Luck I thought it was a costume party. As I stepped through the doors of the school gym, my smile radiated brighter than the sun. But when I looked around, nobody was in a costume. This time, my face burned the color of the sun, and my smile quickly dropped into an o-shape that hung open and seemed to hit my knees. This was bad. This was really bad. My first middle school party and I showed up dressed as a giant donut. Great. My classmates stared at my green eyes as I looked at the wall, trying hard not to make eye contact. My brown hair that I d tied back into a bun was starting to come loose, and chunks of hair were falling onto my shoulders. The sparkling earrings that I wore, now seemed like the only good idea I d had all day. And, as you already know, I was wearing a giant donut. Could I have picked anything more embarrassing?! My name is Fortunato Benevento. I am pure Italian, hence, my name. In the year 2004, my parents in Italy abandoned me, or died: nobody really knew them so it remains a mystery. I don t know what my name means, and I m scared to find out. I know I could easily look it up on google translate, but my name is the only thing that I got from my birth parents. What if they gave me a name that means unwanted? Or worse, a curse? I can t afford to do that to myself, I need to feel like I wasn t abandoned. Have you ever had one of those moments where you wish you could just run away from life, away from every, tiny detail? That is how I felt. As soon as I opened that door, saw what I needed to see, I tried to turn around and go back to my cozy little room and stay there. But it was too late, all eyes were on me, the music had stopped playing and it looked like time had just been put on pause. Hi everybody! I said nervously. Nothing happened. Awkward silence. The earth keeps on going. Things like this happen every day all over the place. The unfortunate part is, that things like this happen to me everyday. After the dance (I spent the entire time digging around in the lost and found trying to find clothes to replace my donut outfit) my friend Jamie wouldn t let my little scene be forgotten. Oh my gosh! You should have seen the look on your face! Nobody wanted to be mean, or anything, but I have to tell ya, you looked ridiculous! These types of outbursts reminded me that I needed to find new friends. Jamie was my only friend at school, at home I had one friend who knew and understood why I had all these bad luck scenes. Lucky Johnson was my best friend in the entire world. We had gone through everything together: earthquakes, tornadoes, floods, evil magicians, freak thunderstorms, etc. Yep, evil magicians. Anyways, at my 7th birthday, my mom had hired a magician to do magic for Lucky and I. Long story short, I was cursed for bad luck and many, MANY, inconveniences. Everyone just laughed at me when my bad luck struck, but Lucky didn t. Instead, she would give me a worried glance. My bad luck became worse as I grew older. At first, it was just little things like I was a penny short of buying the new American girl doll I wanted. Walking into the wrong bathroom. My mom forgetting to pick me up from school. And now, I showed up at my first middle school party dressed as a donut. The next day I was going to turn 12, which meant I would have an entire new level of bad (yikes!). As we neared my house, I took a deep breath of fresh air, preparing myself for yet another friend let go. Part of having bad luck was never being able to keep a friend. I was a
Professional at this. So all I did was run towards my house and shout We can t be friends anymore! Have a nice day! Then I shut the door. As soon as I stepped into my room, I called Lucky. I felt the phone vibrate as it rang. Hello? I heard someone say on the other end of the line. Hi Mrs. Johnson! May I speak with Lucky? I said. There was a lot of shuffling in the background, and then a bang that sounded like breaking glass. She hung up. Strange. I tried calling again. Eventually the answering machine picked up. Hello this is the Johnson family and we are not available to take your calls, please leave a message at the beep. I waited and waited, but I never heard the beep. That must mean that someone picked up the phone! Hello..? I said warily into the speaker. Hello, who s this? said a gruff voice that seemed familiar. Umm, Hi, I don t think we ve met yet, but I need to speak to a resident of the house I just called. She goes by the name of Lucky I was prepared to continue on babbling, but the voice cut me off. There isn t anyone in this household that goes by the name of Lucky- There is. I have her phone number memorized. Photographic memory! I cut him off. The part about the photographic memory was completely false, but he didn t know that! Fine, whatever! I m her uncle! So leave me alone! For the second time that day, the phone was hung up on me. I know it s probably not one of my smartest ideas (or a smart idea at all), but I decided that I was going to see what was