Susan Patron - The Higher Power of Lucky

But now she knew that wasn’t the right order of things. Over and over at the anonymous meetings she’d heard people tell how their situation had gotten worse and worse and worse until they’d hit rock bottom. Only after they’d hit rock bottom did they get control of their lives. And then they found their Higher Power.

Another part of finding your Higher Power was to do a fearless and searching moral inventory of yourself. But Lucky was too mad for a fearless and searching moral inventory. She was too hopeless . She’d do it later. Right now she had proof that Brigitte was going back to France.

That put Lucky at rock bottom.

The anonymous people struggled with the next step after rock bottom, the getting-control-of-your-

life step. Lucky pounded the Formica table with both fists, which made HMS Beagle leap to her feet and look at Lucky worriedly. It’s almost impossible to get control of your life when you’re only ten. It’s other people, adults, who have control of your life, because they can abandon you.

They can die, like Lucky’s mother.

They can decide they don’t even want you, like Lucky’s father.

And they can return to France as suddenly and easily as they left it, like Brigitte. And even if you carry a survival kit around with you at all times, it won’t guarantee you’ll survive. No kit in the world can protect you from all the possible bad things.

“But don’t give up hope,” Lucky said to HMS Beagle in a calming voice, because she didn’t want her dog to worry. HMS Beagle looked a little reassured and she sat, but she still watched Lucky to see what was going to happen.

“I have an idea,” Lucky told her slowly, thinking her thoughts from the bottom of her deep, rock-bottom pit. “I have an idea of something we can do to take control of our lives. It’s kind of scary. We can run away.” Lucky peered intently at HMS Beagle to see if she was willing.

HMS Beagle was.

13. Bisous

Because Brigitte and her mother were always sending each other bisous , which means kisses, when they talked on the phone, Lucky figured that French people kiss more than regular people.

One thing Brigitte always did before Lucky went to bed was she came into Lucky’s canned-ham trailer and sat on the narrow bed along the wall, and Lucky sat on her lap the same way you would sit on a chair. Brigitte hugged her strongly from behind and put her cheek against Lucky’s cheek, and when she talked her chin poked Lucky’s shoulder.

Even though it was babyish to sit on anyone’s lap, Lucky was okay with being wrapped privately in Brigitte’s arms. She liked having her face beside Brigitte’s and smelling the clean-hair smell of her. At those times, she knew there were parts to the job of Guardian that Brigitte liked a lot, and hugging Lucky was one of them, and that made Lucky’s heart fill up with molecules of hope and pump them all through her veins.

So that night, after Brigitte came home with her good-as-new parsley grinder, Lucky brushed her teeth, put on her short summer nightie, and waited. But Brigitte did not come. Lucky went into the kitchen trailer.

Brigitte sat cross-legged at the Formica table, one hand under her chin, the other clicking the mouse. A booklet was propped up next to the laptop. Lucky stuck her head into the tiny freezer, which contained two miniature ice cube trays, a Tupperware bowl full of more ice cubes, and a small plate of frozen grapes. She said, “I’m ready for bed now.”

Without turning her head, Brigitte said, “Lucky, please close the door of the freezer. I am following my lesson.”

“What lesson?” asked Lucky, thinking how odd it was to study after you finished school. Her report on The Life Cycle of the Ant was finished and ready to be turned in tomorrow, although the glued ants on the last page would not get a smiley face from Ms. McBeam for neatness. She grabbed an ice cube from the Tupperware bowl, took a deep breath of cold air, and closed the freezer.

“Lucky, ma puce ,” said Brigitte, peering at the screen, then at the booklet. “You must allow me to finish this without an interruption.”

“Why do you call me your flea, anyway?” Lucky said, rubbing the ice cube over her forehead and cheeks. “Is it because I bite you and suck your blood, or what?”

“Oh, la-la, la-LA, la-LA, la-LA!” When Brigitte was a little bit upset, like the time Lucky accidentally squeezed most of the French mustard out of the tube, she clicked her tongue and said, “Oh, la-la.” When she was frustrated, like the time Lucky spilled dry Jell-O on the floor and a trillion ants came inside during the night, Brigitte said, “Oh, la-la, la-LA, la-LA!” And when she was pretty mad, like when the monthly check came late, Brigitte said, “Oh, la-la, la-LA, la-LA, la-LA!”

Lucky continued, even though the four la-LA s made her nervous. “Is it because I bother you and make you itch? Do I give you bumps on your skin?” Rubbing the back of her neck with ice, Lucky moved toward Brigitte.

Brigitte slammed closed the lid of her computer with one hand and stood up, blocking Lucky’s view of the booklet. “Lucky, I cannot think when you talk so much bêtises …silly stuff.” Brigitte yanked a ragged wire-mesh fly-swatter from a peg and slapped it hard against the table edge. A fly took off from the spot and circled overhead. Brigitte tried to swat it in flight. “That stupid fly,” she said. “She always escapes!” She clapped the swatter back on its wall hook.

Thinking that a real mother would never be so mean and that a real mother would share all her secrets, especially the secret of her mysterious lessons and the secret of her passport, Lucky took the flyswatter, waited until the fly landed, tapped it lightly, and scooped it up, fluttering. She opened the screen door and shook the fly off into the hot night.

Hooking the swatter back on its peg, Lucky said in a dignified voice, “I’m going to bed now. And by the way, a fly is ‘it,’ not ‘she.’”

“Pfff,” said Brigitte, and shrugged, turning back to her laptop. “Lucky, I cannot stop following this lesson right now. Go to bed. I check you later. Bisous .”

“Pfff ,” said Lucky, and got a look at the booklet over Brigitte’s shoulder. The top part was in French, so Lucky skipped down, where underneath were the words:

Certified Course in Restaurant Management and Administration with Diploma from the Culinary Institute of France in Paris

That was how Lucky learned for sure why Brigitte was planning to return home. She was getting an online diploma from some French school in running a restaurant. This explained all those times Brigitte talked about how much she wished she had a job. All along Brigitte had been telling Lucky that what she really wanted was to go back to France and run a restaurant.

Lucky sat on her bed thinking this over. Some tears came out of her eyes, and she wished Brigitte would come—not so she could sit on her lap and let herself be hugged, but so that Brigitte could see what a sad and abandoned child she was, an orphan whose Guardian was too busy for hugging. As soon as she began imagining the shocked and concerned look on Brigitte’s face if Brigitte were to see her crying, Lucky cried some more. HMS Beagle, who slept on the round rug beside the bed, came to lay her head on Lucky’s pillow.

“Poor, poor HMS Beagle,” Lucky whispered. “When Brigitte goes back to France you will have to go live with Short Sammy, or with Miles and his grandma. I doubt the orphanage in L.A. will admit dogs.”