Page 18 of With a Little Luck

“I think Brawndo is going to have to sit this campaign out.” He meets my eye, his face pinched apologetically. “I asked my boss to start putting me on the schedule for Saturdays.”

I frown. Matt works at a fish and chips stand off the boardwalk. It’s not exactly a dream job.

“Why?” César asks.

“It’s our busiest day,” says Matt. “You can get twice as many tips as working weekdays. I need that money to feed my gaming addiction, you know that.”

“You needtimeto feed a gaming addiction,” I say.

“Yeah. Maybe. But I’d also like to get a car at some point? Anyway … it just seemed like the right call.”45

“We could move D&D to a different night,” suggests Russell.

We exchange doubtful looks. It isn’t easy to coordinate the schedules of six high school students. I’ve got work at the record store, César’s on the wrestling team, Kyle (who has second lunch) does track, and Noah is juggling their senior year, college applications, a math tutoring gig, plus being the president of their school’s anime club.

And Russell—well, Russell just mostly works on his novel. But that takes up alotof his time.

“It won’t be the same without you,” grumbles César. “Who is going to encourage all of Goren’s stupid ideas now?”

“I’m sorry,” says Matt. “I know it sucks, but you can do the campaign without me, right?”

My mind does cartwheels, running over the details of the campaign. Matt’s character, Brawndo, is a barbarian, giving him the most brute strength of the group. It comes in handy, a lot, but … there aren’t any specific challenges I’ve put into the campaign that willneedhim …

“Yeah,” I say. “We’ll make it work.”

46

Chapter Six

Despite how our D&D group is losing a member right whenwe’re about to start our new campaign, the rest of the day is … kind of awesome. I’m not sure I can remember having a better day, at least not during my high school career. There’s almost a mystical quality to it, like Mercury’s in retrograde and the stars have aligned in my favor or whatever.

In gym class, I make the best basketball shot of my life, a three-pointer that I’m not entirely sure should have been physically possible outside of the NBA.

In political science, Ms. Spencer pairs me up with Maya to discuss the role of the media in our most recent local elections, and normally this would leave me petrified, except Maya is in her element and has plenty to say on the subject, making it pretty easy for me to nod along in agreement and try not to make it obvious when I catch the occasional scent of her shampoo and nearly implode from olfactory overload.

I mean that in a good way. Averygood way.

And then, miracle of miracles, Mr. Cross announces in my last period of the day, visual arts, that we’re going to spend the next week drawing the human form, something I’m already decent at, but also would like to do better.

As soon as it’s announced, Ezra throws his arms into the air and jubilantly proclaims—“Bring on the nude models!”47

To which Quint shoves him on the shoulder and says, “You’re up first, EZ.”

And did Ezra jump out of his seat and start stripping off his T-shirt to a chorus of whistles and hollers from our classmates?

Of course he did.

It took the teacher ten minutes to get everyone settled down again—and Ezra fully clothed—and the rest of the period was spent looking at slides of artworks depicting the human body in various forms. Male, female, curvy, slender, short, tall, everything in between. Mr. Cross points out a lot of details I wouldn’t have noticed on my own—how the arrangement of the figures alters their apparent relationships to one another. How the vibe of the piece changes in intensity when the figures are directly facing the viewer versus being turned into a profile view. How much the direction of the figure’s own eyes and attention can impact the interpretation of the piece.

I sketch the whole time, trying to soak in as much information as possible, eager to see if this new information translates to my pencil.

My teachers don’t even assign any homework. Not a single one. On a Monday.

Thatneverhappens.

Not that I’m complaining.

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