Dumb Luck Read Online Free Page A

a girlfriend.

chapter seven
    Those photographs they took at the lottery headquarters ended up not only in the papers but all over the Internet. And there was that dumb interview I did for TV , where I stuttered a little and just laughed when the reporter asked me how it felt to be a winner. Somebody posted that on the Internet, too, with the title: Losers Sometimes are Winners.
    I was getting a ton of e-mails from kids at school and from people I didn’t even know. There were even e-mails from girls that included pictures. All my life I had wanted people to like me. I had wanted to be popular. And now. Bingo. Like magic. This was going to be the way my life would go from now on. I felt a warm glow all over.
    The phones were all unplugged in the house so no one could get through. I turned on my cell phone and saw two text messages from Kayla:
    U ALRIGHT?
    K
    and
    CALL ME.
    K
    So I called her on my cell phone, which had been off all day.
    â€œYour home phone isn’t working,” she said, sounding a little miffed.
    â€œI know,” I said. “People kept calling. Weirdos wanting to congratulate me.”
    I heard Kayla take a deep breath. “Things are going to be different, aren’t they?”
    â€œWhat do you mean?”
    â€œI mean with you. With us.”
    I guess I was still a bit thick. A bit overwhelmed by it all. “What do you mean, us ?”
    Kayla didn’t answer. “When are you coming back to school?”
    â€œI’ll be there tomorrow,” I said. “But I’m thinking of quitting.” The words just kind of jumped out of me.
    â€œBrando. Why would you quit school?”
    â€œI always hated school. I was never good at it. Now I can just quit if I want to. Why bother staying?”
    â€œBut I thought you were going to finish high school and then train to be an electrician.”
    â€œBut I don’t have to do that now.”
    â€œBrandon, this is so unlike you.” Now she sounded like she was lecturing me. I wondered why I had even bothered to call her.
    I was feeling annoyed. And defiant. I don’t know why. “Well, now everything is different. I’m different.”
    And she hung up on me.
    When I got to school the next day, everything was different. My mom drove me there. She said maybe I shouldn’t take the bus for my first day back. “Why don’t I rent a limo?” I had said, smiling. But she just tapped me gently on the forehead with her knuckle. Point made.
    So I got out of my mom’s car and looked around the front of the school. Everyone was looking at me. Some young geeky kid ran up and took a picture of me with his cell phone. My mom drove off and I was left standing there with all those faces, those eyes turned in my direction. I had my books under my arm and a paper bag with my lunch in it. I don’t know why, but it was the lunch bag that made me feel self-conscious. Me. I had three million dollars in the bank and I’m standing there in front of everyone with a ham sandwich that my mom had packed. How humiliating.
    I tossed the bag into a trash can and headed for the school door. I waved to a couple of the guys I knew—Josh and Derek—who were madly waving back. And then I saw Taylor smiling at me. Taylor never smiled at me. She had never given me the time of day. Taylor was Taylor—always attached to one cool guy or another, never for long. Taylor owned the male population of the school and could have any guy she wanted. Now she was smiling at me.
    I smiled back.
    Get real, I kept telling myself. You’ve just walked into a little fantasy world. You’ll wake up soon. Taylor will have stopped smiling, the money will be gone. My head felt a little dizzy. Maybe this was some kind of hallucination. I had fallen out of a tree, after all.
    The bell rang and everyone started heading in. There were kids all around me and I kept hearing my name.
    â€œYo, Brandon.”
    â€œHey,