A Whole Lot of Lucky Read Free Page B

long blond hair slipped over the side in ropes.
    Before I could say anything back, the tardy bell rang and Mrs. Weller called out roll.
    Apparently, Megan and Drew texted everyone in their contact lists about their little trick, because all day long I thought I heard people whispering, “Hey,” but what they were really saying was this: “Where’s the A?” “I see the A!” Amanda gave me the silent treatment at lunch. Becca told me to hide it with duct tape. Tanner Law walked up to me and said, “Rabbit!”
    By the time school was over, I was ready to disappear. Amanda came up behind me in the pen. I thought she was going to apologize, but instead she said, “Just keep the skirt, okay? I don’t want it back.” Her voice was flat.
    â€œIt’s not
my
fault,” I snapped.
    â€œWhatever.”
    I watched as she unlocked her new twelve-speed bike with the Sure-Grip hand brakes and the butt-soft seat, and I watched as she daintily got on—daintily, because hers is a girl’s bike—and I was still watching as she rode away and the back wheel slipped into the long crack between the concrete sections.
    Megan, Drew, and their sidekicks pointed and snickered at her straining on the pedals. One of the lesser sidekicks slapped his knee as if Amanda stuck in a crack was the funniest thing he’d ever seen in his whole entire life. One of them took out her phone and I heard the words “video” and “YouTube” and “loser,” and that’s when I did it—that’s when I sprinted toward Amanda and pushed her bike seat as hard as I could.
    The back tire hopped out of the crack just as Amanda stood on the pedals. Her bike did a fierce wheelie, and she sailed over the curb into the pickup line. For a moment, it looked like she might right herself, like a jumper on a horse, but then her tires hit the pavement and she fell off in one direction and the bike fell in another. Mrs. McCrory jammed on her brakes hard enough to cause her van to buck.
    A gasp from the entire car-pool lane sucked the air off the playground, through the dollar weeds, and over the vans trembling in line, causing a silence so suddenthat the sandhill cranes who’d been foraging nearby straightened their long gray necks and turned disinterestedly in our direction.
    Mrs. McCrory hopped out of her van, her face pale white. “Thank God I just had the brakes fixed!” she said, fanning herself with her hands.
    I started toward my best friend when suddenly one of the teachers yanked my arm and dragged me to the middle of the crowd, where Amanda sat on the road being petted and murmured over. The teacher sliced through the air for quiet. She asked, “Is this the girl who pushed you?”
    Amanda’s face was red. Her knee was scraped. She was breathing so hard her nostrils flared like a bull’s before it charges. She locked her eyes on to mine and I saw in them a stony glint I’d never seen before.
    â€œYes,” she said through gritted teeth. She shifted into a more solid position. “That’s her.”

Chapter 2
    Teachers say they try to be fair. But if you are in at least fourth grade, you already know that’s not true. None of the teachers even tried to listen to my side of the story. And Amanda didn’t help one bit, not one single bit. She glared at me as they practically slapped cuffs on my wrists and dragged me to the office of the warden, Principal Dr. Taylor, which is how I ended up sitting here in the lobby, waiting, staring at gobs of gum stuck under the receptionist’s desk and counting floor tiles (sixty-eight).
    I’ve almost given up hope of ever seeing the outside again when the principal herself comes out to get me.
    â€œHailee Richardson,” Dr. Taylor says as she ushers me into her office. She sits on her throne behind the desk; I sit on a hard plastic chair. She tilts her head and says, “We’ve