Lucky List

“What cha doing, Billy?”, my six-year-old sister asked, interrupting my meditation.

“None of your business,” I said. “Now go away. I’m busy.”

“Didn’t look busy to me. It looked like you were sleeping,” Suzie said with her annoying, childish giggle.

“Shows what you know. I was manifesting.” I wish Mom would let me lock my door, but she promised to take it off its hinges if I locked it again. I get caught smoking weed in my room one time and they subject me to mom boot camp. Now they were threatening to make me quit the football team if I didn’t get my grades up. Studying didn’t seem to be working, so I was trying something new.

“What’s that?”

“You write down something that you really want to happen and then your focus on It and it comes true.”

“Oh, you mean you make a wish. Why didn't you say so?”

“It’s not wishing, it’s science. You’re a baby. You wouldn’t understand. I saw it on YouTube. See I wrote, ‘I want to make an A on my Geometry test.’ Now I’m visualizing myself holding my test with a big A written on the top.” I really hope this works. Cosigns, tangents, arcs and angles are like a foreign language to me.

“Still sounds like wishing to me. Maybe you need one of my lucky stickers.”

“I don’t need a lucky sticker. I need to focus on visualization. Now go away.”

“If you let me put one of my lucky stickers in your notebook, I’ll go away.”

“Fine.” Anything to get her to go away.

Suzie ran down the hall on her stumpy legs. A minute later she came back clutching a sheet of stickers, three of which had already been used. She grabbed my notebook and plopped down on the floor. “Now, let’s see. I think this needs a dragon, no wait, a unicorn!” she said earnestly. She carefully placed the sticker next to the line I had written. “There, now your wish will come true.”

Four days later, I had forgotten all about my manifestation as we waited for Mr. Godfrey to start passing out our tests. The test had gone about like I expected. I ended up having to guess the answer on about half the questions. Mr. Godfrey was giving us the standard monologue he always did when he handed tests back. I could have almost recited it from memory. “Some of you still aren’t applying yourselves. You are all Juniors. Grades matter. Don’t forget it.”

When Mr. Godfrey silently placed my test face down on my desk, I feared the worst, but when I slowly turned in over, I saw ‘98’ in the top right corner, making my spirits soar. It was all I could do to contain my whoop of joy. I raced home after practice and practically shoved the paper in Mom’s face.

Mom smiled and said, “See what you can do when you apply yourself?” I didn’t say anything but raced upstairs to add another entry to my manifestation list. Mom must have been happy with my grade because a little while later I heard her singing along with the radio..

Under my geometry test entry, I added, ‘I want to make an A on my Biology test.’ I was going to review my notes, such as they were, but before I got started Andrew texted that he was playing “Gears of War” and I should join. Next thing I knew Mom was calling me to dinner.

After dinner, Dad pitched a fit because I hadn’t cleaned the garage, so it was late before I got back up to my room. I was too tired to study even after I did get out my notes. Instead, I focused on my manifestation. I picked my manifestation list and saw Suzie had put another unicorn sticker on the page. I was pissed that she had been in my room but amused by her gesture. After thirty minutes of visualizing getting my test back with a big ‘A” in the corner, I woke with a start as I almost fell over in my chair. Time to go to bed.

Miss Simmons grades fast so it was only two days later when she returned the tests. When she passed my desk, instead of handing me a test, she simply said, “See me after class.” Dreading that I had failed another test, I couldn’t pay attention during class, instead just doodled randomly. When the bell rang, I waited for everyone to leave before trudging up to her desk.

“William, I wanted to talk to you about your grade,” Miss Simmons began. Oh, God, here it comes, I thought. “I have to admit that I thought you might have cheated at first. I even compared your answers to your classmates, but I don’t see any evidence of cheating. My question, William, is why you haven’t been performing at this level all semester?” she asked, handing me the test with a ‘100’ boldly taking up the right corner.

“My parents threatened to make me quite football if I didn’t get my grades up, so I’ve been studying more,” I admitted.

“Well, it seems to be working. Keep it up.”

I did keep it up. Or at least, I tried to. That night I wrote, “I want to make an A on my English paper” on my list and spent an hour visualizing my grade. However, when I got my paper back on Friday, not only did I get a “C-“, I was in the group of students assigned to re-write their papers over the weekend. Making matters worse was the fact that I rode the bench during the game Friday night. Even after we were up by three scores, my number didn’t get called to go on the field.

