Lucky Me, Lucy McGee

  Text copyright © 2020 by Mary Amato

  Art copyright © 2020 by Jessica Meserve

  All Rights Reserved

  HOLIDAY HOUSE is registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

  www.holidayhouse.com

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Amato, Mary, author. | Meserve, Jessica, illustrator.

  Title: Lucky me, Lucy McGee / by Mary Amato; illustrated by Jessica Meserve.

  Description: First edition. | New York : Holiday House, [2020] | Summary:

  “While Lucy McGee tries to track down her missing ukulele, the members of the Songwriting Club must decide if it’s worth competing against one another in a giveaway for free concert tickets”— Provided by publisher.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2019012139 | ISBN 9780823443642 (hardcover)

  Subjects: | CYAC: Luck—Fiction. | Lost and found possessions—Fiction.

  Clubs—Fiction. | Contests—Fiction.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.A49165 Luc 2020 | DDC [Fic]—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019012139

  ISBN 9780823445257

  Ebook ISBN 9780823443833

  v5.4

  a

  For all the singers, uke players, students, teachers, and friends who make music with Carpe Diem Arts — M. A.

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter One: Where Could You Be, Ukulele?

  Chapter Two: Guess Who’s News?

  Chapter Three: Mr. Cheezza, Please

  Chapter Four: The Loser Blues

  Chapter Five: Got Grit? Don’t Quit!

  Chapter Six: Memories of Bees and a Hug for Me

  Chapter Seven: Crunch for Lunch?

  Chapter Eight: The Price of Being Nice

  Chapter Nine: My Crazy Brain Strikes Again

  Chapter Ten: Why Not Try?

  Chapter Eleven: Me, and a Cat, and…Who’s That?

  Chapter Twelve: Bad Guys’ Surprise

  Chapter Thirteen: Will It Be Me?

  Chapter Fourteen: Ups and Downs All Around

  Chapter Fifteen: Bush Babies in the Deep Blue Sea

  Chapter Sixteen: Where, Oh Where? Is My Uke There?

  Chapter Seventeen: Quiet on the Set

  Chapter Eighteen: Hide and Seek? Hide and Peek!

  Chapter Nineteen: Don’t You Hate to Wait?

  Chapter Twenty: Ticktock, Six O’Clock

  Chapter Twenty-One: Food and Friends to the End?

  The Songwriting Club Songs

  Excerpt from A Star On TV, Lucy McGee

  Chapter One

  WHERE COULD YOU BE, UKULELE?

  “Mom!” I yelled. “Have you seen my uke?”

  My mom tapped me on the shoulder. “I’m right behind you, Lucy. You don’t have to yell.”

  “Sorry!” I hurried past her and looked behind the couch.

  “Don’t tell me you lost your ukulele,” she said.

  “Remember what we talked about?”

  I stopped.

  Last month I lost my favorite hat. Last week I lost my homework. Last night I lost a library book. I said it was bad luck. My mom said it wasn’t about luck, it was about paying attention. She had to say it three times because I wasn’t paying attention. Then she said if I didn’t get better at paying attention, she’d lose her mind.

  I had to find my uke!

  “It’s probably in my room,” I said. I smiled, even though I was worried. I had already looked in my bedroom. And in the bathroom. And in every other room in the house. No uke.

  “Breakfast, Lucy!” my dad called from the kitchen. “It’s almost time for school!”

  My mom said goodbye and left for work.

  “Keep an eye on Lily while you eat,” my dad told me, and then he went to the basement to get a new sponge. I plopped down in my chair and ate a bite of cold toast. Lily sat in her high chair and stuck her fingers in the jelly jar and then licked them.

  “Lily, that’s gross,” I said, and moved the jar away. “Where did Leo go?”

  She pointed under the table. “Tutta.”

  Tutta is Lily’s word for turtle, which meant that my brother had turned himself into a turtle again.

