Mom, but I won the lotto.”

Or, “Mom, we’ll never need to go through trash again, because we’re now worth $58 million.”

That last one sounds wildly convincing, and it might just work. Maybe that huge sum would snap her out of this need to rescue other people’s garbage? Maybe I could give it a try and then pass it off as a joke if it fails?

The words sit on my tongue, lumpy like mashed potatoes. I open my mouth, ready to—

“PULL OVER!” Mom shouts as we round a corner near the heart of our small downtown.

Uh-huh. Of course this made her stop.

I swallow, pushing any unsaid confessions back inside myself.

Heaped on the corner is a mountain of junk. It looks like the owners of the sprawling Victorian we’ve stopped in front of must be getting all new furniture, or maybe somebody died. Two recliners with stuffing poking out of them sit among a broken futon, boxes filled to the brim with photo frames, and much, much more. Mom’s flashlight beam bounces all around the stuff, and she’s out of the truck before I even stop beside the curb.

“Put down your light!” I whisper as the beam hits house windows. What we’re doing is not technically illegal, but we’ve also had the police called on us before because we’re out so late and making so much noise that we wake up somebody’s kids or their dog.

Mom lowers her light, setting it on top of a dresser that’s busted up and missing two of its drawers. “Can you believe all this stuff, Fortuna? Why would anyone throw it out?” She shoves a huge box toward me. “Go through that. Save anything of personal value!”

When she says it, it’s both mission statement and a credo.

We Must Save Anything Someone Ever Loved!

There’s an agitated desperation to her voice that’s matched by her frenetic movements as she darts around the junk pile, pulling at stuffed animals, blankets, and books.

I take the box she’s handed to me and rest it on the broken dresser beside her flashlight. Unlike Mom, who dives barehanded into junk finding, I always bring a pair of gardening gloves on BJD day. After slipping them onto my hands, I sift through the contents of the box.

It contains a few cheesy records (’80s BIG hair!), a stack of water-stained books, a bunch of hangers, some photo albums with no pictures in them, and then, inexplicably lumped at the bottom, is a wedding dress.

Weird.

I pull the dress out of the box. It unfolds like a satin and chiffon waterfall, with poufy sleeves bigger than my head. A wide brown stain (please let that be a coffee stain) covers the train of the dress.

“It’s beautiful,” Mom gasps. She drops the ugly lamp she was holding and runs one hand slowly along the tiny beads embroidered along the bodice. “Can you imagine throwing away a dress like this?”

I couldn’t. But I also couldn’t imagine keeping it. Or ever needing it, since I never plan on getting married. Still, though, I’m surprised the dress was so unceremoniously shoved among all the other junk in the box.

“I wonder what the story of it is,” I say, half to myself.

Mom beams at me.

Shit. Wrong question.

“That’s exactly what I’ve been trying to tell you!” Mom exclaims. “Stuff has stories, and someone certainly loved this once. How lucky that we found it!”

“Maybe they’re getting rid of it because the marriage didn’t work out or the bride