Too Much Good Luck Read online

  And the bad luck’s name was Camilla.

  THE OPPOSITE OF A BINKY

  The first thing I did when I got home was to run to my bedroom. It was the lime greeniest thing I had ever seen in my life. The walls were lime green, the ceiling was lime green, my furniture was lime green. Mom had even painted my bed’s headboard lime green.

  I gasped. Because I suddenly realized something horrible. Lime green is the color of the Wicked Witch’s face from The Wizard of Oz!

  And then I realized something else even more horrible.

  I was going to have to sleep in a room painted like a wicked witch face!

  I went to the kitchen, where Mom was scrubbing a paint roller in the sink.

  “Guess what?” I said. “I’ve decided that lime green might not be my favorite color after all.”

  Mom turned around and looked at me. Her eyebrows were lifted waaay up on her forehead. There were splatters of lime-green paint on her T-shirt and her jeans. There were even lime-green splatters in her hair.

  “Excuse me?” she said in her scary voice.

  “Nothing. I didn’t say anything,” I told her.

  “That’s what I thought,” she answered. Then she went back to scrubbing the paint roller.

  The door opened and Dad walked in. He took off the big black rubber boots that he wears on his lobster boat. Then he put his lunch cooler and his coffee thermos on the kitchen table. He kissed Mom on her lime-green head, then me, then Leo. He smelled kind of fishy, but I didn’t really mind.

  “How did it go today?” Mom asked.

  “The weather was snotty,” Dad said, shaking his head. “The boat was pitching like crazy.”

  “What was my catch?” Leo asked.

  Dad always puts lobster traps into the water for me and Leo. When he comes home, he tells us what our traps caught. We get ten cents for every lobster.

  “Let’s see…Leo, you had five lobsters.”

  Dad reached into the change jar on the kitchen counter and dropped fifty cents in Leo’s hand.

  “Yes!” Leo said. “Twenty more lobsters and I’ll be able to get a jumbo pack of Post-its!”

  Leo is sort of a weirdo.

  “What about me?” I asked Dad. “What did I catch?”

  Dad curled his lips down into a frowny face. “Sorry, kiddo.”

  “Not even one lobster?” I said.

  “Well, there was one—” Dad said.

  I stuck out my hand for my ten cents.

  “—but it was too small, so we threw it back,” Dad finished. “That’s the way it goes sometimes, pal.”

  “Tell it to the judge,” I grumbled.

  “Excuse me?” Dad said.

  “I said, ‘Peanut butter fudge,’ ” I told him.

  Because my dad does not always have the best sense of humor.

  I really needed some happy news, so I went outside to check if the Fairy Tree had left anything for me.

  Coming up the road was Mrs. Pennypocket and her bull terrier, Nigel.

  “Afternoon, Piper,” said Mrs. Pennypocket. Nigel sat down right away and began biting at his tail. “I was just on my way to see your mother. I want her to have a look at Nigel. He’s got a rash on his tail and it’s driving him bananas.”

  Mom is a nurse, but since we don’t have a vet on the island, everyone takes their animals to her too.

  “What are you doing?” Mrs. Pennypocket asked.

  “I’m checking to see if the fairies left a treasure for me,” I told her.

  “Well, I guess Nigel and I will just wait and see too,” said Mrs. Pennypocket.

  I climbed up into the Fairy Tree. When I reached where the hole was, I stuck my hand inside and felt around.

  My fingers touched something small and smooth.

  “Hey, Mrs. Pennypocket!” I yelled out. “Guess what? There is something!”

  “Go on! Let’s have a look at it!” Mrs. Pennypocket said in an excited voice. Even Nigel seemed excited. He stopped biting at his tail and was staring up at me.

  I scooped up the thing and took it out of the fairy hole.

  “Oooooh!” I said. It was a beautiful dangly earring made of blue and green pieces of sea glass.

  I held it out for Mrs. Pennypocket to see.

  “Well, now that’s wicked glamorous,” said Mrs. Pennypocket.

  “Plus, it’s even a clip-on!” I clipped it on my ear and wiggled my head around. The little pieces of glass click-clacked against each other.

