The Lottery

the lottery

the lottery

Beth Goobie

Copyright © 2002 Beth Goobie

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the publisher.

National Library of Canada Cataloguing in Publication Data
Goobie, Beth, 1959 -

The lottery

ISBN 1-55143-238-2

I. Title.

PS8563.O8326L67 2002   jC813’.54   C2002-910677-X

PZ7.G613Lo 2002

First published in the United States, 2002

Library of Congress Control Number: 2002107487

Summary: When Sal Hanson “wins” the lottery run by the secret Shadow Council at her high school, her fate seems set — she will be shunned by all. But her refusal to be a victim might ultimately set her free.

Orca Book Publishers gratefully acknowledges the support for its publishing programs provided by the following agencies: the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP), the Canada Council for the Arts, and the British Columbia Arts Council.

Cover design by Christine Toller
Cover photo:
www.eyewire.com
Printed and bound in Canada

IN CANADA:
                   
IN THE UNITED STATES:
Orca Book Publishers        Orca Book Publishers
PO Box 5626, Station B                  PO Box 468
Victoria, BC Canada                  Custer, WA USA
V8R 6S4                                 98240-0468

04  03  02   •   5  4  3  2  1

for Mike
with thanks to Roger Waters for The Wall
and Robert Cormier for The Chocolate War and the possibilities he brought to young adult literature

The author gratefully acknowledges the Saskatchewan Arts Board grant that partially funded the writing of this book, as well as Kim Duff ‘s invaluable and expert advice regarding autism.

Chapter One

Every student at Saskatoon Collegiate knew about the lottery. It was always held in the second week of September, during Shadow Council’s first official session. Rumor had it that a coffin containing the name of every S.C. student was placed in front of the blindfolded Shadow president. The lid was lifted, the president dipped a hand among the shifting, whispering papers, and a name was pulled. The Shadow vice president then removed the president’s blindfold. Reading the name aloud, the president nodded to the Shadow secretary, who dipped a quill pen into blood-red ink and inscribed the selected name into Shadow Council’s Phonebook of the Dead, a black leather binder with a silver skull and crossbones on the front. The secretary then picked up a scroll tied with a black ribbon and handed it to the vice president, with instructions to deliver the message to the lottery winner within twenty-four hours, and a bell was rung, finalizing the fate of the poor sucker whose name had just been drawn.

Every S.C. student imagined each step of the lottery in slow vivid detail, and every student pictured the ritual differently. Some added the human skull rumored to be present, others threw in a murdered cat, but everyone settled on a room that flickered with candlelight, or at least a lone flashlight beam. Sal Hanson usually added a stack of cheese-and-mustard sandwiches, figuring the intense drama would work up a few appetites, and mentally ducked the rest of the details. Shadow Council already had the imagination of every other student slaving away full time — they’d hardly notice the absence of a single third-clarinet player’s terrified heartbeat.

Still, when she opened clarinet case #19 on the morning of September 14, her first grade ten Concert Band practice, to find a white scroll wrapped around the lower joint of her clarinet and tied with a black ribbon, she immediately understood its significance: Lottery Winner. Shadow Council’s Dud For The Year. Her mouth swallowed itself, her heart skipped a double beat, and the lid of her clarinet case slipped against her suddenly sweaty hands as she lowered it and snapped the latches.

“Don’t tell me — you’ve decided you’d rather play tuba!” Brydan Wallace, her music stand partner, stuck his clarinet reed into his mouth and began to masticate.

“Nah,” said Sal, avoiding his gaze. “My reed split, and I forgot my new ones in my locker. Be right back.”

“Make it fast,” said Brydan. “I hear the first tune this year’s going to be Choppin’ Ettood.”

Mr. Pavlicick, the Concert Band instructor, was Czech-oslovakian and seemed to have great trouble pronouncing French. Every time Pavvie had announced that the band was about to play Chopin Étude last year, Sal had felt the
reverberations coming all the way from Paris as Chopin rolled over in his grave. Normally, she would have shot Brydan a quick comeback, but today she grinned vaguely and hoped he didn’t ask why she needed her clarinet case to fetch a pair of reeds from her locker. Maneuvering between the heavy cast-iron music stands, she slipped around the conductor’s podium. The school was old, the music room cramped. The current joke was that everyone was going to have to link arms and learn to play their instruments as a human chain to conserve space. Most of the third-clarinet section sat on the first row of risers, but as Brydan was in a wheelchair, he and Sal were parked floor level in the front row between the oboe and first clarinets, which placed them directly in front of Pavvie’s emphatic conductor’s wand.

“Which means everyone gets to watch Pavvie’s dancing butt instead of our beautiful beet-red, puffed-out faces,” had been Brydan’s complacent response to being assigned front-row seats.