  I looked under the table. There he was, all curled up, eyes closed.

  “What’s wrong with you?” I asked. Usually Leo turns himself into a turtle when he’s sad or mad.

  He didn’t answer.

  “I’m having a bad morning, too,” I whispered. “I can’t find my uke. Have you seen it, Leo? It’s really important.”

  He squeezed his eyes tighter.

  “It’s going to be a terrible day,” I whispered to Lily. “Why can’t I lose things I don’t like?” I peeked in the lunch bag on the table labeled LUCY MCGEE. “No potato chips! See? Dad put in zucchini sticks again! I hate zucchini. I wouldn’t mind losing all the zucchini in the world!”

  “Zuzu!” Lily said. She loves zucchini.

  “I’m sorry. That was mean,” I said. “I’m sure zucchini tries hard to be a good vegetable, and I shouldn’t have dissed it.” I leaned in and whispered. “I’m just sad because I lost my uke. Don’t tell Dad!”

  Lily smiled, and then she reached out and patted me on the head with her gross, jelly-slimed hand. Yep, it was my lucky day.

  Chapter Two

  GUESS WHO’S NEWS?

  “Lucy!” Phillip grabbed me as soon as I got to the blacktop, which is where we line up before school starts. Then he saw Resa and called her over. “Guys, guess who is coming to the Hamil Theater on Saturday?”

  “The Queen of England?” Resa joked.

  “Wrong,” said Phillip.

  “Aliens?” Resa asked.

  “No!” Phillip said. “Be serious! They’re playing a concert. I heard about it on the radio. It’s big news.”

  “I know!” Resa said. “Aliens playing ukuleles!”

  “Okay,” Phillip said with a smile. “I’d definitely want to see that.” He pulled his uke out of his backpack. “Here’s a hint.” He started strumming a familiar tune. Resa pulled her uke out and started strumming with him. Seeing them play together made me feel even worse. I was ukeless.

  Then Phillip started singing, “After all these trips and falls, I’m gonna get up, gonna get up again.”

  “Get Up” was a Ben & Bree song. Ben & Bree are stars who sing and play ukulele all over the world. We watch their videos and try to play their songs in our Songwriting Club.

  “Ben & Bree are coming?” I asked.

  Phillip nodded and grinned and started singing their song again. That caught the attention of Scarlett, Victoria, and Mara, who ran over and started singing along. Everybody in our Songwriting Club loves Ben & Bree.

  “Ben & Bree are doing a concert here on Saturday,” Phillip told them. “We all have to ask our parents to get tickets.”

  Scarlett started jumping up and down, and then Victoria and then Mara. “I can’t wait! I love them!” Scarlett said.

  “It would be so fun if everybody in our Songwriting Club went together,” Resa said. “Don’t Ben & Bree give give away a free ukulele at the end of their shows?”

  I couldn’t believe my ears. “Did you just say they give away a ukulele?”

  Phillip nodded. “They do it at every concert.”

  I grabbed Phillip’s uke and sang, “I have to go see Ben & Bree! I have to win a ukulele!”

  Phi
llip laughed. “The Hamil holds one thousand people, so we’d each have a one in one thousand chance of winning.”

  “I’m going to keep my fingers crossed until the show,” Scarlett said.

  I crossed my fingers, too.

  “If we go, I hope one of us wins,” Resa said. “We need a ladybug to land on us. My grandma says you’ll have good luck if a ladybug lands on you.”

  I handed Phillip back his uke and looked up at the bright blue sky. Holding out my arms, I called out, “Ladybug, ladybug, fly to me! Give me luck and then fly free!”

  “I don’t think any ladybugs heard you, Lucy,” Scarlett said. “But look at that!”

  A big black crow was heading in our direction…closer and closer…it was flying right over…oh no!

  Plup.

  Something landed on my head. My friends stared.

  “What just happened?” I yelped, afraid to touch my hair.

  They all answered at once.

  “You got slimed.”

