Page 9 of With a Little Luck

“Yes, yes. We’re going,” says Mom. She gives Ari a hug. “You were wonderful tonight, hon.” Then she hitches her purse up on her shoulder before taking Ellie from Quint.

“I should be heading home, too,” says Ari. “I’ll see you Tuesday.”

“Wait, one more thing.” I reach into my pocket and pull out the red dice.

Penny’s eyes widen. “That’spretty.”

“Yeah. I just wanted to say thank you to … whoever it’s from.” I look around. Mom and Dad. Penny and Eleanor. Pru and Quint. Ari. They all stare blankly at me, then trade looks with one another. Finally, there’s a round of shrugs. “Really?” I say. “None of you left this for me? It was on the record player, under the lid. It couldn’t have been put there by accident.”

“I’ve never seen it before,” says Pru, and everyone else is shaking their heads, too.

“Finders keepers,” Penny says brightly.

“Right.” I slip the dice back into my pocket. “I guess it’s just my lucky day.”

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23Pru, Lucy, and Penny are sitting in our breakfast nook eating blueberry muffins from Costco when I come up the stairs from my basement-converted bedroom the next morning. Lucy’s got one earbud in, the other dangling around her neck, but she pulls it out when she sees me.

“Let me get this straight,” she says, before I’ve even had a chance to sit down. “You justfounda record signed by Paul McCartney? Just … by chance?”

“A poster, actually. It was pretty weird.” I dump my backpack on the bench and slide in next to Pru.

“And Mom and Dad didn’t know about it?” says Lucy. “How is that possible?”

Penny shoves another bite into her mouth, crumbs littering the table. “Dad said he’s had that record for a long time.”

“Don’t speak with your mouth full,” Lucy chastises, but her look of disbelief stays on me. “How did you find it?”

“It was in the album jacket. It slipped out when I went to put the record back in.”

“Huh. Do you think there could be more hidden treasures in that store?”

“I don’t know. We always inspect used albums when people bring them in to sell. I think this was a bit of a fluke. I also found this last night.” I show her the dice, which I slipped into my pocket on a whim when I was getting dressed.

Lucy’s eyes start to brighten, but then quickly dim. “Oh. I thought it was a gemstone, not one of your gamer dice.”

Clearly not from her, then, not that I expected it to be.

I tuck the dice away and start to reach for the last muffin, but a tiny hand beats me to it. Ellie, still in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles pajamas I gave her for her birthday, clutches the muffin to her chest and glares at me. “Mine!”

I glare back, less intensely. “Flip me for it?”

She considers the proposal, then says, “Fine,” and spins around to dig a quarter out of the jar by the stove.24

I’m convinced thatit’s not fairmust have been Ellie’s first spoken words. For the first few years of her life, they were a constant mantra. Penny got a bigger piece of pizza?It’s not fair!Lucy got to choose two songs during the drive to school, and she only got to pick one?It’s not fair!Some random kid on YouTube has the newest set of My Little Pony dolls, and she doesn’t?It’s! Not! Fair!

So, sick of hearing those words, a few months ago Pru introduced her to the remarkable strategy of using a coin flip when fairness was in question, leaving the ultimate decision up to the universe. Ellie has been obsessed with coin flips ever since, using them to dictate everything from who gets to pick what board game we play, to whether or not she can watch one more episode ofGlitter Forcebefore getting ready for bed. It makes for a peaceful compromise … usually.

“All right,” I say, taking the quarter from her. “You call it.”

“Tails!”

She always picks tails.

I flip the coin. Grab it. Slap it onto my forearm, and show it to her.

“Heads.”

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