Sal had liked him immediately — something about the grin in his eyes that refused to give up, and the large floppy ears he said came in handy as sails on windy days to give him more speed. “Okay, Bry — mission for your mind,” she’d replied, testing him out. “Pavvie gets to pin a secret message to his butt and display it to the entire student body next time we perform at assembly. What does the message say?”

Pavvie was an active baton-waver who liked to conduct, knees bent, surging forward as if about to leap straight down the throats of his front-row players. This positioned his butt at a blasphemous angle, slightly closer to heaven than hell, about eye level to the watchful student body.
Sometimes Sal wasn’t sure who deserved applause for the greatest entertainment value. Last year, he’d worn bright yellow pants to the Spring Concert performance. “Follow the yellow butt road” had become the catchphrase that drifted in his wake from that day forth.

“Secret message from Pavvie’s butt to the universe?” Brydan had leaned back, eyes closed, as he’d blissfully contemplated the options. Then he’d deadpanned, “I am from the planet Marduk, where we have no auditory organs. This is the only reason I can stand this crazy job. You have my sympathy. Please feel free to plug your ears.”

Sal hadn’t practiced much over the summer and neither had Brydan. Although he was one grade ahead, he’d accepted his doom as a repeat third clarinetist with the same casual shrug she had. A scroll tied with a black ribbon showing up halfway through the second week of school, however, fell into an entirely different category. Sal half-walked, half-flew along the empty hallway. Either she was developing tunnel vision or the walls were closing in. That rolled-up piece of paper in her clarinet case couldn’t possibly be a scroll from Shadow Council, it just couldn’t. There were fifteen hundred students at S.C. — the odds of her winning the lottery were worse than managing a perfectly pitched B flat during one of Pavvie’s deadly pre-concert warm-ups.

Turning left, she took the hallway past the gym. It was 8:10; shouts echoed from the basketball court but no one was out wandering the halls. Even so, she headed for a washroom that saw little traffic, a two-stall unit tucked behind the library. Pushing through the door, she set the clarinet case on the counter next to the sink, cautiously unsnapped the latches, and opened the lid.

It was still there, the black bow slightly squished, the scroll crumpled-looking. How had Shadow Council known she played clarinet #19? Brief relief erupted as she considered the statistical possibility of error. Maybe they’d intended to finger someone else, a first-clarinet player — one who mattered. But no, Shadow Council was rumored to be divine. More to the point, it had a plant in every club and student organization. Concert Band was especially well planted — Willis Cass, Shadow Council president, played first trumpet — but the guy who did their dirty work was probably drummer Pete McFurley. Percussion players were always on the lookout for attention.

Sal slid the scroll carefully off the clarinet joint and tugged at the bow. Panic snagged her heart as the ribbon caught. Swearing softly, she yanked and the bow slid free, revealing the blob of red candle wax that sealed the scroll.

He who opens this is forever bound by the contents was scribbled along the outside.

Ha! Sal thought shakily. I’m not a he. She tore it open.

The scroll was blank. Sal turned it every which way, but could find nothing written on the inside. The bastards! Whoever had set her up for this had a few things coming. With a hiss, she tore the scroll in half and stuffed it deep into the garbage pail, then added a few paper towels to cover the evidence.

A toilet stall opened and a girl emerged. Startled, Sal shoved her clarinet case over the rumpled black ribbon sprawled along the countertop. “Uh, hi,” she stammered, the words too fast, foolish and trapped-sounding, but the girl didn’t seem to notice. Her pale blue eyes flicked toward Sal, slightly unfocused, and her mouth twisted in on itself,
a black slash of lipstick. Thin arms clasped a book to her chest. Quickly Sal scanned the cover in search of an easy comment, anything to fake casual.

“Nobody Nowhere, what an interesting title,” she blurted, but the girl turned without a word and walked out the door. Gusting a sigh of relief, Sal swept the black ribbon into the garbage pail, then dug it out and flushed it down a toilet. Had the girl seen? Did it matter? She was a weird kid, a loner who always sat at the back of a classroom, her eyes in a strange stare out the window. Nobody Nowhere was a perfect two-word character sketch. Who knew what got through to her, but one thing was certain — she wouldn’t say anything to anyone.

Sal did a rapid mirror check and gave herself a basic pass: long brown hair basically combed, glasses basically clean, buttons and zippers basically closed. She had the look assassins longed for, melting so thoroughly into a crowd, no one remembered she’d been there. Even Fate got bored looking at her. She’d never been singled out for anything — there wasn’t a chance she’d win a lottery. The blank scroll was just a stupid joke. Probably Brydan’s — she’d get him back with so much nonchalance, he’d start wondering if all he’d actually left in clarinet case #19 was his sanity quota for the day.

But what if it was Shadow Council that had put the scroll in there?

Taking out her 3½ reed, Sal stuck it in her mouth, wincing as spittle began to work its way into the wood and stale air bubbled onto her tongue. It was a moment she dreaded every time. Closing the case, she pushed her way out the washroom door and pondered all the way back to band practice, masticating heavily.