I was fuming in my room about having to waste a perfectly good Saturday rewriting my paper when Suzie silently appeared again. “What’s wrong, Billy?” she asked.

“Nothing,” I snapped. “I have work to do. Go away.” As I barked at her, I knocked my paper to the floor.

“Didn’t you add this paper to your wish list?” she asked, looking that the grade.

“It’s called manifesting. I told you. But it didn’t work this time.”

“That’s because you didn’t get a lucky sticker, silly,” she said with her six-year-old earnestness. A minute later, she was putting another unicorn on my list next to the paper wish.

“If your stickers are so lucky, you better give me another one because I have a history test next week, too,”

By Wednesday, I was a believer in the power of the lucky stickers. Not only did I make an A on my history test, but Mr. Rodgers also read my revised paper to the class as an example of one of the best essays on the symbolism in ‘The Old Man in the Sea” that he had seen in fifteen years of teaching. Strangely, when he read the paper, I felt like I was hearing the words for the first time even though I must have written them.

After that for the next month, my list began to grow. In addition to good grades, I added other wishes to the list. First, I added, “I want to be a starter on the football team.” Two days later, Coach announced after practice that I would be starting on Friday night. I was feeling great, basking in the power of my wish list, until he added, “Everyone should say a prayer for Jim Kaigh tonight. His grandpa died suddenly last night which is why he won’t be playing this week.”

Jim’s loss only put a small damper on my joy at getting to start. Unfortunately, I dropped the only pass the quarterback, Max Heartwell, threw to me. After that, even though I was wide open several times, he never threw the ball my direction. I went straight home and added, “I want to catch the winning touchdown” to the list.

Suzie was happy to put her stickers on whatever I added to the list. I don’t know if she realized when my attitude changed from indulging her to desperately needing her. She definitely wasn’t as annoying anymore, so when she appeared in my room, I didn’t try and run her off and let her hang out while I studied or played Xbox.

Everyone in the house seemed happier. Dad even came home early twice and threw the ball with me, giving me pointers on using my hands better. Maybe it was my imagination, but Mom’s cooking even got better. Dinnertime was more fun than it had been in months, with the conversation covering Suzie’s school day and my plans for the weekend instead of harassing me for not doing my homework.

Friday came and Mom and Dad were both in the stands watching me play. I caught my first pass on the second play of the game, picking up a first down. Max gave me a pat on the back when I got back in the huddle, making me feel like a real part of the team for the first time. Despite me catching five more passes as the game progressed, it was a back-and-forth affair, and we were down by five points late in the fourth quarter. I had no doubt how the game would end, however, knowing that the bottom of my wish list held the key to the outcome. With thirty seconds left, Max called my number for a slant route across the middle.

Lined up in the left slot, I ran five yards down the field and made a sharp right cut diagonally across the field. In the corner of my eye, I saw the defender fall just as I picked up the ball coming my way. The pass seemed to float right into my hands, hitting me in perfect stride. I raced down the middle of the field and dove into the end zone. As my teammates jumped and hollered all around me, I saw the opposing team’s medical staff run out to where the back covering me had fallen. I found out later that his spikes had gotten caught on a sprinkler head and he had torn his ACL.

The unfortunate injury didn’t cast much of a shadow on my success. Suddenly I went from just a guy on the football team to THE guy on the football team. I started to think of new ways to use my list. The idea that went to the top was ‘I want Becky Thompson to go to the Prom with me.’ Becky had been in my class since 3^rd grade, but even though she had been my friend for years, I never dared ask her out. Cheerleaders didn’t go out with scrubs. They dated quarterbacks. Suzie selected a heart sticker for this wish, which we both agreed was the best choice.

I went to school the next day feeling as confident as I ever had. Thanks to my wish list I was now making ‘As’ in all my classes, I was a football hero, and I was about the ask the prettiest cheerleader in school to go to the Prom with me. I wanted to wait for the right time to ask Becky out, which meant waiting until she was by herself, not rushing to class and not on her phone. I thought I was going to have a chance to talk to her at lunch, but just as I started to walk over to her, she was surrounded by her girlfriend posse.

I had to wait until after school to talk to her, meaning I was going to be late to practice, but I didn’t care about the extra laps I would have to run. I had been standing in front of gym for ten minutes when she finally showed up, surrounded by the rest of the cheer squad. dressed for practice. “Hey, Becky, can I talk to you a sec?”

“Sure, Bill,” she said. “I’ll see you guys in a minute,” she told the others, before turning to me.