  “Hold on,” I said. “I’ll get the other one so you can really see how they look on me.”

  I reached back in the fairy hole. My hand patted around in there. And then it patted deeper in the hole. And then it patted all over the place.

  “There’s nothing else in there,” I said in a shocked voice.

  “Maybe the other earring fell out,” said Mrs. Pennypocket.

  I climbed down the tree. Mrs. Pennypocket, Nigel, and I all looked around on the ground for another earring.

  Nope.

  “I’ve been having rotten luck all over the place,” I grumbled.

  “Well,” said Mrs. Pennypocket, “my gran told me that the Fairy Tree always leaves you something that you really need…even if you don’t know you need it.”

  “Yeah, well, no offense to your grandma,” I said, “but maybe she didn’t know what she was talking about, because what am I going to do with one earring?”

  I slumped right down in the grass and put my head in my hands. I wondered what the opposite of a binky was. Because that’s what I felt like doing right now.

  WICKED WITCH ROOM

  The next morning, I was totally exhausted. That’s because I was awake for most of the night, being terrified of my wicked witch room.

  Every time Mom or Dad popped their heads in, I was looking right back at them.

  “Go to sleep already, Piper,” Dad said.

  “The problem,” I told him, “is that Glunkey and Jibs are nervous because they’ve never slept in a lime-green room before. So how about tonight we all sleep in your room?”

  He wasn’t crazy about that idea.

  Apparently, the Tooth Fairy was also afraid of my room, because in the morning, my tooth was still under my pillow and there was no ka-ching.

  And worse…guess what today was?

  Camilla day!

  After breakfast, I clipped on my one dangly sea-glass earring, just in case Mrs. Pennypocket’s grandma knew what she was talking about.

  “Where did you get that earring from?” Mom asked.

  “I found it in the yard,” I said, which was sort of true.

  “Okay. Well, remember, Piper, today is Camilla’s first day at school. It’s scary to be the new kid, so do your best to be nice to her.”

  “Yuppers,” I said.

  I smiled at Mom.

  She stared at me.

  I saluted her.

  “Why do I suddenly feel worried?” she asked.

  When we got to the Maddie Rose, Camilla was already in the wheelhouse. She had long red hair. She didn’t look scared at all. She was eating one of Mrs. Grindle’s corn muffins and she was talking to all the kids. I grabbed a muffin real quick and went out on deck.

  “So, listen,” I said to Jacob, “when does all this bad luck go away? Because I’m about at the end of my rope.”

  He shrugged. “My dad never said. By the way, do you know that you’re wearing only one earring?”

  “So what?” I told him. “Pirates do it all the time.”

  Just then, who do you think walks right up to us? Camilla!

  “Mr. Grindle said I might get seasick, since I’ve never been on a boat this small. He thought I might feel better if I stood out on the deck. I don’t think I’ll get seasick, though, because the weird thing about me is that I hardly ever vomit. Seriously, I think I’ve only vomited, like, twice in my whole life. I get hiccups all the time, though. Once, I hiccupped for five hours straight.”

  Boy, this kid sure was chatty.
/>   “We moved into the lighthouse keeper’s cottage,” Camilla continued. “My dad is a carpenter, so they hired him to fix up the lighthouse. He’s a really good carpenter, which does not mean he sells carpets, by the way. My bedroom is in the attic and it’s really tiny. I used to have a gi-NOR-mous bedroom back in New Jersey. It was painted light blue.”

  Light blue! Suddenly that seemed like the best color to paint a room. Because there were so many nice things that were light blue. Like the ocean and robins’ eggs and blue-raspberry ice pops.

  If you thought about it, lime green was the worst color. Because the only things that were lime green were wicked witches and Saint Patrick’s Day milk, which might just be leprechaun pee.

  Right then I had another brainchild. I knew exactly how to bring Nacho back to our classroom!

  “Hey, Camilla,” I said, “I have something important to tell you.”

  I slid my eyeballs over to Jacob. He looked suspicious. I gave him a “mind your own beeswax” squint.

  “What is it?” Camilla asked excitedly.