  “You got gooped.”

  “You got glopped.”

  “You got plooped.”

  Yup. Lucky me, Lucy McGee.

  Chapter Three

  MR. CHEEZZA, PLEASE

  My poor hair. I felt sorry it belonged to me. If my hair was on Scarlett’s head, a bird would probably drop a pretty flower on it instead of a load of you-know-what. Scarlett is one of those kids who has good luck all the time.

  I needed some luck, so I kept my fingers crossed, which made washing my hair in the bathroom sink even harder. By the time I got the ploop out, math had started.

  I wanted to sit by the window just in case a ladybug flew in, but Mrs. Brock wouldn’t let me.

  “Lucy, we’re working on probability,” my teacher said. “Have a seat and do the assignment!”

  I looked at the paper in front of me.

  PROBABILITY GAME

  Imagine you are playing a game by spinning this wheel.

  If you land on a prize, you win it.

  Use fractions to calculate the following:

  1. What is the probability that you will win a free boat?

  2. What is the probability that you will win a free bicycle?

  3. What is the probability that you will win nothing?

  The probability of me, Lucy McGee, winning a free boat or a free bike was zero. I had bad, bad luck. If I played this game, I would land on No Prize. No Prize should be my middle name. Lucy No Prize McGee.

  I wrote in my answers. The game wheel looked like a pizza, which made me think of Cheezza Pizza, which is where we went to dinner on Saturday night. Yum, I love pizza. My stomach started to growl. Wait a minute! I brought my uke to Cheezza Pizza! When it’s somebody’s birthday at Cheezza Pizza, everybody sings, and I wanted to whip out my uke and sing, but nobody had a birthday. I wanted to pretend it was Leo’s birthday so we could sing, but my parents said that would be lying. Leo pretends he is an animal every day, and they never tell him he’s lying. Little kids have it easy. But that wasn’t the point. The point was, I must have left my uke at Cheezza Pizza! What if Mr. Cheezza was waiting to see if someone would call about the uke? What if he was about to throw it away or give it away? I had to call and find out!

  I raised my hand.

  Mrs. Brock gave me a look. “Does your question have to do with the assignment?”

  I put my hand down.

  Jeremy Bing raised his hand, and Mrs. Brock went over to his desk. She always helps Jeremy Bing.

  Hmm…I had to figure out a way to call Cheezza Pizza. Then I saw it. There on Mrs. Brock’s desk…her cell phone! Mrs. Brock uses her phone sometimes for quick facts. She talks into it, like, “How many miles is it from the Earth to the moon?” And then it answers or goes to a site with a diagram that she shows us.

  Would it be terrible if I pushed one little button and sent a message to Cheezza Pizza? This was an emergency, after all. My brain said: Don’t do it! My finger said: Do it!

  Mrs. Brock’s back was to me.

  I took my paper up to her desk and set it on the done pile. Her phone was staring at me. Don’t do it, my brain said again. My finger pushed the button. The phone lit up. I leaned over and whispered, “Send a message to Cheezza Pizza.”

  “Calling Cheezza Pizza,” the voice said, and the phone started beeping.

  Everybody looked up.

  “Cheezza Pizza here,” said a man’s voice on the phone. “What would you like to order?”

  Some kids started laughing, and Mrs. Brock walked over. “Lucy! What are you doing with my phone?”

  “It sounds like she’s trying to order pizza,” Jeremy said.

  I didn’t want to lie, but I didn’t want to admit the truth either. See, the uke wasn’t really mine. We get to check out ukes like library books here at Slido Creek Elementary School. If the school found out that I lost their ukulele, I’d have to pay for it. And I probably wouldn’t get to be in the Songwriting Club anymore!

  “I’m sorry, Mrs. Brock,” I said.

  She picked up my math paper. “Lucy, you didn’t even follow directions. What happened to your brain today?”

  “It got slimed by a bird,” Scarlett said, and everybody started to laugh.

