My big nose wakes me up the next morning. For a second or two, I can’t figure out exactly what I’m smelling. But once my brains catch up to my nose, I know. Fried onions.
And I go dead, all the way dead this time, right there on Patsy Cline’s cow-print rug.
I don’t know how long I’m dead for, but it must be for a long while because the next thing I know, Patsy Cline is pulling at my arm and singing a song about getting up in the morning. I open my eyes and when I see Patsy Cline smiling at me as she sings, I wonder if this is heaven. But then I hear Vera Bogg’s voice and know it isn’t.
“Come on,” says Vera Bogg. “We’re running late.”
“Running for what?” I say. Because when you get alive again so early in the morning after being dead, you don’t really know what’s going on.
“The mural!” says Patsy Cline.
I scramble to my feet but the fried onion smell almost knocks me down again. And I wonder how the Bad Luck found me. I find my pants and reach into the pocket for my butterfly, but it’s not there. I check the other pockets, but come up empty. “My charm!” I say.
“What’s wrong?” says Patsy Cline and Vera Bogg at the same time.
I open my suitcase and take everything out. Oh no. Oh no. Oh no.
Patsy Cline asks what I’m looking for, and when I tell her a good-luck charm, she says, “What do you need that for?”
I don’t know what kind of a question that is, because what does anyone need a good-luck charm for, anyway? “For good luck,” I say.
She shakes her head at me like I’m being silly. But I know better.
“Don’t you smell that?” I whisper.
“You mean Mom’s meatloaf?”
I sniff again and wince. That is not meatloaf, it’s not, and if they can’t smell those horrible fried onions, then I know the Bad Luck must be here only for me.
Vera Bogg says in a quiet voice to Patsy Cline, but not so quiet that I can’t hear, “Maybe your mom should call a doctor.”
Patsy Cline ignores her and says, “What does the charm look like?”
I tell them it’s a butterfly and that it’s made of glass.
“Aww,” says Vera Bogg. “That sounds real pretty. Where did you get it?”
My word. I don’t answer her and instead start looking under Patsy Cline’s rug, under her bed, behind her curtains, in her trash can.
“Where was the last place you saw it?” asks Patsy Cline.
I try to remember. I really do, but the Bad Luck smell is choking me and making my brain feel fuzzy. I tap my brains with my fingertips and think hard. “I was at home, in my room, packing my suitcase, and . . .”
“And what?” says Patsy Cline.
And then I remember. It was in the pocket of my other pants before I took a shower. “Oh.”
“What?” says Patsy Cline. “Do you know where it is?”
I nod. “The Heap.”
Mrs. Watson knocks on the door to Patsy Cline’s room and tells us we need to get a move on now.
Patsy Cline tells her that I left something at home. “Can we stop by her apartment on the way?”
Mrs. Watson looks at me and frowns. “We could if we weren’t running late and if you didn’t live in the opposite direction of where we’re headed, honey pie. What did you forget?”
“A good-luck charm,” I say.
“What do you need that for?” asks Mrs. Watson. But before I can tell her, she says not to worry and that she’ll call my mom and ask her to bring it with her today. “How does that sound?”
I tell her that sounds okay, and I should feel better, but I don’t.
It’s a long walk from Mrs. Watson’s car into Portwaller’s Blessed Home for the Aging. Antler Lady at the front desk is on the phone and nods at the three of us when we come in. I’ve got my big nose sniffing the air for any trace of fried onions to see if it’s followed me from Patsy Cline’s. Because without the charm in my pocket, all sorts of bad things could happen.
“I hope the others come back,” says Patsy Cline as we walk past the front desk.
“Me too,” says Vera Bogg.
I shake my head and think of the butterfly charm. “They won’t,” I say. “Not if the Bad Luck has anything to do with it.”
“I don’t believe in bad luck,” says Vera Bogg.
“Me neither,” says Patsy Cline.
“Then why have all these bad things been happening?” I ask.
