Page 15 of With a Little Luck

“These will just take me a minute to get through,” says Mrs. Andrews. “Consider this free study until I’m done. This would be a great opportunity to get started on this week’s reading, or catch up if you’re behind.”

I’m tempted to ignore that not-so-subtle hint and keep working on the campaign map I started over the weekend, but I force myself to reach forGatsbyinstead.

“Not bad, not bad,” says Mrs. Andrews, ten minutes later. She starts wandering down the aisles, passing back the tests. “Nice work, Jude,” she says, dropping my paper facedown onto my desk. My stomach twists, the sarcasm sticking me in the gut, and for a second I’m actually tempted to apologize, to promise I’ll catch up on the reading for next time.

But then I flip over the paper and go still.

100.

Written in green ink.

Circled.

One hundredpercent?

It must be a mistake. But there’s my name, in my handwriting, at the top. And every question checked off—correct, correct, correct.

I glance around, wondering if Mrs. Andrews is pulling a practical joke on us, but Robyn in the next seat has an80circled at the top of her page, and I spy a95written at the top of Pru’s, which she is scowling at.

I look back down at my quiz. All twenty guesses. Lucky guess after lucky guess after lucky guess.

My statistics teacher would have a field day with that.

_______________

38Speaking of my statistics teacher—third period gets even weirder. Like,reallyweird.

Mr. Robles launches into a discussion on sample size and the difference between theoretical and experimental probability. He goes on to talk about an experiment in which a hundred people all started out standing. They each flipped a coin, and anyone who got tails sat down, while everyone who got heads flipped again. And again and again, until no one was left standing.

“There is no luck,” he says. “It’s all just probabilities, and in theory, things that seem impossible can occur with a large enough sample size. For example, with a group of one hundred people, after six coin flips, there will be one person left standing, who will have landed on heads six times in a row. Now, is it always going to happen exactly like that? No—because of …?”

He waits for the class to respond, but only Pru shouts out, “Anomalies.”

“That’s right, anomalies. While unlikely, they do occur, because this isprobabilitieswe are talking about, notcertainties. Remember that discussion from last week? Keeping in mind that every coin flip has a fifty-fifty chance of landing on heads, it may not seem too out there for someone to flip heads six times in a row. But this experiment has been conducted using computer simulation withten billionimaginary subjects, and guess what? The statistics held. In every round, roughly fifty percent of the subjects were eliminated, and in the end, one imaginary subject had flipped heads thirty-four times …in a row. Sounds impossible, but …” He shrugs. “Probabilities. So, based on that, we are going to run a much smaller simulation today. Janine, would you pass out these quarters?”

As Janine hands everyone a quarter, Mr. Robles puts up a chart on the board, determining that, with twenty-eight students, we should get through five rounds before we’re all seated. I’m trying to figure out how we can replicate this experiment with Ellie at home, and whether or not it would ruin for her the magic of the universe making her life’s decisions,39when we’re split up into pairs—in order to keep everyone honest, says Mr. Robles.

We all flip at once. Coins go everywhere—hitting the ceiling, clattering to the floor, rolling off under the desks. But after a few minutes of chaos, our results are in. Pru and I both flipped heads, so we both stay standing, but exactly fourteen kids sit down.

Some people look impressed that Mr. Robles’s prediction was spot-on.

The fourteen of us who are still standing flip again.

I get heads, but Pru sits down with tails, along with seven others.

This time, only six of us are left standing.

Flip.

Heads.

Only Carina, Jackson, and I are left.

Flip.

Heads.

I look around, and the moment I realize I’m the only one still standing, I immediately want to sink onto my seat and hand my quarter to Pru.

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