By the time I tracked down the Battalion, the fair was in full swing. They were sat under a poplar on the edge of the main field, smokin’ candy cigarettes and watching a horde of kids ride the witch’s hat like sailors in a storm. Chester was sat back against the poplar’s trunk, sunlight bronzing his dark hair and skin, with the other three sat in a semi-circle facing him. Folks said apart from our sizes, it was easy to tell Chester and I were cut from the same tree. I wasn’t so sure. Our bark might be the same, but according to Grandma, his eyes were deep as oil wells, while mine were blue as thunder. In any event, my cow’s lick was way bigger’n his.
“Can’t believe you went and wasted your fifty on a jar of nuthin,” he said in that lazy scoff of his.
“Did you hear anythin’ I just said?” I retorted.
“I heard you say you gave Roach a fifty for a jar you can get just about anywhere for three cents, ‘cept it would be filled with marmite.” This bought guffaws from Maurice and Jaybee.
“Dumb numbskull,” Maurice added, flicking a stone at me with his fat fingers.
“If I’m so dumb, then why’d this other fella pay so much? Even if they was one-dollar bills, there must have been hundreds. And I swear that was a ten-dollar bill I saw.”
“Ten-dollar bills!” Jaybee squawked. “You’re soft in the head!”
“Or lyin’. Lyin’ like a laying Leprechaun,” Maurice added.
A part of me considered layin’ into him right there and then. Maurice was bigger than the rest of us, me most of all, but I reckoned I’d get him to shed a tear before he whupped me. Instead, I decided to appeal to Chester’s reason. “Lyin’s worse than cryin’. Millers don’t lie. Tell him, Chester.”
Chester puffed on his candy smoke, and blew invisible smoke rings into the bright blue sky. Then he said quietly, “He’s right, Millers don’t lie. I don’t know what he saw, but he wouldn’t straight up lie ‘bout it.” He sat forward. “Let’s see it.”
At first, I thought he was talking about my jar, but then I realized he wanted to see the other one. Still smarting but feeling a mite more righteous, I eased the other fella’s jar out of my pocket. I’d be lyin’ if I said it wasn’t making me more than a little skittish. I had yet to inspect it properly since digging it out the trashcan, but it was about the same size as mine, only a deep, shiny red. So red it was almost black, and covered in glass tears like wax run down a church candlestick. That alone was enough to command my respect. I handed it carefully to Chester. He turned it over in his hands.
“Don’t open it!” I exclaimed when it looked like he might.
He let go of the lid. “You sure this is it? Why would he throw it away so soon after buyin’ it?”
I nodded. “I went and fetched it right after. Nobody else went near that trashcan before I got to it. It was the only thing in it, ‘sides a newspaper and a dead mole.”
“May-be. The fella. Al-ready. Let the luck…out.” Norman always spoke like that. Like he had to pry every aching word from his brain. He didn’t speak much, but when he did, Chester seemed to pay his words more than he paid ours. Him speaking out now somehow made my tale more respectable, and I was grateful. But, at the same time, what he was sayin’ was dead wrong.
“Nope, no way,” I said. “He caught it left-hand and dropped it in the trash left hand. His right didn’t go anywhere near it. Hard to screw the lid off with only one hand. ’Sides, it was still sealed tight when I got there. Why’d he bother screwing the lid back on if he already let the luck out?”
Chester took another puff while he considered this.
“But here’s the thing!” I rattled off, now that I had him. “Roach never put the name inside. It was too quick. Like I told you, when he did mine, he had to light a candle and everything. It took at least a couple of minutes to do it proper.”
Chester blew another slow smoke ring.
I carried on. “‘Cording to Roach, without a name, it’s no good.”
“Maybe,” said Chester, “or maybe not.”
I blinked.
“Roach just said without a name, it would be hard for Lady Luck to know where to go.” Chester continued. “Maybe without a name, the luck’ll just hook on the first person it touches.”
I hadn’t thought about that, but in the back of my mind, I think I’d known it for a fact all along, which is why I was so twitchy with Chester maybe opening it earlier.
“What kind of luck did you say was in here again?” he asked.
“The worst kind,” I repeated, “whatever that is.”
Chester cocked his head.
“And another thing,” I added, knowing I had given Chester an itch and wanting to make it worse. “The thing I really can’t figure is that I’m pretty darn sure Roach looked at the name the man gave him. Why would he do that?”
“Yeah…why would he do that?” said Chester. He looked thoughtful. Then he did something that made me wanna knock his block off. He tossed the jar chock-a-block filled with the worst kind of luck in the world back at me. But not directly. He sent it way up over my head. I had to turn and lunge to catch it before it hit the ground.
“You crazy?” I yelled at him.
“Crazy as Daisy,” he said coolly while everyone, apart from Norman, cackled.
For a moment, I considered smashing the jar into the ground at their feet like a stink bomb, letting its contents swarm them like mustard gas. But I didn’t. I turned and ran instead.
Halfway across the field, a voice found my hot ears. “Hey, Lewis! Don’t be late, mate.”
I could still feel their laughter burning the back of my neck red long after I’d left the fairground behind.
Screw you, Maurice.
I had no intention of being late.
And I had no intention of failing my trial either.