Patsy Cline says, “What bad things?”
I tell her about Miss Stunkel and the notes home, and the bump in the road that made me lose Crispy Sticky, and the kids quitting the mural, and my eyelash blowing away. And other things like my brother the alien. And my dad being Graveyard Dead. And losing Favorites.
“She’s got a point,” says Vera Bogg. “That’s a lot of bad stuff.”
Patsy Cline touches my arm and says, “That’s not bad luck. That’s just the way things are.”
“Then what about the awful smell this morning?” I say.
“What smell?”
“The one in your house that smelled like fried onions.”
“Fried onions,” says Patsy Cline. “Mom puts them on top of her meatloaf.”
“I don’t know,” I say. “If there isn’t any bad luck, then there can’t be any good luck. And I want to believe in the Good Luck.”
I hear voices from the activity room, and when me and Patsy Cline and Vera get there, my mouth falls open. Marcus, Alexander, and Birgit are there, already painting. Mr. Rodriguez, too.
“Look at that,” says Patsy Cline, smiling.
I don’t know if she means the mural or that the rest of the group is here, but it doesn’t matter because just look.
Marcus is putting something on the truck that looks like an antenna. Alexander is painting a robot on Jack Be Nimble’s T-shirt. And Birgit is putting the last of the color on a rainbow unicorn that is shooting sparkles out of its horn.
The three of them look up at us, and then just at me. I don’t know what to say, because half of me is still scared about the Bad Luck, and the other half can’t believe that the rest of the kids came back to finish the mural. Even without my charm.
Just then, two old men and one old lady are in the doorway of the activity room and they peek inside. “Would you look at that,” one man says. “There’s a bird in a truck. Now that’s something you don’t see every day.”
“That’s Mother Goose,” says the old lady, nodding.
“Nice ride,” says the other.
Alexander holds up a paintbrush dipped in blue and says, “Penelope, what color do you think this robot should be?”
I’m about to tell him that whatever color he wants is fine by me, but that a blue robot would really be the best. But then I look at the three old people in the doorway. And I know it’s not up to me. The mural is really for them, it’s all for them. So I ask.
They look at one another, the old people do, and finally the lady says how about blue?
Alexander and me smile, and I tell her that’s what I was going to say.
Vera Bogg smiles and says, “They like it. Even if there isn’t any pink.”
I roll my eyes. “Oh, Vera Bogg.” Then I unfold a stack of newspapers on the table next to the paint and grab the red and white tubes. I squeeze them onto the newspaper and mix them together with a paintbrush until I start to get that raw hot dog feeling. “Here,” I say to her. “Pink.”
Vera says, “Whoa, baby,” and grabs a paintbrush, cupping one hand under the bristles, so as not to lose one drop of pink.
When the mural is finally finished, Mr. Rodriguez claps his hands and says, “You guys have done a righteous job. All of you. People will start arriving soon for the official unveiling, so just hang tight until then.”
All of a sudden I’m nervous. Stomach sick, tongue-swelling nervous. All that good luck: the kids coming back, finishing the mural in time, the old people liking it (three of them, anyway). With all that good stuff, I just know the Bad Luck can’t be far away.
Patsy Cline and Vera are admiring Little Bo Peep’s sheep, which is now all pink. I tap Patsy Cline on the shoulder. “Do you think your mom called my mom?”
“She said she was going to,” she says. “I’m sure she did.”
“Okay.”
“What more good luck do you need for today, anyway?” she asks me. “The mural is already done, and it looks dandy.”
I want to tell her about Nila Wister for real, about what she asked me to help her do. But I know I’m not supposed to tell, that this is something that has to stay between Favorites. And I wonder if being Nila’s Favorite is going to be harder than I thought. Because right now, getting Nila Wister out of here feels like a job for a muscleman, someone who is used to lifting the world over his head. And Favorite or not, I can’t lift much more than a paintbrush. Especially without my charm.