Lucky Me (8 page)

One word kept repeating itself in my mind as Finn took our picture: COUSIN. I had a cousin. This was amazing. We were related through
blood
.

“Come on,” she said. “Let me introduce you to all my friends.” She looped one arm through mine and another through Finn's, like she was Dorothy and we were her Scarecrow and Tin Man, and dragged us toward the other dancers.

I asked, “Did one of them send you the letter?”

“Oh, no. That was Anna, another cousin. Anna O'Toole.”

“Another cousin?” I asked. I'd thought I had none, and suddenly I had two! “How is that possible?”

“You know how cousins work. My mom and your dad are brother and sister. And his
other
sisters have kids, and they're your cousins too. And mine. They're your cousins and my cousins. We are all cousins!”

“I get that part. But, what other sisters? My dad thought your mom was the only one.”

“No. There are two more. Three sisters altogether. And three is my luckiest of all numbers.”

“Three! My dad is gonna go bananas. He doesn't know that!” CiCi squealed at all of this excitement. I couldn't wait for her to meet Piper. They were like two leaves on the shamrock.

“Please stay and hang out with me?” She squeezed our arms, through which she was still looped.

“That sounds like fun,” Finn said.

“I think so, Finn,” she said. “You know, I like that name.”

I felt a drop on my arm. “Is that rain?” I asked.

“It always rains here.” She held out her arms and did a little twirl in the drizzle.

Instantly my hair started to scrunch up. Ringlets pulled out of the braids like they wanted to remind everyone that I was cursed and I couldn't hang out—I had to move ahead on my journey to the next link.

CiCi stopped twirling long enough to notice. “Yikes!”

“I know,” I said. “This isn't good. I need to find Anna right away. My flat iron is in my lost luggage.”

“Where does Anna live?” Finn asked.

CiCi shied away and batted her lashes a bit, like maybe she was flirting with him. “Rhymes with ‘blue castle' and starts with an
N
.”

“Newcastle?” he guessed.

“Ding! Ding! Ding! You win! Then she flipped her blond, bouncy curls off her shoulder in a way that could mean only one thing, no matter which side of the Atlantic you were on—she liked Finn.

I tried to distract her from him. “You know, I Irish dance too.”

That got her attention. “It's in your blood, I guess. Maybe we can do a two-handed reel at the Spring Fling. Finn, will you be there too?”

“He will,” I said. The rain picked up. “We have to go find Anna. It's very important we talk to her as
soon as possible. Where in Newcastle does she live?”

“Oh, yay! You'll love her. But she's not home. She's at the Newcastle tourney this week. Give her love for me.” She hugged me again, then skipped in her hard-soled shoes into the crowd.

“Wait!” I called.

She turned. “What?”

“I need to shake your hands, assuming you'll forgive me for e-mailing the chain letter.”

“Of course.”

She double-shook like she did it all the time. Then Finn and I went to find the goggled, caped, headphoned, silent pinball player.

I
was so psyched to find Anna, not only to reverse the curse but also to meet another cousin.

All kinds of thoughts were swirling around in my head after the excitement of the morning, the kind that make your brain feel like it's exploding. “Finn!”

He jumped. “What's wrong?”

“I've never had a cousin! I feel totally different knowing I'm part of a bigger family.”

“What does it feel like?”

“I can't put my finger on it. It's a certain
je ne sais quoi
.”

Finn added to my racing thoughts, “Not only do you
have
cousins, but you're
someone
else's
cousin.”

“Wow!” I said. “That's major!
Je ne sais What-What
.”
I raised my palms to the roof of the tiny car.

Finn looked confused. “Must be an American thing.”

I took my hair out of the braid and tousled the curls around. “And you know what else? My dad has three sisters! He is going to be shocked and so, so happy. I can't believe he doesn't know.
I
know and
he
doesn't know,” I added.

“We have to go to Newcastle. Right now.”

