The Higher Power of Lucky

“We got fifty miles to cover before the bell rings,” Sandi said, as she always did, “and I’m not waiting.”

“He’s only five,” said Lucky.

Sandi flipped on her turn signal and checked the side view mirrors.

“Here he is,” Lucky said, and grabbed Miles’s plastic sack so he could climb up the two deep steps quickly.

“Don’t help me, Lucky,” he said. “I can climb up by myself.”

“Let’s go,” said Sandi.

“Did you see me skip?” Miles asked Sandi. “I skipped all the way down the hill.”

“Rear of the bus,” said Sandi, who didn’t want kids sitting close enough to talk to her.

Lucky followed Miles past sixty empty seats, to the last long bench, where Lincoln was knotting a piece of yellow twine.

“Did you see me skip?” Miles asked Lincoln.

“No,” said Lincoln, frowning at his knot.

Lucky looked out the rear window. HMS Beagle stood watching the bus, then turned and trotted toward home. She would be waiting when the bus arrived back at four fifteen, as she did every day.

Miles sat by the window, took Are You My Mother? out of the plastic sack, and held it on his lap. He had an almost-healed scab on one knee and a new-looking scrape on the other. One sneaker had a hole in the side where his little toe poked through. The sun shining through the window glinted on his coppery hair, which was mashed down on one side.

The bus climbed up and out of the valley, then turned and joined the highway to Sierra City. Miles swiped the dusty window with his hand, wiped his hand on his pants, and pointed to the forest of Joshua trees. “Is this Short Sammy’s adopted highway?” he asked.

“Not yet. Wait, here comes the little sign,” Lucky said. Then it flashed by:

ADOPT-A-HIGHWAY

SAMMY DESOTO

Adopting a highway is not like adopting a child. Lucky planned to adopt seven or eight highways when she got old enough, if she had time. What it means is that you take care of this certain stretch of road by picking up all the litter every week. Also you get an official orange vest and hard hat, and special trash bags, plus you get a sign on the highway that people can admire as they drive past.

“Was that it? Sandi should stop so we can read it,” Miles complained. “Some people need more time to sound out their words.”

Lucky and Lincoln eye-smiled at each other without letting Miles see. That, thought Lucky, was the First Sign. The way she and Lincoln understood right then what each other was thinking.

“She can’t stop or we’ll be late for school,” Lincoln said. “Check out how the highway along here is so clean, though. Short Sammy cleans it.”

“In his orange vest?”

“Yeah.”

Miles began making frog croaking noises. Lincoln immediately put on his headphones. He didn’t have a player for them to plug into, but by wearing them Lucky figured he could concentrate better on his knots. Finally Lucky couldn’t stand any more frog croaking, so she told Miles a story of how the Joshua trees were playing Statues, and when they thought you weren’t looking they changed their weird positions.

“If you stare at them very quietly you’ll see them move,” she said. Miles rested his forehead on the dusty window and stared out for about three minutes. Then he said, “Lucky?”

“What.”

“Do you have an extra Fig Newton?”

“Oh, Miles,” she said, and dug a Fig Newton out of her tote bag. “Doesn’t your grandmother ever comb your hair?”

“Sometimes,” said Miles, lightly kicking the seat in front of him as he ate tiny bites of the cookie.

15. The Second Sign

and the Third Sign

Lucky felt excited and impatient all day at school. Ms. McBeam read a thin book to the fifth grade about Charles Darwin, the scientist Lucky most admired. The totally amazing thing about Charles Darwin was how much he and Lucky were alike. For instance, in the book there was a part where Charles Darwin found two interesting beetles. To capture them, all he had was his hands, so he caught one in each hand. Then—and this was the great part—he found a third interesting beetle, so he popped it into his mouth! That was exactly something Lucky would do, except for the constant fact that she carried her survival backpack full of specimen boxes with her at all times.

Then Ms. McBeam showed pictures of polar bears in the snow and explained that Charles Darwin figured out that animals survive by adapting to their environment. Polar bears are white like the snow so they will be harder to see and they can sneak up on their next meal. (And also to make them harder to be spotted by other animals or people who hunt them.) The same with insects who look like the plants they eat—except they’re hiding from the birds that want to eat them, Ms. McBeam explained.

At that exact moment, Lucky looked at her sandy-colored arms and realized, finally, why her hair and eyes and skin were all one color! Charles Darwin had a very good point. She was like those lizards and sidewinders—exactly the color of the sand outside. She blended in too.