Page 16 of With a Little Luck

I refrain.

“Now, what do we think will happen when Jude flips again?” asks Mr. Robles. “Keeping in mind that every flip comes with a fifty-fifty chance of landing on heads.”

My peers shout out their guesses. Most are saying tails, but a lot of people are rooting for heads to reign supreme.

It’s harder to flip now that all eyes are on me, and I’m grateful that Ellie’s obsession has given me lots of practice at catching it so I don’t drop the quarter and look like an uncoordinated buffoon.

Heads.

Mr. Robles nods, and he starts to draw hash marks on the whiteboard so we can keep track of how many flips I’ve done.

Heads.

Heads.

Heads.

People are getting excited now. I even see Mr. Robles’s eyebrows40inching upward in surprise. This is unexpected, for all of us.Possible, of course. But still, unexpected. Highly improbable.

I keep going.

And going. And going. And going …

By the time class ends, the whole class is in an uproar. I’ve been handed a number of different quarters to try, and even some nickels, to make sure I’m not using a faulty, weighted coin. People are chanting my name with every flip.Jude! Jude! Jude!I don’t know if I’m elated by this sudden rise in coin-flip heroism or horrified to be caught in the center of all this attention. My chest is itching under my shirt, and I’m pretty sure there are hives popping up on my skin, but no one can see them, so I try to play it cool, and just keep flipping.

All I know is that by the time the bell rings, dismissing us, Mr. Robles is counting the hash marks on the whiteboard and massaging his brow in disbelief. Inawe.

Fifty-seven.

I flipped heads fifty-seven times in a row.

I didn’t just beat the odds, I pulverized them.

41

Chapter Five

“What just happened?” Pru asks as we make our way out ofthe class. “That was …” She struggles for a word. “Impossible.”

“Improbable,” I counter.

My whole body is vibrating from the energy of the coin-flip experiment. The sound of my name being chanted still echoes in my ears. People I barely know are slapping me on the back as they pass me in the hall, making comments about wanting some of that luck to wear off on them, asking me what numbers they should pick for this week’s lottery. I don’t respond, just smile tightly and laugh along.

Pru isn’t laughing. She’s looking at me like I’m a Rubik’s Cube that she is determined to solve.

“Are you sure you haven’t picked up some coin-flip strategy, all those times you’ve flipped with Ellie?” she asks. “Like … some specific … thumb … flick …” She mimics flipping an invisible coin, and I know she’s wondering if it’s possible, for someone to learn to flip a coin in the same manner so that they get the same result every time. I suspect Mr. Robles is wondering the same thing right about now.

We come to a fork in the hall, and I pause, shoving my hands into my pockets so people don’t notice that they’re kind of shaking with adrenaline. My left hand finds the dice deep in my pocket, and I instinctively wrap my fingers around it.

“I don’t know what to tell you, Sis. It was super weird. But anomalies happen, right?”42

She huffs, unsatisfied.

“I’ll see you in poli-sci,” I tell her, doing my best to seem nonchalant about the whole thing as I turn and head off to the cafeteria. Pru and Quint both have second lunch this semester, so I usually eat with Matt and César, and sometimes Russell, though he prefers to spend most of his lunch breaks in the library working on his novel, the third installment of an epic fantasy series he calls the Hidden Gates of Khiarin. Or, sometimes, the Khiarin Chronicles. Or, lately, the Keys to Khiarin. He struggles with titles more than adding words. Last I heard, this third book was already more than five hundred pages long.

Two members of our student government are on ladders on either side of the cafeteria doors as I pass by, hanging up a butcher-paper banner hand-painted with hearts and stars and music notes—a reminder to purchase tickets for this year’s prom and junior prom dances.

I stop at the vending machine just inside the door and release my grip on the dice to fish a couple dollars from my wallet.

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