Free Lucky Breaks by Susan Patron Page B

or less true; his face was smeared with traces of cookies, his fingers were sticky—thefingernails black—and his pants were shiny-dark on the sides where he rubbed his hands. He would definitely give Paloma’s parents a very bad impression.
    It would be impossible, even for Lucky, to reform both Lincoln and Miles in one day, so the only solution was to keep Paloma’s parents from meeting them at all.
    When Sandi the bus driver pulled up in the town of Dale and made five little kids hurry up and get in their seats so she could stay on schedule, Lucky looked out the window and said casually, “Paloma’s coming back tomorrow to stay for the weekend.”
    “Oh, good,” said Miles, who had mooched several cookies off her. “Maybe Chesterfield will even come back and pee again, and I bet Paloma’ll laugh so much she won’t be able to stand up.” Miles had heard the whole story of the burro’s visit while they’d waited for the bus. He’d made Lucky promise to call him on the phone, any time, day or night, if Chesterfield showed up again.
    Lincoln concentrated on his knot, looking back and forth from a series of complicated-looking diagrams in Knot News.
    “But her parents are coming too, and from what I hear you two probably better not come around.”
    “How come?” asked Lincoln, glancing up at her.
    “They’re—worrywarts,” Lucky said, which was true. Then she began improvising. “They’re kind of scared of children….” She realized that their own daughter was a child, and corrected herself. “I mean, they’re scared of boys .”
    “Why?” Miles asked.
    “Danger,” Lucky said after a pause.
    “What kind of danger?” Miles looked extremely fascinated by this subject.
    Lucky wished she’d thought this out ahead of time. “Well,” she said, “this boy told a lie about Carmen, that’s Paloma’s mom, and got her in trouble when she was exactly Paloma’s age.”
    “What lie did he tell?”
    “It’s a…secret,” said Lucky. “Even Paloma doesn’t know for sure.”
    Lincoln had his head to one side, gazing at a corner of the bus. “I’m trying to think what kind of lie would be so dangerous,” he said.
    “All Paloma knows is that her mom almost died. So now as a parent she’s very strict and won’t even let Pal have a cell phone.”
    Lincoln gave Lucky an odd look, which she ignored.
    “What happens is, lots of times when Carmen sees boys, she remembers the terrible lie from when she was a child and sometimes—she can’t help herself—she even bites them. She bites their earlobes, really hard—I’m talking about absolute strangers —grabbing them with her teeth and not letting go. Especially boys between six and twelve.”
    Lucky paused to assess how well her story was working as a way to make Lincoln and Miles stay away from Paloma’s parents. Miles looked impressed and a bit fearful. Lincoln was only gazing at her with a little smile, like someone waiting for the punch line of a joke.
    “So if you want to come over, well, that would be okay as far as Paloma and I go, but it might”—here Lucky got a great inspiration—“it could really upset Brigitte, she being a brand-new official mother. It could give her a very bad example of parenting. Before that, she’d never even have thought of biting boys’ earlobes. But once she sees it…” Lucky sighed deeply and shook her head.
    “You mean you think that could make Brigitte start biting boys’ earlobes?” asked Miles in horror.
    They had nearly arrived in Sierra City by then, and Lucky was glad. Her story was good, she thought, in general, having intrigue, excitement, and tragedy, but it wasn’t quite working with Lincoln. “Who knows for sure?” she said. “Brigitte is really feeling her way along as far as being a mom. A lot of trial and error. I don’t think it would be good for her at all to see that kind of behavior in another mom. In my opinion, just for this weekend, maybe boys should keep their