Page 46 of With a Little Luck

Isthatwhat she was referring to this morning, when I was so desperately tongue-tied?

Yes… to whatever you’re asking.

Hope flutters along every nerve, but I can’t bring myself to look at her, while Tobey makes a big show of asking Janine to go with him to the dance, and she … rejects him. This inevitably leads to another chain reaction, as the massive burn turns into a massive joke. Tobey doesn’t seem upset at all, though. He just laughs it off with the others and starts opening up a ketchup packet for his fries.

How?

I would crawl off into a hole if Maya rejected me in front of everyone like that.

“Yo—Jude the Dude!”

The yell is so loud I literally jump—at the same instant that a stream of ketchup from Tobey’s packet laser-beams its way right toward me, missing the sleeve of my sweatshirt by mere millimeters as I turn toward the voice.

Beside me, Maya gasps, then laughs. “That was close.”

“Whoa, sorry about that,” says Tobey—not sounding very sorry at all—as I grab a napkin and wipe the splotch of ketchup off the bench between me and Maya.

Ezra—the source of my bellowed name—appears a second later at the end of the table, arms spread wide. “How did you know? I must have your sources.”

“What are you talking about?” I ask.

“Mrs. Jenkins! The bet! You nailed it!”

I gape at him, waiting for it to click.

“I got the lowdown from Miss Claremont. Mrs. Jenkins just scored a publishing deal. Turns out,Swooning on the Seven Seas, book one of a new pirate romance series, will be hitting shelves next year.”117

“You’re kidding,” I say.

“Dude.There’s no way you pulled that out of nowhere. You sly dog.” He’s scowling and smiling at the same time as he pulls a wad of cash from his back pocket. “I’m no math genius or anything, but based on my calculations, this belongs to you.”

He flips through the bills, counting out a bunch of money, then holds it out to me. When I’m too stunned to take it, he smacks the pile down on my tray, right next to my cold potatoes.

“No cap,” he says, pointing a finger at me. “Next time, I want in on your gossip mill, before you take me for all I’m worth.”

With that, he tips an invisible hat to the rest of the table, winks at Serena, then does a fancy spin on his heel and marches back off through the cafeteria.

Serena laughs. “He is so weird.”

I’m stunned at the nods of agreement. Ezra is a treasure in the Fortuna Beach High School social circles. He is bold and ridiculous. The ultimate class clown. Teachers hate him—in part because they can’treallyhate him. And students? They adore him, for all his antics, for all the entertainment he’s brought us over the years.

He’s not weird.I’mweird.

What sort of upside-down universe have I stumbled into?

“Holy hell,” says Serena, grabbing the pile of cash off my tray and counting it. “I guessed that Mrs. Jenkins was quitting to take care of an ailing parent. How did you know?”

“I didn’t. I was just making stuff up.”

Raul snorts. “Yeah, right. That’s some lucky guess.”

I smile uneasily. Yep.Lucky guess.

Serena hands the money back to me. “What are you going to do with your winnings?”

“Probably buy the headless Ned Stark Funko Pop,” I blurt out.

It takes a second, but then Katie lets out a laugh that borders on a cackle. “Don’t tell me you collect those dolls!”118

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