The Thing About Luck

family tree, but I knew he was making up some of it. Our family consisted of farmers and fishermen as far back as anyone knew, but when I’d sneaked a peek at his paper earlier, he’d claimed we had several samurai in our background.

I took down A Separate Peace and finished reading the middle part. So I’d read the first part first, the last part second, and the middle part third. I didn’t know how I would write my book report, because I just plain didn’t understand the book. Next I read the parts I hadn’t read. The book was supposed to be for high schoolers, but a sister of one of my friends was in high school, and she thought it was the worst book she ever read. And even though I kind of agreed with her, I also kind of disagreed with her. Maybe I should just write the truth and say that it was the worst book I ever read, but that it made me wonder things about myself. It made me think that each person had all sorts of things going on inside of them, but most of these things would never surface unless circumstances were exactly right. So basically, inside of me was a big wilderness, and then around the wilderness was a nice, mowed lawn. After I thought that, I admit I figured I was kind of a genius. The only problem was that I had taken an IQ test once, so I knew I wasn’t a genius.

Jiichan had wanted Jaz and me to take the test so he could understand us better. Jaz scored “very superior,” but when it came to real life, he basically flunked. I ended up with an overall score called “high average.” But what I didn’t understand was, did that mean I always operated on “high average,” or did that mean sometimes I operated on “very superior” and other times on “low average”? On the other hand, whatever.

I hugged Thunder to me. Once, Jaz told a boy in my class that I still slept with a stuffed penguin, and so I told Jaz that I loved Thunder ten times more than I loved him. I got grounded for a week by my mother. Her big concern was that my love for Thunder might stunt my “socialization,” as she called it. How could I be unsocialized when I had so many friends? If I put together all the times I had ever been grounded, I wondered how much time that would be. Three months? Five? Eight?

After Obaachan had cleaned the table and counters, she lay on her back in the kitchen area. After a while she pushed herself up with a grunt and said, “We go to supermarket now. Mrs. Parker like fresh meat, not frozen. And we need fruit and vegetable.”

Jaz and I stood up. “Can I read what you wrote?” I asked him.

“No, it’s none of your business.”

“But your family tree should be exactly the same as my family tree.”

“Then what do you need to read it for?” he asked.

We all got into the pickup—Thunder too—and headed for town.

We drove down the dirt road to the highway. “I wonder which way supermarket,” Obaachan said. “Summer, you pick, and if you wrong, you make lunch by yourself all week.”

“Why didn’t you ask someone?” I asked.

“Because nobody’s as smart as you,” Jaz said.

“I’m not going to pick,” I protested.

Obaachan nodded her head a few times and turned left. We drove down the highway, surrounded by wheat fields. You just couldn’t get away from them.

Out of the blue Obaachan said, “Fifteen times four.”

She liked to test my math because I wasn’t very good at it. Of course, we were way past multiplication tables in school. “Sixty,” I said.

“No!”

“Obaachan, it is.”

She pulled the truck over and took out a pen and paper from her handbag. “Let’s see ... carry two ... Okay, you right. See? You say I never admit when I wrong. Take that back.”

“But this is the first time.”

“Take back and say you make mistake.”

“I take it back and I made a mistake,” I said. I didn’t see how she could turn her being wrong into me saying I made a mistake. So I added, “But you made a mistake too!”

“That subject finished,” she replied.

Jaz hit his head softly on the dashboard. With each thunk, he’d say one word. “I. Didn’t. Make. A. Mistake.”

Basically, Thunder was the only normal person in the truck, and he wasn’t even a person.

Jaz suddenly sat very straight and still, and then his shoulders relaxed again. Then he started talking.

“So last night I woke up and my action figures were alive. They were talking about a raging battle. The sergeant asked me if I wanted to go fight, but I didn’t want to because I was too sleepy.”

I looked out the window as Jaz’s voice continued. “The sergeant told me to take a cold shower to wake myself up. So I did that, but then I thought I still didn’t want to go to battle because I’m just a kid. Battles are for grown-ups.”

I leaned back as he went on, talking about what each action figure was wearing, what their dog tag numbers were, what their hair looked like, if they had skinny or fat fingers, and a million other details. My parents had taken him to three different child psychologists in Wichita. One psychologist said he had ADHD, one said he had PDD-NOS, and one said he was OCD. I wasn’t sure what the initials stood for except for OCD, which meant “obsessive-compulsive disorder.” That was why he would use only his three special cups. All three doctors wanted him on medication for his head-banging, but my parents refused. So did my grandparents. We had all learned to live with him, so what was the problem? It was just a part of life.

Though nothing was in front of us, Obaachan suddenly slowed down, and we all jerked forward with the momentum. My grandmother’s braking strategy was always a mystery to me. I was about to ask her why she’d braked but then thought better of it, because she would only say something that would somehow make it all my fault. I might not have been a genius in general, but when it came to Obaachan, I did have a smart thought now and then.

I leaned over Thunder and made little noises like most people would for a baby. Obaachan kept up her strange braking strategy. Finally, I couldn’t stop myself. “Obaachan, why do you keep braking?” I asked.

“Every time you make noise to Thunder, I think I about to hit something. It your fault. If you no like, call taxi.”

I ignored that.

There was no wind, and the wheat was still. I wondered what the fortune-teller would say about that. The sky filled suddenly with clouds, but they disappeared so quickly that you would have had a hard time convincing someone it had just been cloudy.

I peered through the back windshield at the highway curving through the wheat. Highway. Wheat. Sky. So simple. Compared to a city like Wichita, it all looked like a doorway to another world—our world. I always had this weird feeling as I stared out at the wheat, like the dust of my personality was settling a bit, like instead of me ever being confused or with my thoughts all over the place, I was just me, without any questions about anything or any worries or even any sadness. But that was impossible, because I didn’t even like wheat. Did I?

A mosquito zzz-ed in the air in front of me, and I smashed it by clapping my hands together. I looked at it. It was a male; it had the feathery proboscis.

In that old movie The Fly, Jeff Goldblum was half fly, half man. When I was so sick, that’s kind of what I felt like. I felt like I was turning into something that wasn’t me. Some scientists wanted to eradicate all the mosquitoes in the world, because they thought only good could come of that and it would prevent diseases like dengue, West Nile virus, and malaria. I wondered if that was true or whether every living thing had a purpose.

“What are you doing in here?” I asked the smashed mosquito.

“Obaachan, Summer is talking to dead mosquitoes again,” Jaz said, causing Obaachan to laugh.

Then Obaachan stopped laughing and said, “Summer and Jaz always make me forget pain.”

The supermarket was air-conditioned. Basically, it was paradise. Except for two cashiers at the front, it was totally empty as far as I could see. I didn’t get to go to a supermarket very often. At home we just went to the local grocer’s in town. There had been a big sign outside saying GRAND OPENING. Below that it said IF YOU BUILD IT, THEY WILL COME.

I was kind of surprised by just how big this store was, and how empty. Obaachan handed me some recipes for the rest of the week. I had to get all the ingredients that weren’t crossed out.