  “It’s about our teacher, Ms. Arabella,” I told her.

  I put my head close to Camilla’s and said quietly, “Ms. Arabella is a witch.”

  Camilla wrinkled up her nose. “That’s not true.”

  “She’s a wicked witch,” I said. “She has a giant tote bag, where she keeps all her witch stuff. It’s full of evil potions and wart juice. If Ms. Arabella doesn’t like you, she will put a spell on you and turn you into a hard-boiled egg and eat you for lunch. And guess what kind of kid she likes the worst? Redheaded kids!”

  Camilla frowned when she heard that.

  I felt a little bad about lying. But then I thought about Nacho. I bet he missed us. There were no kids in his new home to rub his head or give him toilet paper rolls to chew on. He probably didn’t feel like doing binkies either.

  “If I were you,” I said, “I’d tell Mr. Grindle that you want to go right back home once when we get to Mink Island.”

  Then I remembered what Mom told me about being nice to Camilla on her first day. So I gave her a friendly pat on her back.

  THE GIANT TOTE BAG

  Everyone at school was excited to meet Camilla. They came running up to her on the playground before school started. They treated her like a movie star, just because she was new and because we only have fifty kids in our whole school. Ruby even gave her one of her lobster-band rings. It said “I heart soccer.”

  “How about hearting Nacho?” I muttered. “How about that?”

  When we got to our classroom, Ms. Arabella had already written “WELCOME TO OUR CLASS, CAMILLA!” on the blackboard in big, swirly letters. Then she sat Camilla in the special chair right by her desk.

  “Good morning, everyone,” said Ms. Arabella, smiling. “Let’s all say hello to our new classmate, Camilla!”

  Everyone screamed at the top of their lungs, “HELLO, CAMILLA!”

  Except for me. I just made my mouth move. Garth belched it. His breath smelled like Cheerios.

  “Sorry about that, Camilla,” said Ms. Arabella. “We are an exceptionally noisy class.”

  “That’s okay,” said Camilla happily, “because I have a cousin who never, ever, ever stops talking. She tells the same joke over and over again. What is brown and sticky? A STICK! Then she laughs and laughs. Then she tells it all over again. What is brown and—”

  “I think you’ll fit in just fine,” Ms. Arabella interrupted Camilla. Then she turned to us and said, “Camilla’s family moved here from the state of New Jersey. So, in honor of Camilla, we will be learning about interesting people who have lived in New Jersey.”

  Ms. Arabella put her giant tote bag on her desk.

  Camilla gave it a funny look.

  Ms. Arabella reached in her tote bag and felt around. Then she lifted out a paper bag and put it on her desk. Out of the paper bag, she pulled a hard-boiled egg.

  “Oops, wrong bag,” said Ms. Arabella. “That’s my lunch.”

  Camilla’s eyes grew wide.

  Ms. Arabella reached back in her tote bag and pulled out another paper bag. This one had a lightbulb in it. She held it up.

  “Does anyone know who invented the lightbulb?” she asked us.

  Hunter raised his hand. He always raises his hand even though he never knows the answer. He just guesses anything that comes into his head.

  “Camilla’s father?” he said.

  “No, Hunter. It was Thomas Edison,” said Ms. Arabella, “and he lived in New Jersey.”

  Ms. Arabella reached back into her tote bag. This time she pulled out a box covered in tinfoil. She put it on her head. It had a hole cut out of it so that you could see her face.

  She looked around at us. “Who would wear a helmet like this?”

  Hunter raised his hand. Ms. Arabella looked around the class to see if anyone else had their hand up. No one did, so she had to call on him again.

  “Hunter?” said Ms. Arabella.

  “My uncle Phil used to wear a helmet like that. But Mom says he’s better now that he’s on medication.”

  Ms. Arabella sighed. You could hear the sigh and everything. I think we exasperate her.

  “It’s an astronaut’s helmet, class,” she said, taking the box off her head.

  “Ohhh!” we said.

  “Astronaut Buzz Aldrin was the second person to walk on the moon,” Ms. Arabella told us. “And guess where he was born?”

