Page 10 of With a Little Luck

Her nose crinkles in annoyance, but she doesn’t argue. The will of the universe is the will of the universe, after all. Pouting, she sets the muffin back down on the table.

“Here,” I say, grabbing a butter knife. “I’ll give you half. But you have to go get dressed and ready for school first.”

She makes a sour face, but turns on her heels and heads back up the stairs.

“And don’t dawdle!” Pru shouts after her. “We’re taking you to school and don’t want to be late!”

“We’re taking her today?” I ask as I saw the muffin in half.

“Mom asked us to. She’s got a pile of bookkeeping stuff to get through,” Pru explains.

Pru and I both got our licenses a week after our birthday, but neither of us can afford a car of our own, so we’re pretty much only allowed to drive ourselves and our sisters to and from school in our mom’s minivan.25The rest of the time we either take our bikes or rely on Ari to drive us around in her much cooler, though questionably reliable, sixties-era station wagon.

Mom strolls in a minute later and heads straight for the coffeemaker. “Morning, sweet children of mine,” she says, pouring herself a cup. “Do you have your homework? Penny, did you get your lunch packed?”

We go through the usual morning routine—Mom’s built-in checklist of things we’re supposed to handle on our own but she has to follow up on anyway. Lunches, homework, signed permission slips, teeth brushed, hair combed, everyone wearing socks. (Penny has had an aversion to socks since she was a baby and will do just about anything to sneak out of the house without them.)

Once we’ve all passed inspection, Mom nods at me and Pru. “Thanks for taking Ellie to school today.”

“No problem.” I finish the last bite of my muffin and put Ellie’s half in a bowl so she can eat it during the drive. We’re all sliding out of the breakfast nook just as Ellie thunders back down the steps in a striped dress, leopard print leggings, and cowboy boots, her Hello Kitty backpack bouncing on her shoulders. She’s also wearing fuzzy mittens, even though it’s going to be eighty degrees today. I don’t even know why she owns mittens. It’s never cold enough around here to justify them. But we’re all accustomed to Ellie’s five-year-old fashion choices, so no one says anything.

“Shotgun,” says Penny.

“Didn’t you ride shotgun on Friday?” I say, handing the muffin to Ellie. “Pretty sure it’s my turn.”

“Flip for it?”

We do. Penny calls heads. I win.

This is followed by an argument over who gets to pick what we listen to during the ride. Another coin flip goes to Lucy. As the five of us pile into my parents’ minivan, she connects her phone to the Bluetooth and puts on one of her favorite podcasts, something about space exploration. Ellie groans.

As Pru is pulling out onto the street, my phone chimes.26

Ari:I was thinking about your magical mystery dice. Do you think it could have been a gift from the record store elves?

Jude:Oh yeah probably. I love those guys.

Ari:They’re the best.

Jude:Or maybe you summoned it with your Level 5 bard magic.

It takes her a while to respond, the three dots coming and going a few times.

Ari:I am only beginning to discover my power.

I laugh, and Pru shoots me a curious look. “Who are you texting with?”

“Just Ari. She was wondering if I figured out who left the dice.”

Her gaze darts from my phone to her own blank phone screen. She looks mildly suspicious, but noteverythinghas to be in a group text.

I set the phone down and turn to the window, watching the familiar houses and palm trees go by, bright yellow buttercups sprouting up along the edges of the sidewalks. I listen to the podcast host energetically try to explain some of her favorite mind-warping facts about our galaxy. Evidently, our precise physical location in the universe has moved more than two hundred thousand miles since we started listening to this podcast episode, given how fast the Milky Way is turning. And there’s a supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy that contains the mass of more than four million suns. And every star we can see in the night sky is actually bigger than our sun. And scientists estimate there are one hundred billion planets in our galaxy alone.

Which means at least one of them has to have Ewoks. That’s just statistics.

My phone dings again.27

Ari:I’m pretty sure you owe me an art submission.

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