17.

At school, the butterfly charm works so good that I don’t get any notes sent home. Not even one. Not even when I forget to raise my hand before talking, twice. Because Miss Stunkel is out with the stomach flu for four whole days.

My pocket is so full of the Good Luck that there is no quiz on decimal points all week. Then, on my walk home from school one day, I find two dollars and forty-three cents, just there in the street waiting for me to notice. Which is enough to buy four orange Popsicles.

On Friday, Miss Stunkel is back. She looks a little green, not as green as the alien in the mural, not alien-green exactly, but sick-green. And because of that green, and the Good Luck, she does a lot more sitting than standing and a lot less paying attention to me talking without raising my hand first.

I don’t even see her chicken-bone finger. Not even once.

In the afternoon, Miss Stunkel looks worse. “I’m going to sit here for a bit. Who would like to share what you are doing this weekend?” she says from the back of the room.

I raise my hand. She says my name quietly, like just the feel of my name on her tongue might send her running to the bathroom. I stand up and say, “Patsy Cline and Vera Bogg and me have been working on a mural at Portwaller’s Blessed Home for the Aging.”

“Oh, that’s right,” says Miss Stunkel. “And I understand you have been leading the group, Penelope?”

That time my name seems to come out a little easier.

“Well, I was.” I think about explaining how when it comes to art, people don’t like other people to tell them what to do all the time. And that some people would rather see a dumb snowman than a cow with hearts. And that’s just fine. But instead, I say, “Not anymore.”

Miss Stunkel nods and tells me to go on.

“And tomorrow is a big party to show off what we did.”

Patsy Cline says, “It’s not finished yet, but holy moly, it is a dandy piece of work. And there’s even a cow.”

Vera Bogg agrees and says, “You should see it. Really, you should.”

But I tell them they can’t because the party is only for the old people who live at the home. “But there’s going to be an article and picture in The Portwaller Tribune about it, so you can see it in the newspaper.” Then I sit down.

“Thank you, Penelope,” says Miss Stunkel. “I’ve heard from Mr. Rodriguez about what a fine job you all have done despite some challenges. You really are something.” And she makes a big deal out of the something. It’s probably just the leftover stomach bug talking, and I know she means all of us, not just me. But even so, to be something to Miss Stunkel is good enough luck for me.

With all this Good Luck, though, I can’t help but worry that the Bad Luck is just waiting somewhere in a corner, getting ready for a sneak attack. The butterfly charm has worked real good so far, just like Nila said it would, if I believed. And I do believe. At least I think so.

But bringing Good Luck for things like finding money on the sidewalk and making Miss Stunkel be at home sick with the stomach bug is a lot different from getting kids who are mad at you to come back and finish a mural. And for helping an old lady escape from a place she doesn’t want to be. How is this little butterfly supposed to do all that?

When I get to thinking about it, my heart pounds and my eyes get all blurry, and I wonder, I just wonder, if the Bad Luck is going to end up killing me dead.

Right after supper, the phone rings. Mom answers it in the kitchen and then hands the phone over to me on her way down the hall. “Patsy Cline,” she tells me.

I grab the phone and shout, “Hello!” Because it’s Patsy Cline, and she’s calling me.

She says hello back and then asks if I want to spend the night and then drive over with her in the morning to Portwaller’s Blessed Home for the Aging. My insides start to shake. “Mom!” I yell. “Can I spend the night at Patsy Cline’s house?!”

“What? I’m in the laundry room.”

I close my eyes and yell louder, as loud as I can. “CAN I SPEND THE NIGHT AT PATSY CLINE’S?”

“Penelope Rae.” (Bursting appendix.) When I open my eyes, Mom is beside me, giving me a look that says, Stop Your Hollering, You Weren’t Raised by Wolves.

“Can I?”

She sighs, a heavy Mom sigh that seems to go on for a year. When it’s over she says, “Did you clean your room?”

Good gravy. I cover the phone with my hand so Patsy Cline can’t hear. “No,” I whisper, “but it’s Patsy Cline. PUUULLLLEEEAAASE let me.”

Mom shakes her head at me and then says, “Clean your room first. And I mean I want the mountain of clothes that lives in the center of your room gone. And you should take a shower.”

She says some other things, too, after that, but I’m already back on the phone with Patsy Cline telling her I’ll be over right away.

I race to my room and grab my suitcase from the closet. I throw in some clothes from the Heap, my drawing pad and pencils, and then when I stand at my desk and can’t decide whether to bring any games, or a deck of cards, or my make-your-own-jewelry kit, I bring everything.

I sit on my suitcase to snap it closed and then drag it out into the living room. “I’m ready,” I say to my mom.

She says, “You didn’t take a shower.”

“My word. Do I have to?”

Mom gives me a look that says, You Do, in Fact. “And wash your hair.”

