2 Dead Possums Are Fair Game meatloaf for dinner which would have been bad enough I detest meatloaf even if we all hadn’t gotten food poisoning the very next day Then a week later after another downpour my pet turtle ran away I realized then that rainstorms brought bad luck My walk to school that day didn’t do much to disprove my theory that disaster was looming Gray clouds piled on top of each other and covered the sky and I just knew misfortune was headed my way I didn’t know what the misfortune would be but I had a strong hunch where it would be Victor Waldo Elementary There might as well have been a bright neon sign blinking BAD LUCK RIGHT HERE COME AND GET IT as the largest of the cloud clusters settled over my school A couple times I misjudged the depth of a puddle while walking and rainwater poured into my shoes By the time I arrived at the back gate of Victor Waldo Elementary I was the not-so-proud owner of frizzy hair a standard look for me on warm humid days wet socks and muddy shoes As I squished into the yard a sickening smell wafted toward me
Luck 3 Eww I said wrinkling my nose What stinks Hey Ella said Lucille one of my best friends coming up from behind me Oh ugh She pinched her nose shut and shook her head in dis gust causing her messy red ringlets to boing like crazy I hope Jolina gets here soon so we don’t have to stand here too long It stinks She sound ed like a cross between a moose and a duck I talked to Jolina last night and she said she’d meet us on the playground She had to get here early There was a safety patrol meeting this morning Good said Lucille Then we don’t have to wait around and smell whatever reeks As we crossed the muddy field I scanned the playground for Jolina I needed to ask her a question about our math homework Most of it had completely freaked me out so if our teacher Ms Carpenter gave us a pop quiz I’d fail for sure Jolina Washington was my other best friend even though we were as opposite as night and day When it came to math Jolina was a whiz kid and I was the kid math whizzed past
4 Dead Possums Are Fair Game I had two major phobias in life spiders and mathematics I firmly believed anything with more than four legs should not exist I also believed the world would be a better place without fractions or long division The more I thought about it the more likely it seemed my unavoidable bad luck would have something to do with math Or spiders but my money was on math I had experienced a spider issue already this year so it was math’s turn to make my life miserable I was teeter-tottering between a C and a D in the subject and my parents had informed me if I got a D I’d have to go to tutoring classes all summer long I was so intent on finding Jolina I didn’t pay attention to where I was walking Ella look out Lucille yelled She yanked me back so hard I lost my balance and fell to the muddy ground Lucille O’Reilly I squealed What did you do that for I picked myself up and tried to brush off the mud Instead I ended up smearing it across my shorts You almost stepped on that
Luck 5 She pointed at the ground Lying on its back was a very ugly very wet and very dead opossum the source of the bad smell Its four hairy legs stuck straight up in the air and a frozen expression grinned at me Flies buzzed around its stiff body I jumped back Oh gross I can’t believe I almost stepped on it Lucille grabbed my arm and pulled me away My shrieking however had caught the attention of Harry the weird guy in our class and he trotted over Common sense wasn’t Harry’s strong point he would take any bet someone offered him The year before when we were in fourth grade a fifth grader in the cafeteria had bet Harry five dollars he couldn’t eat fifty packets of ketchup and then chug three cartons of chocolate milk without throwing up Harry made it through the ketchup and two and half cartons of milk then started choking He coughed so hard the rest of the milk came out his nose which he had said technically wasn’t throwing up As Harry stared at the dead opossum his eyes widened Ms Carpenter Ms Carpenter Look a possum he bellowed It’s dead At least I think
