Turn Left at the Cow by Lisa Bullard Page B

sent Iz a what-do-I-do-now look and she got up, taking Linnea’s hand. “We’ll all help.”
    We headed for the row of tables where the old dudes were hanging out. Each table held different- colored slips of paper with numbers on them. It looked as if a bunch of them had already been taken. King Svengrud was standing behind one of the tables; I handed over the twenty, feeling like I was signing my own execution notice.
    He immediately gave the bill the once-over. That saying “if looks could kill”? I’m guessing someone invented that one for the expression on old Svengrud’s face when he realized I was in the clear this time.
    â€œAll right, pick yourself four tickets,” he snapped.
    I didn’t have a clue as to what game we were playing, so I shrugged. “Whatever.”
    â€œNo, no, you got to think lucky. What’s your favorite color?” asked Krissy.
    I couldn’t resist yanking her chain. “Uh . . . black?”
    â€œNo, silly, one of these colors.” She pointed at the tables.
    â€œI’m not exactly Mr. Lucky these days,” I said. “You pick a color for me.”
    She clapped. “Pink! Now, what day is your birthday?”
    â€œNovember forty-first.”
    Her forehead wrinkled up while she thought about that.
    Iz pinched me on the arm. “He’s just teasing you, Krissy. Come on, what’s your real birthday?”
    â€œNovember fourteenth,” I admitted.
    Krissy scanned the pink tickets but then stuck out her lower lip. “Somebody already took pink fourteen. But here’s yellow fourteen.”
    â€œOkay.” I took the ticket from her. “You each go ahead and pick me one more and we’ll be done—it doesn’t really matter to me.”
    You would have thought they were choosing between five hundred flavors of ice cream. I was watching Iz trying to decide between blue eleven and green fourteen when I felt someone tug on my sleeve. I looked down.
    â€œI got you purple fourteen,” said Linnea in this really soft little voice. She handed me a purple ticket. “I like purple the best. My ticket is purple number seven.”
    â€œUh . . . great,” I said. I was as mystified about how to talk to girls in the munchkin size bracket as I was about how to talk to ones my own age. But she seemed to be waiting for something else, so I added, “I bet you’ll beat me.”
    She got this big, goofy grin on her face, and I could see where a bunch of her teeth had fallen out.
    â€œI like you even if you are a bad boy,” she said, ducking her head down and taking hold of my hand.
    Iz and Krissy walked over just then to hand me the tickets they’d picked out for me, and we let ourselves be jostled out of the way by other ticket pickers.
    â€œNow what?” I asked.
    â€œFive minutes, folks,” boomed out the Big Store King. “Just five more minutes to buy yourself a winner! The fun starts outside in ten!”
    â€œAlmost time for the chicken game!” squealed Krissy. “Let’s go.”
    The whole basement full of people started pushing and shoving their way upstairs as if we were on the
Titanic
after it had had that fender-bender. I would have held back but Linnea yanked me onward.
    â€œYou have to come see if you win.” I let her pull me along.
    Once we made it outside, we followed the crowd to the back corner of the parking lot. Everybody was gathering around this big square area marked off on the pavement with red paint.
    Deputy Dude was directing traffic. “Pick a side, folks. Just stand back of the paint lines. We want everybody to get a view of the fun.”
    Linnea hauled me through the horde of bodies up to the front of the crowd. Somehow we got separated from Iz and Krissy, but Linnea squeezed the two of us into a spot along the paint marks. In front of us, inside the square, was a small area with a little fence around it.