Jinx of the Loser by H. N. Kowitt

Author:H. N. Kowitt
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.
Published: 2013-02-14T16:00:00+00:00

Now we were stuck together. And today, of all days, he’d taken the seat right in front of me.

The class could barely contain its excitement. This was a thousand times better than Axl and Chantal — like having a reality show right here in school! Everybody started talking at once.

“Too bad about Luke,” Jasper said to me. He looked over at his new partner. “Being with Velvet will be, uh, interesting. She’ll teach me about fashion, and I’ll teach her about astrophysics.”

Meanwhile, Luke scowled and kicked the chair legs in front of him with his sneaker. I sank lower in my seat and pretended to be absorbed in a book.

“Settle down, people,” said Wagman. “For the rest of class, you can get to know your partner.”

Tank stood up. “Can I just say something?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “Luke working with Danny — that’s just wrong.”

“S’not fair,” Abs agreed. “Danny’ll jinx him. Luke’s a great speaker. Remember the talk he gave in the dugout before semifinals?”

“He, totally, like, inspired us,” said Bruiser Pekarsky.

Luke looked at the floor.

“Luke! Luke! Luke! Luke!” a few of the jocks started chanting.

Wagman’s arms were folded, and she was frowning. But people continued to chant, “Luke!” as if they could change her mind. What did they expect Wagman to say? “Keep shouting, and I’ll reconsider”?

“Enough,” Wagman said in her this-discussion-is-over voice. “Everyone go talk to your partners. Luke, that includes you and Danny.”

Luke tipped his chair back and looked at the ceiling. He did some air drumming on his desk. He unwrapped a gumball and stuck it in his mouth, rotating it from cheek to cheek. His stubbornness was impressive.

I waited, and finally, he spoke.

“You know, Wagman can’t make us be partners,” Luke said bluntly. “We could both refuse.”

“We could.” I shrugged. “But what’s the point? We’d get dragged to the office to ‘kick it’ with Amundson. He’d offer us caramel corn and say, ‘Dawgs, I’m just not down with that.’ We’d have to listen to his lecture about ‘changing our ’tudes,’ wishing we were home playing Call of Duty. And we’d still have to be partners.”

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