This July Fourth fortune was good for Tugs, but over to Elmer Button’s farm the next day, where for the last umpteen years the family had been gathering to share their annual midsummer woes, the fizz wasn’t out of their Cokes before the other Buttons started grumbling. Twenty-seven Buttons took shelter under a wide oak as drizzle turned the back forty to mud and mosquitoes buzzed in the hot, still air.

“I understand Tugs was paired with the sixth grade’s top athlete in that race,” snapped Aunt Mina. “My Ned could have won if he hadn’t been strapped with that shrimp Ralph Stump.”

Cousin Gladdy was indignant. “I heard Mrs. Potter telling Mrs. Winthrop that my essay was best, and I’m only eight,” she said. “I bet it was rigged.”

“She’s made a pact with the devil,” screeched Grandmother Adeline. “No one’s ever won a dang thing in this family. Who does she think she is, one of the Floyd girls?”

“Aw, Granny,” said Tugs, patting Granny’s stooped shoulder. “I’ve got two left feet like everyone else in this family. Come on, I’ll take your picture.”

“Humph,” said Granny, and poked Tugs with her cane. “Get away from me, devil child.”

Tugs swatted the cane away and held the Brownie in front of her belly. She saw through the viewfinder a square of Granny coming closer. “Wait, Granny,” Tugs said. “Just smile.” She saw Granny’s scowling face, then Granny’s bony hand, then with a yank, Granny grabbed the camera from Tugs and held it to her own chest, letting her cane fall to the ground.

“I said. I do not. Want my image taken.”

“Hey!” Tugs protested, and reached for the camera in Granny’s clutches. Granny teetered, then toppled over, and the Brownie flew out of her hands. Aunt Mina, rushing to help Granny, didn’t see the camera and tramped on it with her sturdy shoes. The softened ground gave a bit, but not enough to keep it intact under the weight of Aunt Mina.

Aunt Mina lifted her foot and looked at the dented cube.

“Really!” she said, shaking her finger at Tugs. “Cameras are little glass boxes. You can’t go dropping them, Tugs. What do you expect?”

Tears welled immediately in Tugs’s eyes. She wiped her hand across her face.

“But I . . .” Tugs started, but by then Granny had set up a wail.

“Old lady on the ground here, people! Oh, me! I might be broken!”

Granny was a tiny bit of a woman, and Ned was able to lift her to her feet. He handed Granny her cane and stepped back, in case she decided to poke him, too.

As Tugs bent down to pick up her camera, she overheard one of the Swisher Buttons say, “That’ll teach her to show everyone up. I mean, two blue ribbons and a Kodak? Serves her right.”

Something snapped in Tugs then. Why shouldn’t she have a brand-new camera? Why shouldn’t she be the lucky one? She was tired of being a Button. Tired of being the one who comes up short, loses the ball for the team, gets blamed for everything. She stood and faced her grumbling kin.

“Would all you people just . . . CLAP your TRAPS!”

There was a collective gasp and then a stunned silence. Aunt Mina put her hands over Gladdy’s ears. Tugs had surprised herself, too. But she stood tall and spoke into the hush.

“You ought to be ashamed of yourselves. All you do is complain, every one of you.”

“What kind of parents are you?” Granny hollered to no one in particular. “Shut her up, will you?”

“Granny!” Aunt Mina exclaimed, and clamped her hand over Granny’s mouth.

Tugs ignored them. “Burton was wrong. I am not such a Button. I am lucky. And I’m going to go on being lucky. You just watch.”

The Buttons gaped at Tugs as if she’d declared herself Swedish, or musical, two of life’s many impossibilities.

“Hear, hear!” exclaimed Granddaddy Ike, waving his cap while the rest of the Buttons resumed their squawking.

“Well, now,” said Father Button. “Well. There’s our girl. Well.” He put his arm around Tugs’s shoulder and they walked out from under the tree. “Come on, Corrine,” he said to Mother Button. “Let’s go home now. Mina, you can drop Granny off later.”

“What did she say?” demanded Granny. “Plucky? She’s not a plucky Button. I’m pluckier than the whole lot of you nincompoops. Why, I’ve been a widow since aught seven, and . . .”

“Bring that girl back here to apologize,” interrupted Aunt Mina. “Shoving and sassing and foul language cannot be tolerated!” But Tugs and her parents trod on.

Tugs was rolling down her window when Ned ran up.

“Me, too!” he whispered into the car. “Help me be lucky, too!” Then he turned and said, so that everyone else could hear, “And don’t you ever mess with our Granny again!”

Tugs sank into the backseat, her Brownie on her lap. The silver exposure lever was stuck. The tiny glass viewfinder was cracked. The side was dented. But remarkably, when she held it up to the window, she could see Buttons large and small, all split and angled like a kaleidoscope.

“Click,” Tugs said. There was her family. Then the car lurched forward and she saw fractured fields of corn fly by. She angled her Kodak upward and saw the weight of the fractured clouds. A dismembered crow crossed the frame.

The Buttons bumped along the muddy rutted road, windows down to lure a breeze. Tugs waited for reprimand, but none came. She supposed it wasn’t the best luck to begin her lucky life by yelling at her elders. But it was done, and despite the ache her damaged camera produced, she felt surprisingly free and light. Lucky. She was lucky. Her heart sat high in her chest, and she would have sung a tune if she could have thought of a tune to sing. Buttons were not singers.

Come to think of it, there were a lot of things the Buttons weren’t. Buttons weren’t dancers. They weren’t athletes or readers or jokesters or artists. They weren’t good students or good listeners or standout citizens. The only time a Button had made the Goodhue Gazette, back when there was a Goodhue Gazette, was when Granddaddy Ike accidentally set the town hall on fire with a cigarette, when he nodded off in the lobby next to a full trash can. Not much chance of Buttons appearing in the new Goodhue Progress, either.

Just as quickly as it came, Tugs’s euphoria evaporated. Was she just a Button, as Burton said? She looked at her mother’s long neck, her father’s unruly hair, and recognized herself as their miniature. But while she couldn’t name it, Tugs had felt a sense of possibility today as she made that small speech, and there had to be a way to get that feeling back.