Lottery by Patricia Wood Page A

want.”
    That makes me sad. “I don’t want to quit my job. I don’t want to go to school. I like working at Holsted’s!” I say.
    I like working with Gary and Keith, but I do not know if they will make me stop working. Maybe there is a rule when you win the lottery you have to give your job away to someone who needs it. I hope not.
    Margery leads Keith and me out through a hidden door in the back, but all the men with cameras see us leave the parking lot. As we drive back home, they follow us from lane to lane in blue and silver cars. Keith is a great driver. We double back, make two very exciting turns, and run a red light. It is like a movie when guys are in a car getting away with money from a bank, then almost crashing. Just like that. Yo’s tires squeal.
    We would have escaped like those guys, except Keith forgets we need gas. We run out just after Tacoma. CHUG! CUNK! Yo went. The reporters from the newspapers and magazines are very nice. They give us a ride to the gas station and talk to me while Keith puts gas in an orange can.
    What are you going to do with the money?
    How will this change your life?
    Do you plan to give any to charity, to your family, to the church?
    Do you have brothers or sisters? A wife? A girlfriend?
    What does your family think?
    The questions come so fast all I can do is smile and nod.
    Keith yells while he pumps. “Don’t say anything, Per! They can turn what you say around until you don’t recognize it. Don’t say a word! No! Don’t let them take pictures!”
    Keith is a good boxer. He misses one reporter, but catches another full in the face and gives him a bloody nose. They don’t seem to mind and take us back to Yo anyway. When we get there, a policeman is standing next to Yo writing a ticket.
    “When’s the last time you registered your truck?” he asks Keith.
    I feel bad I got him into trouble. That ticket was probably a lot of money. Keith never told me how much.
    “I’m not going to be one of those bloodsuckers,” he said.
    I wrote him a check for five hundred dollars right there.
    “It’s a loan,” Keith said. “I consider it only a loan. I’ll pay you back.”
    A loan to a friend means you don’t have to pay it back. I know this.
    “That’s okay,” I say.
    And we get into Yo and drive away.

14
    Finding the sun in Washington state is hard, because you have to be in just the right place. The sun hides a lot of the time. I hear the people from California complain to Gary or Keith about never seeing it. But I know the sun is there. You just have to know where to look. I can sit in my room above the Everett Marina and see it in the water like a mirror. When I see extra brightness through the gray clouds, I can tell exactly where it is. It reminds me of how I have to look for Gram now. I look in those places for her.
    The sun is red, orange, or maybe yellow and bounces through the sky when I look at it through Yo’s back window. It is Yo bouncing, but I pretend it is the sun. I like to bounce.
    It takes only two hours for us to get home from Olympia. There is not as much traffic. I look out Yo’s window at the sun peeking through holes in the sky, and think about being rich.
    I am rich . That is so cool.
    When we get back to my apartment, we stomp up the stairs together and Keith helps me nail my big check on the wall. We use long brass tacks and one of my heavy black dress shoes. POUND! POUND! POUND!
    I hear thumps outside.
    “Hey, someone’s running up the stairs,” Keith says.
    It is Gary.
    “What the hell are you guys doing up here? Sounds like a herd of elephants!” Gary’s voice is loud and he looks upset. His office is right underneath my living room. Maybe he thinks the new washer broke down.
    “The washer is fine and there are no elephants either,” I say, and then I add, “Hey, Gary, guess what? I won the lottery.”
    He smiles at me. “That’s very funny, Perry.” Then he stops speaking and his eyes get big. He walks over and touches