Mrs. Buck pulled out of our parking spot on the cobblestone road. Then I kind of freaked a little more. “Wait! Listen to this amazing idea!”

“I'm listening,” he said. “I like
amazing
ideas.” He tried to imitate me but didn't do a great job.

“I'm not going to tell my dad about the other sisters.”

“But you just said he'd be so happy.”

“Oh, he will be when I
surprise
him
with
all
of them—sisters, brothers-in-law, nieces, nephews—at the Spring Fling. Won't that be the biggest best surprise ever?”

“A great surprise.”

“How long till we get to Newcastle?” I asked Mrs. Buck. She didn't hear me. So I lifted one of her headphones and asked again. She shrugged.

Finn guessed, “I think we'll get there before dinner. This little car doesn't go very fast.”

“Dinner? I don't think I can wait that long.”

“You'll make it,” Finn said. “Let's make our plan, and that will distract you from the time.”

“Fine. What's this tourney that CiCi mentioned?”

“It's a rugby tournament. That's huge around here. People travel all over to watch their favorite teams. It shouldn't be hard to find a big tournament in that small town.”

For a second I thought about rugby, but soon my mind wandered to a scene I imagined in a snow globe: I unveil a bunch of long-lost relatives to my father at the Spring Fling. He cries in happiness. It's me, his middle daughter, who made it all possible. “Meghan,” he says, “how can I ever thank you?” And I say, “You don't have to thank me, Dad. But there's a pair of UGGs I've been wanting, and maybe a Coach bag.” And he says, “Anything. Whatever you want for the rest of your life, you can have.” And that makes Eryn really mad and jealous, which makes me really happy.

I replayed the scene over and over in my head. I was going to be, like, the hero of the McGlinchey family, and probably the whole Spring Fling.

The car started slowing down for seemingly no reason.
I thought maybe Mrs. Buck was pulling over to look at a map or to show us something, but there was nothing to see other than a green pasture, tall grass, and blue sky. The car stuttered to a stop.

Something wasn't right.

“Why are we stopping here? What's going on?”

Finn leaned over the front seat and looked at the dusty control panel. “Ran out of petrol,” Finn said with his palms up, as if to add,
C'est la vie.

This wasn't
la vie
. This was
la curse
.

“Well, that doesn't sound good,” I said.

“Actually, it's no big deal. These towns are far apart, and these little cars don't hold much, so it happens sometimes.” He looked out the window at the sky. “We're lucky. It stopped raining.” He pointed to a puff of white in the sky. “And see that?”

“The cloud?”

“It's smoke—from a fireplace. Someone's burning peat. There must be a house over that ridge. Let's walk over.”

Finn and I walked through the tall wet grass toward the yucky-smelling smoke. Mrs. Buck stayed with the car.

In a small valley we found a thatched cottage that looked very much like the one from “Hansel and Gretel.”

Wait. Hold on. In that story didn't some lady or witch try to shove the boy and girl into her oven? Or did I have that confused with another tragic fairy tale?

I didn't think that going to that house with a curse hanging over my head was a good idea.

I
looked back at the field we'd walked through. We'd left no bread crumbs. What if we just disappeared?

Would Mrs. Buck come looking for us?

Would she break her silence in order to tell the police about two missing teens?

“Finn, maybe this isn't a good idea,” I said.

“Why?”

“Well, they're, you know, strangers.”

“If you don't talk to strangers, how will you ever make any new friends?” He gently knocked on the door. “How much are you willing to bet they offer us food?” he whispered.

Before I could explain to him about how we could be
locked in an oven, the door opened. A woman with a paisley handkerchief tied around her head answered. “What perfect timin'. I was just finishin' da soda bread. Come in.” We went in. The door shut behind us with a loud click of the latch. The house might have looked like a sweet little cottage, and smelled like baking bread, but it felt like bad luck.

“What can I do for you?” She poked at the fireplace with a rod that reddened at the end.

Finn and I sat down. “Our car ran out of petrol on the other side of the field. We're hoping you can help us,” Finn said.