going on at Lucky s house. One good thing about having a bad luck curse, you only get it once a day. So my bad luck s over.. for now. Ding Dong! I wait a minute by Lucky s door, listening for footsteps. Nothing. I ring the bell again. This time I hear talking. Hello! I know that you're in there! There s shuffling and then the door opens. Who are you? The man that came to the door inspects me, Go away. He tries to shut the door, but I put my foot in the way. Hi! My name is, I stall for a moment to come up with my cover name, Taylor. I am Lucky s best friend. And just so you know I will not go away. By the way, that s a really rude thing to say to a lady! I put on my best insulted face. Listen girl- Taylor. Whatever, I don t know this Lucky girl so- You mean your niece? Are you saying you don t know your own niece? Sir, I am prepared to call 911! I threaten. This man deserves to go to jail! I m not one to be talking, but this guy sure needs to improve his first impressions! For a second we just stare at eachother. Me with my hands on my hips, and him in a full out death glare. Eventually he breaks the silence, Oh, you re that know-it-all girl from the phone! Well, he starts talking as if I m a baby, you found me out! I m a bad guy! You deserve a lollipop! He pauses taking a look at my very confused face, Get her. Then I feel metal collide with the back of my head, and I m out. So maybe I do get more than one bad luck scene everyday. When I wake up, I m in Lucky s basement. Her basement is the worst place IN THE WORLD! Everywhere you look there are spiders and bugs crawling from every nook. It is dark, there is no carpet, no windows, this place just gives me the chills. I try to stand and go turn on
the lights or something, only to find that I had been tied to a chair. My first instinct is to scream for help. Of course I can t speak because a piece of cloth has been tied tightly around my neck. Great. I start to look around as my eyes adjust to the dark, finally accepting the fact that escaping is not one of my options right now. There is a figure standing in the shadows. Lucky? I think. As if it were reading my mind (maybe he can) he answers, No, not Lucky or whatever you call her. It s me, I recognized the voice from the man on the phone, So, Taylor (though we both know that isn t your name), do you remember me? No, not from the phone (or Lucky s front door), but think farther back. Like maybe back to when you were, I don t know, seven? The way he says seven sends a shiver down my spine. I hoped that this person could read my mind, because I had no other way to communicate. If I could talk, I would ve been shouting at this person and telling him that I have absolutely no idea where I am supposed to remember him from. I can tell that you are trying to talk. So how do I know that you won t scream for help when I release you from your silence? The man asked with a smirk. His little doubt doesn t matter because I found a way to shrug the piece of cloth that once covered my mouth off. I decide not to stick to my original plan (yelling at the person and all), instead, I start wiggling the rope that was tied against my hand, trying to loosen it. At the least this new plan will restore my blood circulation. I try not to get my hopes up, but maybe, getting out of the ropes will lead to escape, and escaping will lead to finding Lucky. So. Have you thought of it? No I didn t think of it. Not one bit. Do you know where I m from? You can give up loosening those ropes. I know they re tight, but I ll let you go once you learn where I m from. Also, I know that your mouthpiece came out, so don t try pretending you can t talk. There goes my plan. Now that the plan that will actually work has been ruined, I decide to go with my original plan. I have no Idea who you are, or what you did to me when I was seven. All that I know is that you are an absolutely AWFUL person and I wish you would leave me and Lucky alone! He looked at me, his face expressionless as if he was actually thinking about the words that came out of my mouth. I ll make you a deal, A deal? Ok I ll give you everything that you just asked for. You will have 48 hours to figure it out. I will also give you two thousand dollars. That should help you find out who I am. His smirk starts getting bigger. But If you don t find out who I am, then your friend dies, and you come with me. You will do everything that I say. Oh, my name is Matthew. Happy Birthday. I needed that deal. I needed to get Lucky back. And besides, how hard could it really be to find out who this criminal was? Deal, I said, But where will I find you? He was already gone. Lucky replaced where Matthew once stood. We had time to find out where we would meet him later, right now we had some catching up to do. Lucky!!! We hugged. I smiled the biggest smile in the entire world. She faked one. Come on, I know that smile isn t real. I just freed you from wherever it was you were. What s bugging you? She looked like she might cry.
