Lucky Girl

LUCKY
GIRL
Jamie Pacton


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FOR EVERYONE WHO COULD USE A LITTLE LUCK RIGHT NOW.
AND FOR ASHLEIGH, NOELLE, AND LIZZY-THANK YOU FOR ALWAYS SHOWING UP. I’M SO LUCKY TO HAVE YOU AS FRIENDS.


CHAPTER ONE
WHAT DO MOST PEOPLE DO WHEN THEY FIND OUT THEY’VE WON THE lottery?
Cry? Scream? Jump up and down? Quit their jobs? Call their moms or their best friends?
Or, fun alternate version to all that, they could take my approach and be sitting quietly in math class, chewing on their bottom lip, and trying not to faint.
Hi, yes. My name is Fortuna Jane Belleweather. I’m seventeen, and I’ve just found out I was the sole winner in last night’s huge lotto jackpot. Like, $58 million worth of huge.
I’m freaking out, to say the least.
And look, okay. I get it.
Nobody feels sorry for lottery winners. I mean, it’s hard to have sympathy for someone who can potentially make all their problems disappear with outrageous amounts of money.
BUT, as I’m quickly finding out, in the space between potential winner → to actual winner → to appearances on Luxury Lotto Lifestyles, there’s a Pacific Ocean’s worth of doubt, worry, and fear. There’s also ample space for panic attacks like the one I’m having right now, in the middle of math class.
Outside my classroom’s windows, a brisk October wind howls, making bare oak branches slap against the glass. Inside the classroom, I’m trying to breathe normally and stop my hands from shaking harder than the trees.
I’m failing spectacularly.
In fact, I’m pretty sure I’m about to start some deeply unhinged cackling soon, and I can feel the laugh sitting like a lump of unswallowed sandwich, stuck in that spot where my collarbones meet. Assuredly, hyena-style laughter during math class is a terrible idea, but at this point, I’ll do anything to decrease the pressure of this absurd $58 million–dollar secret before my head actually explodes.
Deep breath in.
Hold it.
Deep breath out.
I count my breaths and think about numbers. Because numbers are concrete and make sense. There’s strength in numbers, right?
Okay, here are some numbers:
For the last five years, my mom has played the lotto religiously.
Every week, she spends exactly forty-three dollars—a third of her check from working at Sammy’s Storage Solutions—on lotto tickets. The rest of her check barely keeps us alive. Which is sort of fine because we live in the paid-off house Mom grew up in, and there’s still some money left from my dad’s life insurance.
But back to numbers: Multiply those forty-three dollars by fifty-two weeks, then multiply that by five years for a grand total of $11,180 that my mom has spent on the lotto since we moved to Lakesboro.
Which is probably only slightly more than what the guy in front of me in math class spent on hair gel last week.
Ha!
(More unhinged cackling. Breathe, woman. Breathe.)
Okay, right, the numbers. So, the amount of money I have in my pocket is approximately 5,245 times $11,180.
And now we’re back to it: the $58 million—or, to be more precise, $58,642,129—I have in my pocket. During math class. On what started out as an ordinary Thursday.
All of which is absolutely, entirely, totally, mind-bogglingly absurd.
And which I also just found out about three minutes before class, when I popped into the bathroom to check the winning lotto numbers on my phone.
Yes, I nearly passed out on the toilet.
And no, I haven’t told anyone yet. But I’m getting to that part.
To say I’m bewildered is like saying you should probably pack a sweater for a trip to Antarctica.
(HAHAHAHAHA. Jokes! At a time like this!)
Deep breath.
I think it’s likely I’m in shock because I’m just sitting in class, all casual, with $58 MILLION IN MY POCKET.
But there you have it.
Last night, I impulsively bought a ticket with my last dollar. And it won.
I keep making myself say it in my mind: I won the lottery.
I won the lottery. I won the lottery. I won the lottery.
“Fortuna Jane Belleweather,” calls out my math teacher, Ms. Wallace, peering at her attendance sheet. “Are you paying attention?”
Mr. Hairgel in front of me snickers. “Yeah, Tuna, are you paying attention?”
I poke him hard with a pencil eraser, which he probably thinks is flirting now that I’m single again. I’ve worked hard not to learn his name, since he also thinks my first name is the funniest thing he’s ever heard. My mom thought naming me Fortuna was a smart bet for ensuring me a life of good luck. Maybe she was right, given my current lotto-winner status, but it also highlights how terrible her judgment is. Seriously. What kid ever wanted a name with the word tuna in it?
“It’s Jane,” I remind Ms. Wallace, who likes to deploy our full names as weapons. “And yes, I’m paying attention. We’re talking about paramedics—I mean, ebolas—I mean, parabolas.”
The class laughs. “Care to elaborate?” Ms. Wallace arches a perfectly drawn eyebrow.
“Fourteen,” hisses my best friend, Brandon Kim, from the seat behind me. “The curve of that parabola is fourteen.”
I repeat what he says, and Ms. Wallace goes back to her droning lesson. I whisper thanks to Bran and go back to feeling like Charlie goddamn Bucket with a pale-orange Mega-Wins ticket burning a Bentley-size hole in my pocket.
I still can’t believe I won. I mean, what are the odds of that?
Actually, I know