Page 137 of With a Little Luck

I could never do it. Not when the store was open and people were actually here.

Although … I guess what I just did at the dance was a hundred times worse.

I step onto the stage and pick up the guitar. Sitting down on the stool, I strum the open strings once, then grasp the neck. My fingers curve into an A major chord, one of the few I can remember. I strum again, trying to remember the words I wrote in my comic.

“And there ends our tale of the great wizard Jude,” I sing to myself. “Something, something … turned to stone. He may have got the glory, but he never got the girl, and forever he will stand there … alone.”

A last strum rings out to the empty store and fades away.

Not bad.

I mean, it’s better than a song about seltzer water.

I pick mindlessly at a few more strings … until I hear a clatter, familiar and loud in the otherwise silent store. I look down as the dice rolls across the stage and hits the guitar stand before coming to a stop. It must have fallen out of my pocket. Orleapedout of my pocket. The thing certainly seems to have a mind of its own.

I stare down at its shimmering golden numbers, the sparkles of red that dance across the stage beneath it.

Anotheroneglints up at me.341

I guess it wasn’t impressed with my performance.

Well, you know what?

I wasn’t super impressed with its performance, either.

I slide off the stool and return the guitar to the stand before scooping up the dice. My lucky dice. My Scarlet Diamond.

This was supposed to fix everything. Bring back the luck. Reinstate the magic.

And it failed.

Not just failed … This stupid dice betrayed me.

Wrath boils inside me. I hate this stupid thing. I hate the luck and I hate the curse and I would have been better off if I’d never found it to begin with.

I could throw it in the ocean!

Or …

Or I could melt it!

You know. If I had a kiln. Or a pet dragon.

Gah.

“How do I get rid of you?” I shout. Setting the dice down in the center of the stage, I look around, searching for something big and heavy and powerful.

Where is a freaking battle-axe when you need one?

I don’t have a battle-axe, obviously.

I grab the stool instead and raise it over my head. I let out a furious, guttural scream and swing the stool—

Nope.Nope.Resist the Dark Side, Jude.

I manage to stop myself just before the stool makes contact—probably saving our stage in the process. I growl. Set the stool down. Look around again. I still don’t know what the dice is made out of, but something tells me it would win the fight against a wooden stool.

This time, I grab the dice and the microphone stand and take them both out onto the front sidewalk. I look around, but the street is empty, all the shops long closed for the night. I see a set of headlights a few blocks away, but I don’t care.342

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