I tell her fine and then am back in my room. I undress, throw my clothes on the Heap, and take the fastest shower in the history of getting clean. So fast, I don’t use any soap and barely any water. And after I’m done I put on Mom’s lotion that I find under the sink, just in case she gives me the stink test.

To my surprise, I find clothes without stains on them in a dresser drawer and I quick put them on. Then, because I know she will ask me, I clean my room. I do this by shoving the Heap into my closet. It’s a lot, and my closet isn’t very big, so I have to put all of my weight against the door until it closes.

“My room’s clean,” I tell Mom when I’m back in the living room.

“Truth?” she says.

I nod.

“The pile of clothes?”

“Gone from the center of the floor, honest to goodness,” I say. “You can check if you don’t believe me.”

But she must believe, because she grabs her car keys from the table by the door, and we’re off to Patsy Cline’s.

Patsy Cline’s mom answers the door. She’s got Patsy’s mangy dog tucked under her arm, and I think he’s happy to see me because he only tries to bite me once.

“Come on in, sugar pie,” says Mrs. Watson, “and don’t mind Roger here. And don’t put your fingers too close to his mouth. He’ll gnaw them like beef jerky.” Then she calls out to Patsy Cline to let her know I’m here.

Patsy Cline hollers, “Back here, Penelope!” And so I scoot on by Roger, keeping my fingers tucked away safely in my pockets, and head for Patsy’s room. I can hear her singing, “Now keep on a walkin’, keep on a talkin’ / and I’ll do my best to make the rest / of this lovely dream come true.” Which makes me smile, because this sure does seem like it could be a dream, thank lucky stars. But when I turn the corner and step inside her room, the dream of me and Patsy Cline being Favorites again is over.

Because there standing in the middle of Patsy Cline’s cow-print rug is Vera Bogg. She’s got so many ruffles on her pink dress that I don’t know where to look first. Vera tells me hi and then asks if I like her outfit because she must notice me staring. All I can do is move my head up and down because when the raw hot dog feeling sets in, you start to not be able to talk or think right.

Patsy Cline says that she and Vera are playing Singing Superstars and then asks if there is something wrong. There sure is. It begins with Vera Bogg and ends with me not being Patsy’s Favorite. But this is something I don’t want to say in front of Vera. So I just say, “I think I ate a bad hot dog.”

“Your turn,” says Vera Bogg, handing me a pretend microphone.

“I’m no singer,” I say, shaking my head.

Vera shrugs and then makes up a song about me eating a bad hot dog and not wanting to sing. Patsy Cline laughs, and my cheeks burn because I don’t see what’s so funny.

I sit on the floor beside Patsy Cline’s bed and listen to Vera’s awful song. The more she sings, the more

I don’t want to be here. I think even Roger must feel the same way, because halfway through the song, I hear him howl in pain.

Finally, she hands the microphone back to Patsy Cline. But soon after, they are making up duets, just the two of them. Right in front of me.

They are singing some song about two friends that like each other’s shoes. So I interrupt them and say, “My friend Nila is a fortune teller.”

This gets their attention. Patsy Cline says, “Who’s Nila?”

“You don’t know her,” I say. “She’s from Coney Island.”

“Where’s that?” says Vera Bogg.

“Some faraway place that’s not made up,” I say. And then I go on and on about how she comes from a carnival family and her brother is a strongman and how her picture is on posters all over the world. And how I’m her Favorite. And I make a big deal out of that last part.

“How did she learn to read fortunes?” asks Patsy Cline.

“Oh, um, her grandmother taught her after she caught a fever as a child and almost died from a spider bite,” I say. Because sometimes you have to make things up to keep people’s attention.

It works, too. “Wow,” they say, and then they stare at me, waiting for me to tell them more. Which I do, and once I get started making things up it’s pretty easy to keep going.

“Did she tell you your fortune?” Patsy asks me.

“She did,” I say. And then I straighten my back and tell them that I am going to be a very non-dead famous artist like Leonardo da Vinci. Which I’m sure is what Nila Wister would tell me if she ever did tell me my fortune.

“Will she tell us ours?” asks Vera.

I shake my head. “She only does fortune telling for her Favorite these days.”

“I don’t want to know my fortune,” says Patsy Cline. And she’s got a look of worry on her face.

“I do,” says Vera. And then she says she just knows she will live in a pink house with a matching car and a backyard full of bunny rabbits. “When can I meet this Nila person?”

“She’s leaving.” And that’s when I realize that I won’t see her again after tomorrow. Maybe never.

Patsy Cline asks me where she’s going, but I can’t answer. Because all I can think about now is what it will be like to be Nila Wister’s Favorite when she doesn’t live in Portwaller anymore. If I’ll still be her Favorite even. I won’t be able to bring her candies, and she won’t be able to ask me for them. She will be gone, back to some dream place, but without her sister, and without me.