“I was wondering,” I stammered, suddenly feeling nervous, “if you would, you know, go to Prom with me?”

Becky looked at me with what I assumed was fake sympathy. “I’m sorry Bill. I wish you’d asked earlier, but Max asked me this morning and I said yes.” I didn’t absorb much after the words ‘I’m sorry’. I couldn’t believe that the list let me down. I mumbled something and wandered over to the locker room to change for practice.

By the time I was in my gear, the rest of the team was running drills on the field, including, much to my annoyance, Jim Kaigh, who must have returned from the funeral. Coach at least had the decency to wait until after practice to tell me that Jim would be starting again this week, but he assured me I would get to play. My case hadn’t been helped by the lousy passes Max threw to me during practice. Everything was either too high or too low, meaning I had to jump or dive to catch them. Max swore it was sweat on his hand making the ball slip, but he hadn’t had the same problem on his throws to Jim.

When I got home, I ran up to my room immediately and added a new wish to my list. “I hope that Max Heartwell can’t take Becky to the Prom.’ That should do the trick. Get me back in the game with Becky and Max off the football field, Maybe the back-up wouldn’t favor Jim, and I could get back to starting. I called Suzie to bring her stickers to my room.

“Oh, no I can’t give you a sticker for that,” Suzie said when I read my latest wish. “Teacher said that we can only use the stickers for good wishes. Hoping someone gets hurt is a bad wish.”

“Come on, Suz. I don’t want him to get hurt bad. Just a little hurt. Enough that he can’t go to Prom.”

“No!” Suzie insisted.

“Why does is matter what your teacher says? Did they give you these stickers? I can’t believe Mrs. Henderson gave stickers to anyone.” Mrs. Henderson had been my 1^st grade teacher, and I knew that she never did anything fun.

“It wasn’t Mrs. Henderson. We had a substitute for a few days, Mr. Lucas. He gave us the stickers, but he warned us to use them carefully.”

I looked at the sheet and saw that she had used three from the first row, all different bunny pictures. “What did you wish for with the stickers you used?”

“It’ a secret. I can’t tell you,” Suzie said earnestly.

“So you’re saying your wishes didn’t come true. You can give me another one, certainly.”

“Wrong! Shows what you know,” Suzie said forcefully. “My wishes all came true. I wished Mommy would be happy again. She was sad for such a long time. Then I wished that Daddy’s back would stop hurting him. He hadn’t played with me for months because he said it hurt so much to get on the rug with me.”

“What was your third wish?” I asked.

Suzie hesitated for a minute, like she was scared to tell me. I was about to say the third wish must have been something bad when she said, “I wished that you would like me.” She snatched the sheet of stickers from my hand and marched back to her room.

Later that night was Suzie was taking her bath, I went to her room and peeled a sticker from the corner of the sheet. When I got back to my room, I saw that I had picked a devil with a pitchfork. I put the sticker next to my latest wish, feeling quite pleased with myself.

For the rest of the week, I waited for my wish to come true. Max went through practice all week unscathed, but that wasn’t unexpected since Coach didn’t let anyone hit the quarterbacks. Surely, I thought, he’ll get hurt during the game. When Friday arrived, it poured all day. It was raining so hard that Mom and Dad begged off coming to the game, claiming they were worried about Suzie getting sick. They did, however, let me drive Mom’s car to the game.

The game was a sodden, sloppy affair. True to his word, Coach did play me a bunch, but because of the weather, I didn’t catch a single pass. By the time the game ended in a 7-6 loss, everyone was almost frozen to the bone. We ran out of hot water in the locker room before everyone had a chance to shower, making my mood even more sour.

My mood picked up a little when I saw Becky waiting for a ride. Since she lives two blocks away from me, I offered to drive her home, an offer she was happy to accept. As she was getting in the car, I saw Max Heartwell walking through the parking lot trying to stay dry under a broken umbrella. Thinking it would be fun to give him a little scare, I revved the engine to get his attention and then dropped the car in gear, speeding toward him.

“Hey, what are you doing?” Becky shouted.

“Just having a little fun,” I said with a smile. When I was about twenty feet away, I slammed on the brakes, but nothing happened. The car just kept sliding. I pumped the brakes frantically, hoping they would catch. At the last second, I jerked the steering wheel hard to the right. The car finally responded, but not like I expected, as I felt the wheels leave the pavement and take flight and roll over. When I came to, Becky wasn’t moving. 

“Becky, are you OK?” I screamed and kept screaming even as the ambulance drove slowly away.