stayed silent while the plane took off from Jackson airport, while the flight attendant went over all the instructions about what to do in case of an emergency, and even after the Fasten Seatbelt sign went off. Jack searched his brain for something to say, something that wouldn’t sound stupid. He thought of giving Lucky more details about the cougar attack at Mesa Verde, but he remembered Lucky’s bruise and decided he didn’t want to talk about any kind of assault. Maybe he could ask her about Maria. No, Jack doubted he could talk without being overheard, which meant he’d better save that topic for another time. He was just about to ask Lucky if she’d been following the NBA basketball play-offs when Ashley’s face popped up over the back of the seat in front of them.
Ashley crossed her arms on the top of the seat, planted her chin on her arms, looked brightly at Lucky, and asked straight out, “How’d you ever get a nickname like that? Is it your real name? I never heard of anyone named Lucky.”
Jack gave Ashley his fiercest, big brother “keep quiet” stare, but Lucky only laughed and answered, “I never heard of anyone else either. I’ll tell you how it happened: I was about five years old. We were living in Las Vegas, and I wanted to play one of the slot machines because they looked really fun. You know—all those cherries and plums and lemons whirling around. You know, Jack?”
He really didn’t. He’d never seen an actual slot machine—only a video game his friend had.
Lucky went on, “My dad said, ‘Lacey, the slots are a sucker’s game. Don’t waste that shiny quarter I gave you on the slots. Buy a pack of gum. At least you’ll have something for your money.’”
Jack and Ashley exchanged glances. So her real name was Lacey! Their parents didn’t know that, and even the social worker, Ms. Lopez, hadn’t been able to find out Lucky’s name. And now she’d slipped up and said it right out loud.
“But I kept begging my dad—please, please, please!—and finally he let me play a quarter. ‘Just one quarter,’ he said. ‘That’s all.’”
“So what happened?” Ashley asked, wide-eyed.
“I hit a hundred-dollar jackpot. All these quarters came tumbling out of the machine and fell all over the floor.”
“Wow!” Ashley exclaimed, impressed, but Jack asked, “Isn’t it illegal for kids under eighteen to gamble in Las Vegas?”
“Sure,” Lucky answered, grinning at him. “But the guards didn’t catch me—my dad made sure of that. So then, while we were picking up the quarters, my dad told me, ‘From now on I’m going to call you Lucky. You’re my good-luck charm.’ Right after that he bought me this.” She touched the four-leaf clover pendant that hung around her neck.
From across the aisle Olivia said, “Ashley, sit down the right way. You need to face forward.”
“I will in a minute, Mom. Just give me one more minute.” Grimacing, Ashley said, “Moms! They’re always bugging you. Hey, Lucky, what did your mom think? I mean, did she get mad ’cause your dad let you do something illegal?”
For a long moment Lucky looked out the window. When she turned back toward them, her large green eyes brimmed with tears. “My mother was already dead by then.”
“Oh!” Ashley murmured, dropping lower in her seat. “How…how did she die?”
Lucky answered in a husky voice, “She worked as a magician’s assistant in a big Las Vegas show. She was so good! But one night while they were performing, the magician’s white tiger mauled her. She died from the wounds.” The tears welled up even more, spilling over Lucky’s lower lids, running in rivulets down her cheeks.
“That’s so awful!” Ashley wailed.
Steven Landon reached across the aisle and tapped his daughter’s shoulder. “You need to sit down, Ashley. If we hit any unexpected turbulence, you could bounce right up and slam against the ceiling. People get hurt bad that way.”
As Ashley sank into her seat, Lucky rubbed the tears from her cheeks. “Do you have a tissue?” she asked Jack.
Fumbling in the pockets of his shorts, he searched for something that could wipe up tears. A rumpled Kleenex—it didn’t have to look brand new, as long as it was clean. But all he could find was a cash-register receipt for a Slurpee from 7-Eleven. “Sorry,” he mumbled, with honest regret.
“It doesn’t matter. I just get…emotional…when I think about my mother,” she murmured.
“Yeah. Sure. No wonder.”
Lucky leaned forward, “Excuse me, Jack. I’ll just slip out to the lavatory and get myself a tissue.”
“OK.” Jack swung around and hung his knees over the armrest so that his feet, in their big sneakers, dangled in the aisle. The corners of Lucky’s lips twitched ever so slightly with amusement as she moved past him. When she was gone, Jack smacked his forehead with the heels of his hands. Why hadn’t he stood up to let her get past! That’s what he should have done—stand up, step into the aisle, and get out of her way. He groaned inwardly. How stupid his feet had looked dangling in midair! Why did he keep coming off so geeky?
“Mom, Dad!” Now Ashley was in the aisle.
“Can’t you just sit still?” her father demanded. “You keep bobbing up and down. Your mother’s trying to work out a plan for Mesa Verde. It’s important, Ashley. Some people have even demanded that the cougars be taken out of the park.”
“Taken out?” Ashley cried. “They can’t do that, can they?”
Olivia looked up from a stack of papers she’d been reading and patted Ashley’s hand. “No, but it shows you how scared folks get when they realize the damage a wild animal can do. Anyway, what did you need to tell us?”
“Oh, yeah. Well, it’s about Lucky.” Leaning over her parents and talking in a loud stage whisper, Ashley told them, “I know how you can find out who she is. First, her real name’s Lacey. Second, her mother got attacked by a magician’s white tiger in Las Vegas.”
“Oh, Ashley!” Olivia looked at her daughter.
“A white tiger?” Steven exclaimed, and laughed out loud. “She’s feeding you a story, sweetheart.”
“Honest, Dad! You should have seen her. She was crying and everything when she told us about it. Wasn’t she, Jack?”
Hesitant, Jack nodded.
“I mean,” Ashley went on, “how many people get killed by a white tiger in a big Las Vegas show? It must have been in all the papers, don’t you think? You could check it out real easy, even though it happened—let’s see—at least eight years ago.”
Olivia turned to Jack and asked, “What do you think, Jack? Do you buy into that fantastic story?”
What did he think? He believed it. No one could fake tears like that. Lucky had to be telling the truth. But if Jack admitted that and they were able to trace Lucky’s background, she’d be returned to wherever it was the gang was waiting to hurt her.
“I…I don’t know.”
Olivia sighed. “OK. When we change planes at the Denver airport, I’ll call Ms. Lopez and
