Chapter 1
Today, I saved Brody Carmichael’s life!
Mina penned the jubilant words into her blue spiral notebook with her favorite ball point pen. She faithfully used the same pen when writing all of her entries, in hopes that it would change her luck and she could write something good in her notebook-- like today. Mina stared at the words written before her in her sloppy script and felt a pang of guilt. She started to close the notebook but paused in thought. It didn’t feel right. It didn’t seem… truthful. With a heavy hand and a heavy heart she added in parentheses next to her previous entry:
(Today was also the day I almost KILLED Brody Carmichael).
Feeling slightly better about telling the truth, she closed her notebook titled “Unaccomplishments and Epic Disasters” and tucked it in her dresser drawer with a sigh.
Nothing in the world ever went right for fifteen-year-old Mina. She was always late for class, her homework usually looked as if it had spent the evening being a chew toy for a pit bull when she didn’t even own a dog, her long-time crush didn’t know she existed, and she frequently spilled chocolate milk on herself whenever she became nervous. Mina was certain it was because she was the magnet for all the bad, terrible and so-so luck that existed in the world and therefore kept a notebook hidden in her unorganized sock drawer to prove it.
All of these events turned her into a cynic, especially since yesterday morning started out like any other event filled, disastrous day.
She dreamed she was flying. She was much more graceful in the air than on the ground where her feet always seemed to be tripping her up. But her peaceful dream was interrupted by the loud banging and crashing of thunder. She was no longer flying… but falling.
“Ouch! What the…?” Mina cried out, as she landed painfully on the mismatched oak wood floor of her bedroom. She had fallen out of bed. Struggling to untangle herself from her sheets and comforter, Mina saw a pair of feet poking out of blue Toy Story pajamas next to her head.
“Charlie, what are you doing?” she mumbled, still wrestling with her sheets.
Charlie, a young and solemn boy of eight, pointed toward her clock that was blinking 12:00pm. In his hands he held a pot and wooden spoon. The power must have gone out again, which was a regular occurrence for their city block.
“What time is it?” she asked, feeling dread build, knowing that today she was going to be late… again.
Charlie held up one hand pinching his ring finger and thumb together to sign the number seven.
“Charlie, how could you have let me sleep in so long? I’m going to be late!”
Charlie answered by shrugging his shoulders and banging on the pot with his wooden spoon. She knew that it wasn’t Charlie’s fault; she was a very deep sleeper. Her mother, Sara, said that she was harder to wake up than Sleeping Beauty. In Mina’s case, though, there was no prince charming to rescue her from her snoring, and with her horrible luck, there never would be.
Jumping up, Mina grabbed what she hoped was a clean pair of jeans from the pile of clothes that littered her floor and slid into them. Silently she thanked her mother for never giving in to her request for skinny jeans, otherwise her dressing time would have doubled. Next, she shoved her feet into her favorite Converse All Stars, bending the backs in the process.
Picking up a blue zippered hoodie, she gave it a cursory sniff before deeming it clean enough to wear. She ran her fingers through her long brown hair trying to tame the stray locks, which were the same boring color as her eyes. She tried to force a winning smile onto her face, but it slid into an awkward grimace.
Giving a quick kiss on her brother’s head, she ran into the small and dated kitchen and grabbed her backpack from the breakfast table. Turning, Mina heard a rip as the backpack clung stubbornly to the back of the chair. The chair won and the shoulder strap ripped off of the back of the bag, causing all of her books to crash to the floor in a heap.
Sighing, she threw each book back into the bag and did her best to hold it shut while she scoured the kitchen drawers for safety pins.
Sara Grime walked into the kitchen with a quizzical look on her face. She was dressed in her work clothes, tan pants and a blue polo with a stitched outline of a feather duster and smiling mop. Sara worked for Happy Maids, cleaning homes so she could afford the tuition to send Charlie to a private school. Their mother worked long hours without ever complaining, which was why Mina never allowed her to enter Mina’s pigsty of a room.
“Mom, did you sign my permission form?”
“What permission form?” Sara asked distractedly, sliding a raspberry Pop Tart into the toaster.
“For today’s field trip. To Babushka’s Bakery, remember? I gave it to you last week.”
“Oh, honey,” Sara wrung her hands. “Don’t you think it would be better if you didn’t go on the field trip? You know how clumsy you are. What if something should happen to you?”
“Mom, I have a paper to write on today’s trip and it’s worth a quarter of my grade.” Mina had finally found a few safety pins in a junk drawer and was fumbling with them to attach the strap back on to her backpack. She knew they didn’t have enough money to buy another one. She would have to make do with a quick mend.
“Well, maybe you could do some extra credit instead?” Sara asked.
“Mom, I’ll be fine. I’ll stick to Nan like glue and you won’t have to worry about me. It’s just a boring bakery tour. What could possibly go wrong, other than I die of boredom?” Mina saw the look on her mom’s face and knew that she had won the argument, barely.
Going to a stack of mail by the fridge, Sara sifted through it until she found the folded yellow permission form. Signing it, she handed it to Mina with one last warning. “Just promise me you’ll be careful.”
“I will,” Mina promised, knowing it was a half-truth. She would be careful, but bad luck had a habit of following her everywhere.
Charlie shuffled into the kitchen still wearing his pajamas, plus a striking pair of bright yellow galoshes. Sitting on a slightly dented chair, he pulled one of the boxes of cereal toward him and began his morning routine of combining random cereals into one bowl. Today he chose Franken Berry, Cheerio’s and Grape-Nuts. A far cry from his normal combination of at least five cereals. Watching him mix cereal every morning made her stomach drop in disgust, which was why she preferred Pop Tarts.
The toaster released her Pop Tart and Mina grabbed it midair, wishing she hadn’t as she began tossing it back and forth in her hands until it cooled. Once cooled enough, it went into her mouth while she slipped on her temporarily fixed backpack and darted out the door to grab her bike from the landing.
The Grime family lived in a small rented apartment above The Golden Palace, a Chinese restaurant run by Mr. and Mrs. Wong. Mina loved living above the restaurant, unless she forgot to close her window the night before; then all of her clothes would smell like peanut oil. To make up for it, Mrs. Wong gave her all the pot stickers she could eat.
Mina carried the bike down the stairs to the sidewalk, nicking the paint from the wall on the way down. She had a love-hate relationship with the bike. Last year, on the eve of her fifteenth birthday, she thought she was being led outside blindfolded to be presented with a car. Instead she got a red 1950 Schwinn. The bike was old, scuffed, needed new brakes, oil and tires, but she didn’t care.
