Page 75 of With a Little Luck

The festival is an explosion of stimuli as we scan our tickets and receive a festival map and schedule. Crowds of people mill about. The wafting aromas of fried foods come at us from every direction. And we are inundated with music—music booming from distant stages where the headliners are playing, a guy playing a guitar and harmonica right at the entrance, and hip-hop thumping from a huge speaker not far off, where a small crowd is watching a group of break-dancers.

“I’m going to find the information booth,” says Ari, scanning the map, “and make sure I know where I need to be and when.”

“We’ll come with you,” I say.

Ari smiles gratefully but shakes her head. “Go enjoy the festival. Maybe we can meet back up for that Latinx pop band? That’s …” She scans the schedule. “On the Albatross Stage in an hour.”

“Perfect,” says Maya, grabbing my arm. “Let’s go walk around. Check out these booths.”

“I’ll stick with Escalante,” says Ezra. “In case the talent needs some muscle.” He flexes his bicep.

Ari rolls her eyes but doesn’t argue, and together they wander off, getting quickly lost in the throng.

“Come on,” says Maya, pulling me in the opposite direction before I’ve had a second to digest the twist of disappointment in my stomach.

“Shouldn’t we stick together?”

Maya gives me an indecipherable look. “They’ll be fine. What do you want to do?”

Stick together, I think. But instead I shrug. “Whatever.”

We wander through a lane of canvas-sided tents hawking everything from jewelry to wind chimes to paintings of famous bands and musicians. We pass booths offering airbrushed tattoos and face painting and actual piercings. (Maya jokes that I’d look pretty hot with my ear pierced. At least, I think she’s joking?) We pass an eating area where people are scattered around a bunch of tables, listening to a three-piece band on a193small stage. Then an art exhibit of acoustic guitars decorated to look like famous paintings—Starry Night,The Scream, Andy Warhol’s soup cans. We pass a dance troupe defying the laws of gravity, while onlookers enjoy candied nuts and tiny doughnuts from a nearby vendor.

I’m surprised when we stumble onto an entire area designated for kids, with toy instruments to bang on, tables to make arts and crafts, and even a stage for performing karaoke, on which a girl not much older than Ellie is belting out Katy Perry’s “Firework.”

“I should have brought my sisters,” I say.

“Maybe next year?” says Maya, nudging me with her shoulder.

“Maybe.” I consider, before adding, “Ari will probably be on the main stage by then.”

“I wouldn’t doubt it.” We turn and start heading back into the main thoroughfare. “Do you like having lots of siblings?”

I think for a moment. “I don’t dislike it. It can be weird, being the only guy. I mean, there’s my dad, but he spends a lot of time at the store. And it’s like, Pru’s technically the oldest by seventeen minutes, but she doesn’t seem as concerned with the whole ‘older sibling’ thing as I am. I want to be a good role model, and be there for them when they need me. I don’t think Pru feels it the same way I do.”

Maya smiles. “I bet you’re a really good big brother.”

I’m not great with compliments, so I don’t say anything.

“I’m an only child, so I always wondered what it would be like. I really wanted a sister when I was little.”

I think about what my parents said, about how I should invite Maya over sometime, for something other than D&D. She could hang out, get to know my sisters, play Go Fish with Ellie and make collages with Penny until her fingers stick together from all the glue.

But before I can think of how to word such an invitation, Maya gasps delightedly at a display of jewelry in the next booth. She heads to check it out, oohing over spiraling silver earrings and pendants cut from a variety of stones.

While I wait for her, I scan the nearby booths. There are handmade194percussion instruments and racks of bohemian clothing and a super creepy cat that’s staring right at me and light-up wands and bubble guns and—

I do a double take.

Yep. There’s a cat sitting on a round table covered with a silky purple cloth. The cat has green eyes and is as black as a displacer beast, and it is definitely staring right at me.

Creepy.

I’m so unsettled by the cat’s unblinking stare that it takes me a second to notice the middle-aged woman sitting at the table, too, beckoning to me with waving fingers.

I tense and look around. But no, it’s clearly me she’s looking at.

Swallowing, I make my way across the path. The woman doesn’tlooklike a fortune teller. At least she doesn’t look like the fortune teller at the Renaissance Faire, who was decked out in more scarves and costume jewelry than my grandma’s vanity.Thiswoman is wearing jeans and a flowy blue shirt, her straw-colored hair trying to escape from a messy bun on top of her head.

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