  “New Jersey!” we all shouted happily, because we actually knew the answer to that question.

  Ms. Arabella reached into her tote bag. This time she pulled out a magic wand.

  Camilla’s eyes got very big.

  Ms. Arabella swished the wand around.

  “What about this?” she said.

  Swish, swish.

  Camilla made a squeaky sound.

  “Everyone knows what this is, right?” Ms. Arabella said.

  Swish, swish.

  “Who would use one of these things?” she asked.

  “A WICKED WITCH!!!” shrieked Camilla. She jumped out of her chair and ran like crazy out the door.

  BIG TROUBLE

  After that incident, everybody wanted to hear My Own Words.

  First it was Mrs. Waterman, the principal. She called me into her office and asked me what I had said to Camilla.

  “Well, I guess you must already know, right?” I said. “Or I wouldn’t be sitting here.”

  “That’s true. But I want to hear it in your own words, Piper,” Mrs. Waterman said.

  So I told her.

  Actually, it didn’t sound like such a great brainchild when I said it out loud.

  After that, Ms. Arabella wanted to hear the story in My Own Words too.

  When I got to the wicked witch part, I thought her face would turn bright pink. But it didn’t. It just looked sad.

  “Do you really think I’m like a wicked witch?” she asked.

  “No! I really don’t, Ms. Arabella. I mean, sometimes you get a little crabby, but you do lots of nice things too. I only said that to Camilla because I want Nacho to come back.”

  “Hmm, I see.” Ms. Arabella looked at me carefully. “Piper, you have a lot of passion. Do you know what that means?”

  I thought about it for a moment.

  “That I feel things with all my heart?” I said.

  “Exactly. And that’s wonderful. All those important people I was talking about today had a lot passion too.”

  “Even the witch from New Jersey?” I asked.

  Ms. Arabella looked confused. Then she said, “Oh, you mean the person who uses the magic wand! That wasn’t a witch. That was a magician. David Copperfield. And yes, he is passionate about magic. It’s good to be passionate, Piper. But you also have to think things through before you speak. Camilla was very upset. She was so afraid to come back to our classroom that Mr. Grindle had to take her home early. He said she just sat in the wheelhouse and cried the whole time.”

  “Oh.”


  My eyeballs felt hot and wet. Ms. Arabella put her box of tissues in front of me. I took one out and wiped my eyes.

  “But tomorrow she will be back in our classroom, Piper, and I want you to find a way to make her feel comfortable here.”

  I nodded and sniffled.

  “By the way,” said Ms. Arabella, “I went to visit Nacho last night. Mrs. Hanover said that our class could come to her house and visit him whenever we like. She owns three other rabbits, too, and Nacho has a new rabbit best friend named Cocoa.”

  “He does?” I said. My voice sounded croaky.

  Ms. Arabella nodded. “He seemed very happy, Piper. He was doing that thing….”

  And then do you know what Ms. Arabella did? She stood right up and she did a binky. For real. She looked like a total madman.

  The people who were the most interested in hearing My Own Words, though, were my parents. Mrs. Waterman had already called and told them what happened. Still, they kept saying, “What did you tell that little girl?” When I told them, they said, “Wait…let me get this straight. You told her WHAT?”

  Then I had to tell the whole story all over again.

  “Well, I was planning on bringing my blueberry-molasses cake to Camilla’s family after dinner,” Mom said. “But I think we had all better go there right now so you can apologize. Profusely.”

  “Does that mean the same thing as passionately?” I asked.

  “Pretty much,” Mom said.

  MERMAIDS

  The lighthouse keeper’s cottage is just a quick walk down the road from our house. It’s a little white cottage that sits right next to the old lighthouse. There was a big yellow moving van in front of it. Dad knocked on the door. A tall lady with short red hair and freckles all over her face answered it.

  Mom held out her blueberry-molasses cake to the lady. “Welcome to Peek-a-Boo Island,” Mom said.

  “Oh, thank you!” The woman took the cake with a nice smile.

  “We’re the Greens,” Dad said. “We live just up the road a piece. The gray shingle house with the red trim. Stop by any time.”