Yes, you did free me. So thanks for that. But what about my family? How will we get them back? I realized that I hadn t made Lucky s family any part of the deal. My face burned the tomato red that it had burned earlier that day. I m so sorry! My smile had been turned to the same grim line that hers had. We will figure out what to do about your family later. Meanwhile, we ve got some work to do. I filled her in on everything that had happened with Matthew. Lucky had always been really good at puzzles. So you said that he told you happy birthday right? I nodded, and he said that you would remember him from when you were 7? I nodded again. So then he must be that magician that cursed you at your party! Oh! I stood there with my mouth wide open. How do you do that?! I asked her in awe. She gives another fake smile to show that she is grateful for the compliment. I don t know when she will truly smile. That is the easy part. The hard part is finding where he is hiding. She said. I knew that this would come back to haunt me, I just knew it. I should have asked before I said deal. Argg! So, where do you think we should start? He gave us $2,000 and 48 hours. That means that we can buy some plane tickets, or pay for a taxi, or we could buy French lessons (Maybe he is in France?), or maybe. Fortunato, you are babbling again! Oops! I can t help it! Anyways, I think that he is still in the state. He just gave you the money so that you would think that he was going far away. His plan seems to work. She is so smart! Ok. Yeah, I admit that I kind of jumped to conclusions when I saw all of the money. But I m not the one here with an IQ of 160. So where do you think we should start? I asked. She considered her options before answering. I think that we should start at your friend Jamie s house. Well, that certainly took me by surprise. About that I kind of let go of a friend today... Lucky just shook her head. I do this way more often than I should. Then we will make it work. I mean, if it really is the evil magician, then he will know that Jamie s house is the last place you want to be! You are going to get your friends back! Let s go! She pauses with her finger pointed at the door. Then we both climbed the stairs and made our way to Jamie s house. The first thing that I noticed was that the sun was rising. That meant that it was my birthday. And since it was a new day, something bad was going to happen. The one day that we really need it, luck isn t on our side. I rang Jamie s door bell. Hello? The door creaked open just a smidge. Oh. It s you. Jamie was at the door with her hands on her hips glaring at me. Care to explain why you ran away telling me that we can t be friends anymore? she said. Lucky eyed me. I wondered what excuse would come out of my mouth. Ok. So, umm, well, I don t really know how to, umm, say this, but My mistake of the day was ready to burst out of my mouth, and Lucky knew it. She pushed me to the ground (which hurt A LOT) and started talking. Hi! I am Lucky, Fortunato s neighbor, so, Fortunato was a little mad about what happened at your school dance. So when you told her about how her face looked ridiculous and all, she just kind of exploded. She has been crying all night! Wow! Lucky is better with words than I thought! But I still don t see why I had to be pushed on the ground. Why don t you two come in. So far, so good.
Jamie, that is your name right? Jamie nodded, can I use the bathroom? Again Jamie nodded. While I distracted Jamie, Lucky would snoop around the house looking for the magician s hiding spot. So I am really sorry that I hurt your feelings at the dance. Jamie started. I really wasn t in a mood for a conversation, so I simply answered Ok. Hey, can I have a band-aid? I asked. I had squeezed the scrape so a big mess of blood came out. I had scraped my knee last time I went to Jamie s house before, and it had taken her an hour to find the band-aids. So I figured this would be a good distraction for her. Yeah. she answered, and off she went. Fortunato. I heard my name whispered from up the stairs. Lucky had found the magician in Jamie s room. Fortunato! I heard again. I sprinted upstairs. Hey! I said. I looked around and saw the magician sitting on Jamie s bed. He smiled a mischievous smile. Ah! There you are Fortunato! Such a strange sounding name for a child don t you think? He asks. When I don t respond he continues. It is very strange. But is it really? I shift my position slightly. I know they shouldn t, but his words leave me a little on edge. Seeing my reaction, his smile grows. When you were seven, you were a rather stuck up child. I open my mouth to protest, but nothing comes out. Was I? You may remember the way you and you friend here played a game to see how many times you could pull my hair or trip me. I watched you as you ran into the busy road without looking. Or as you ran into a High Voltage fence without feeling a shock. You have had luck on your side Fortunato Benevento, and you took advantage of it. I admit, cursing you to years of bad luck was a result of me losing my temper. So now, I must redo it. He said. He sounded so sincere that I almost believed him. If you really wanted to help, why go through all the trouble of kidnapping my friend. He said something that came out sounding like because where s the fun in that? I almost choked. He took out his magician s wand and did a few waves with it. I felt like a weight had been lifted from my chest. I felt like if I jumped out of the window right now, I could fly. Do me a favor Fortunato Benevento, look up your name. And then he disappeared. He just disappeared. That s it? That is really it? Lucky said. I nodded, too baffled by what had just happened to speak. Well, that was quick. Once the surprise of the day s events wore of, we bolted out of Jamie s house back to Lucky s house (what happened to Jamie, I still don t know). When we opened the door, her parents were there. I watched as the happy family hugged. Mrs. Johnson pulled me in for a hug too. Next stop was my house. Two hours later, I sat in my bed covered by multicolored blankets. For a while, I just sat there, staring at my computer. It was open to google, my cursor hovering just over the search box. Slowly, I typed in my name. I watch as it loads, spinning in circles, over and over. My name is Fortunato Benevento, which means Lucky in Italian.