The Lottery by Beth Goobie Page A

peering at her through a metaphorical hedge, trying to figure her out. Sudden understanding flared through her. This wasn’t a casual off-the-cuff driving lesson, it was a setup. As she nosed the car out of the parking lot and down the alley, Dusty emitted a delicate sigh. She braced herself.
    “Sally-Sis,” he asked softly, “what’s wrong? What’s got you lower than a carpet?”
    He looked deeply stressed, as if asking the questionbroke some cosmic privacy rule. Avoiding her pointed glance, he squinted straight ahead, his eyes rescuing metaphorical babies from every imaginable catastrophe. When Dusty was fifteen, the family dog Spot had died of overdone old age. Dusty had cried for weeks, until their mother had flat-out refused to get another pet. Dusty had a heart like a cooked beet — soft, the color of a deep bruise.
    “Nothing’s wrong.” Sal’s voice was unnecessarily loud, a thick shoulder of a voice. “You’re taking too many psych courses, okay?”
    Dusty cleared his throat tentatively. “Look Sal, maybe you think I don’t pay attention, but I have noticed that Kimmie hasn’t been around lately. I’ve ... been watching you, and you seem different. Quieter. It’s not like — ”
    “I’m quieter tonight because of you and all your goddam metaphorical babies!” Sal was a capped volcano about to explode, her fury so sudden she felt dizzy. “How d’you expect me to learn to drive if I’ve got to worry about babies crawling out of everywhere? Don’t you remember what happened to me in a car? D’you think it’s easy — ”
    Her brain tilted and the scene in front of her changed, the back alley swerving into darkness, headlights making their fateful brilliant arc across a two-lane highway. Screaming, there was that screaming again, the sound of high-pitched terror.
    “Sal. Sally-Sis, it’s okay, you’re okay now.” Dusty’s arm tightened around her shoulders and she hunched over the steering wheel, locked into dry heaves. “It’s okay,” he kept repeating, a soft mantra in her ear. “Everything’s okay now.”
    “What?” she asked, groggy as if coming out of deep sleep, the right side of her brain split with pain. She wished someone would pull the axe out of her head. “What happened?”
    “It’s me,” Dusty said softly. “I’m a stupid ass, that’s all. You want me to drive?”
    She noticed his foot rammed on the brake. “Did I hit something?”
    “No, everything’s fine. You just need a break.”
    “My head hurts. Right here.” She touched her right temple.
    “Just a headache. All those metaphorical babies, like you said.”
    “I guess.” Sal climbed in the passenger door completely exhausted, as if she’d been swimming through mud. Giving Dusty her back, she curled into the upholstery’s familiar sag — it cradled her like a friend, the kind who’d never desert her, never go wrong. Warm tears slid down her cheek and she wanted to suck her thumb. How could Dusty ask such dumb questions when it was obvious she was stressed out about a landscape teeming with crawling infants? Babies could really scoot when they got going. What if she hit one of them? Even metaphorical babies bled. Dusty should know better than to stress her out with metaphors that had anything to do with car accidents and blood.
    Nuzzling the upholstery, she was asleep before the car reached the end of the alley.
    “What the hell d’you think you’re doing?” snapped Linda Paboni.
    Sal stood before them a second time, one hand on the doorknob, half in, half out of the open doorway. Facing her was the full circle of Shadow Council’s power, nine of the most influential students in the school. Members of Student Council, Athletic Council, and the prominent clubs,they’d all been chosen for the respect they commanded from their peers. Each one maintained a B+ average or higher — there were no slackers here, no third clarinetists. Linda Paboni had been one of last year’s Citizenship Cup