  Ha ha. Not.

  Chapter Four

  THE LOSER BLUES

  One of the things my dad says he loves the most about me is what he calls “the pep in my step.” Pep means energy. I think pep comes from the word pepper because pepper spices up your food with energy.

  Mondays and Wednesdays are usually my peppiest days. After school on Mondays, Phillip and Resa and I practice playing our ukuleles on the playground. On Wednesdays we have Songwriting Club in Ms. Adamson’s room.

  Today was a Monday and as soon as school was over, Phillip and Resa were ready. They grabbed their ukes from their cubbies, and the three of us started walking down the hall together. That’s when Phillip noticed I didn’t have mine.

  “Where’s your uke, Lucy?” Phillip asked.

  I stopped. Should I confess? Sometimes when you’re blue, it helps to tell a friend or two, I thought to myself. And then I thought, Hey, you know you’re a songwriter if you make up rhymes when you’re not even trying.

  “I lost my uke,” I said.

  “That’s bad.” Phillip scrunched his face.

  “Where did you lose it?” Resa asked.

  “I don’t know. That’s the problem,” I said. “I looked all over my house. The last place I remember having it was Cheezza Pizza.”

  “That’s why you were calling them!” Resa said.

  “Here.” Phillip pulled a cell phone out of his backpack. “My mom said I’m supposed to use it only for emergencies. A lost uke is definitely an emergency.”

  “Thanks, Phillip.”

  They huddled around and crossed their fingers for me. I couldn’t cross mine because I had to push the buttons. I called Cheezza Pizza, asked about the uke, and held my breath. The voice of Mr. Cheezza gave me the news. No luck.

  Phillip put his phone back in his pack. “You’ll find it before Wednesday,” Phillip said. “So don’t tell Ms. Adamson you lost it yet. Did you look in your car?”

  “No,” I said. “That’s a great idea.”

  “Do you want to borrow my uke today?” Resa asked.

  I smiled. My heart was sinking into a mud puddle of sadness, but at least my friends were giving me hope.

  We had fun singing, and Resa and Phillip both took turns letting me play their ukes. As soon as our practice was over, I ran home and looked in our car.

  Please…Please…Please…

  Nothing.

  I checked the garage and the backyard. And I double-checked the big stinky garbage can, just in case.

  Please…Please…Please…

  A big fat zero.

  I wa
s going to have to tell my parents soon. On Wednesday they’d want to know why I wasn’t bringing my uke to school. They’d get mad. Then I’d have to tell Ms. Adamson. She’d get madder. My life was not looking good.

  I sat on the front steps and made up a song. When you’re feeling bad, sometimes you have to let it out. And if you’re like me, Lucy McGee, it will probably come out in a rhyme.

  I’m a loser. I got no luck.

  When a bird flies by, I forget to duck.

  Four-leaf clover? Just makes me sneeze.

  Cough near me, I’ll get a disease.

  Come to my pity party, please, oh please.

  Come to my pity party, please!

  If it rains on my house, expect a flood.

  At the end of my rainbow is a pot of mud.

  Lucky ladybugs hide when I appear.

  If I see a bee, it’ll sting my rear.

  Come to my pity party, please, oh please.

  Come to my pity party, please!

  Okay. That was fun.

  When you’re sad, write a song and you’ll be glad.

  Chapter Five

  GOT GRIT? DON’T QUIT!

  There was only one thing left to do. I had to talk my parents into getting me a ticket so I could win that free uke.

  When I walked in, my dad and Leo were on the couch reading a book.

  “Come and join us, Lucy,” my dad said. “Lily’s upstairs taking a snooze.”

  Leo usually jumps on me like a puppy as soon as I get home. But he curled up like he did this morning.

  “Hey, are you feeling like a turtle again, Leo?” I asked. He didn’t answer, so I dove right in. “Dad!” I said in my peppy voice. “Did you hear the big news?”