“You're not the first traveler to come here with an automobile problem. Be a dear and help me here?” she asked me. I followed her into a very small kitchen. She handed me two pot holders. “I'll open the oven, and you take the loaf out, eh?”

“Out of the oven?”

“Tat's right.”

This is what I figured was going to happen: I would lean in to get some loaf that supposedly was in the hot oven, and she'd shove me in, close the door, and bake me for dinner.

Would Finn try to save me?

I looked back at him—totally relaxed.

Maybe he was in on it?

It was kind of convenient that we'd run out of gas right by this cottage, wasn't it? I hadn't even checked to see if the gas gauge was really on
E
.

She asked, “Can you do that?”

“All right,” I replied, because that was the way I was—a helpful rule follower. (Except for running away from the castle, which hardly felt like running away anymore because we had an adult and we'd left a note with our phone number. But we had taken off under the cloak of darkness, and at least that had
felt
against the rules.)

She opened the oven, and I took out the loaf, lightning fast, and put it on the counter. I dropped the pot holders and ran back to Finn. “Yer a quick one,” the woman commented. She closed the oven and moved the loaf of bread onto the table. It smelled so good. Maybe I'd misjudged all of this. But then the woman held up a big, fat, shiny knife.

“Watch out!” I yelped at the sight of the blade.

“What's that, dear?” she asked, cutting into the bread. “Do you need the toilet?”

“Oh,” I said, trying to calm myself. “Uh, no. Thank you.”

She turned her back to us and opened an old-fashioned-looking fridge.

Finn looked at me, concerned, and mouthed to me, “You okay?”

I nodded and exhaled.

The lady returned with a small glass bowl filled with creamy, white butter.

“What are your names?”

“I'm Finn from Castle Ballymore. And this is Meghan.”

“People call me Honey. I'll go to the barn and check for the petrol. You make yourselves cozy.”

Finn buttered his bread. “I love soda bread.”

“I've never had it.”

“What kind of Irish American are you?”

“The kind whose mom works a lot and who doesn't have a grandmother.” I looked at the bread. “Are you going to eat that? We don't even know her. How do you know it's safe?”

“I'll take a bite, and if I die instantly, then it's not safe, and you shouldn't eat it.” He bit. Swallowed. A second later he grabbed his throat and started gagging.

Poison!

Finn made a gurgling noise from his throat that didn't sound exactly like choking, but then again, I'd never seen anyone being poisoned before. I was standing over him, ready to do CPR, when I noticed that he wasn't choking;
he was laughing. He wiped tears from his eyes and tossed another chunk of bread into his mouth.

“Not funny,” I said angrily.

“It was a little funny. You should see your face.”

I figured everything was safe, so I tried a piece of the bread. It was kind of like a cross between cake and bread, with raisins. And the rich whipped butter melted right into it. “I always wanted a grandmother.” I looked at the soda bread and the cottage. It all felt very grandmotherly, once you got past the “Hansel and Gretel” thing.

“Are your grandparents alive?” Finn asked.

“My mom's parents died before I was born. You and your dad probably know more about my dad's family than I do.”

Finn shook his head. “All I know is that your father's father died young and something happened to separate the rest of the family. Your father came to live at Ballymore Home for Boys, which is where he met my da when they were about six. A few years later a nice couple—your grandparents—took him to America.”

“Why America?” I asked.

“I guess because there were more opportunities there,” Finn said.

Honey came back into the cottage. “Sorry. I've some
bad news. No petrol.” She held up an empty can. “I got bicycles in the barn. You're welcome t' borrow dem.”

I thought we'd follow her outside to get the bikes. Instead she sat down and slathered a piece of bread. She
“Mmmed”
as she savored the bite.

She asked all about Ballymore, the weather, and the current rankings of the rugby teams. I was anxious to leave, find Anna, plan the huge surprise for my father, and undo a curse, but Honey was very interested in visiting with us.