The faintest wind rustled the tufts of red locks at the top of Eugene's head. Of anyone in his neighborhood, perhaps Eugene had the most hair disproportionate to the remainder of his body, because Eugene was scrawny. With his pencil neck, minute legs, and stubby arms held levered against his body as if to make up for some his lack of mass, he looked a mass of hair which had sprouted a boy rather than the other way around. At least Gerald had long legs to counterbalance his tall stack of hair. But poor Eugene perpetually emanated a physical weakness, perhaps garnered by his periods of constant injury instead of growth. It was a wonder then, that his parents ever let him out of the house. But if his bad luck remained with him when Eugene went home also, perhaps his weary parents were all too eager to see Eugene off and on his way despite the risks to gain just a little bit of respite from slopped floors and broken dishes.
Eugene's father was cursing at the television screen when the satellite went down again during his all-important baseball game just Eugene shut the family's front door. The screen fuzzed on again and Eugene's father breathed a sigh of relief through the open window of the living room. The sounds of a baseball bat colliding with a professional-grade baseball sounded out as Eugene strolled down the street with his hands jammed into his pockets. The boy watched his sandaled feet as he paced along, examining the cracks in the sidewalk of the street and the ants that lived in them. Then Eugene looked up to view a towering red-brick building. It was really only a crumbling structure- a burned out ruin. A wrecker with its wrecking ball was parked nearby it in a vacant lot. An abundance of yellow caution-tape bordered the entire neighborhood. One might think that Eugene would have the sense to stay away, but instead he stood on the sidewalk of the same side of the street as the caution tape, looking up at the damaged building. A pigeon landed on a loose brick at the building's roofless edge. Then it flew upwards almost immediately as the building trembled, disturbed by its weight.
With a half-second of pause, the building collapsed where Eugene was standing. In that mere half-second of pause, Eugene had heard a girl's well-meaning cry of "look-out!" But his pivoting head hadn't seen the speaker. Instead, it had caught sight of the falling building out of the corner of his eye and Eugene had cringed down onto his white stockings and sandals, arms lifted high above to shield his head. Then Eugene was surrounded by a cloud of dust… and miraculously, he stood unharmed.
"I'm? Okay?" Eugene said feeling the ribs of his chest. Then his heels flew up into the air and he began to do a clog. "I'm okay!" he cheered. More somber, he looked down to see that he stood in the center of window frame with no glass. The brick wall had come down around him but missed him because of its opening for the window. But as Eugene reflected, he failed to see the dark-skinned girl who stood directly behind him. She spoke.
"Of course we're okay!" said the girl with mild calm. "It always is." Eugene turned.
"Hm? Who are you?" the boy said slack-jawed in shock.
"I'm Providence! How do you do?"
"Um, nice to meet you?" Eugene said shaking her hand. "Providence is your name?"
"Funny isn't it?" the girl dismissed lightly. "It's old-fashioned, like Prudence or Purity or Belle. My parents are historians," Providence explained. "It's my parent's way of saying I'm a lucky child."
"Lucky?" Eugene mumbled. "As in bad things never happen to you ever? No offense, but I find that a little hard to believe. But after what just happened, well hey maybe I'll admit you might be a little lucky," Eugene grumbled with a touch of envy.
"Maybe!" Providence chirped. She waved a cheerful hand in the air to bid him farewell. "Well goodbye, Eugene! See you around the neighborhood! Maybe even school next week!"
"Hm…." Eugene thought to himself, frozen in place.
If there is one thing predictable about Sid, it is that he is always caught up on school gossip, one footfall behind Rhonda. So when Providence transferred into P.S. 118 the following week, he had a long background story to go with the new face.
"I'm telling you!" Sid insisted while leveraging himself upright on his desk full impact. "Providence is like an anti-jinx! There's a legend that she's the luckiest kid from P.S. 115. Maybe the luckiest kid ever! When she's got a cold, there's always a pop-quiz she gets excused from. When she enters a raffle, she always wins. And no one ever, ever bets her at bingo or board games. Nothing bad happens to her, ever. Only good things. Maybe we should hang around her so that some of her good luck wears off."
"A walking-talking-cartwheeling lucky rabbit's foot?" Stinky wondered out loud, lifting high his huge nose. "I'd like to make acquaintance with her only I gotta be careful not make my great gal, Gloria, jealous of her."
"Sid!" Arnold rebuked his friend. Cross-eyed, Arnold set a heavy textbook down on his desk. Helga watched wide-eyed from the desk behind as her friend whirled backwards on his heel to speak up to the knot of boys hovering around Sid's pulpit-desk.
"I'm sure it's all nonsense! No one is lucky all the time! I'm sure it's just a rumor. Nothing more."
"Sure. Yeah right. A rumor. That's all it is!" Sid nodded. But then Stinky, Sid, Harold, and Sheena all bent their heads together and began to whisper to one another.
"I can't believe this," Arnold muttered to himself as he sat down at his desk, his eyelids still lowered a little crossly. Helga, still seated in the desk behind his, shrugged.
"Yeah, it is unbelievable. But these nimrods aren't as smart as you. Maybe when they reach high school they might stop believing that their shadows are sewn on or that boogiemen live in the closet. They can be scared of more proper things instead. Like the additives in their T.V. dinner or even tax season," said Helga. Arnold tilted his head and blinked.
"Right," he agreed mildly.
But Eugene Horowitz had been listening to all the gossip at a distance, a schoolbook tucked under his arm. A mysterious look clouded his face- the beginning of indecision.
With the ring of the lunch-bell, Eugene made his way into the school cafeteria. Providence sat down at a table with an ordinary paper lunchbag. But Rhonda flung herself down in a chair across from the table from her, her face eager to greet the newcomer and comb her for information useful for gossip. Drawn to this new mysterious person himself, Eugene also sat down at the table as more of the other students crowded around.
"Hi Providence!" Nadine greeted.
"Yeah, hi Providence!" Sid grinned holding a lunch tray.
"Brown-noser!" Rhonda sniffed. Sid moved along. "Now, Providence!" Rhonda grinned. "Tell me all about yourself! Have you lived in Hillwood for long? What are your hobbies? Your interests? Your passions? Your parent's financial status?" Rhonda ended on that final note with a not-so-subtle emphasis as she rolled her eyes away and shrugged. But Rhonda's feigned indifference was not too convincing.
"Never mind Rhondaloid," Helga said pushing the girl's shoulder forward as she passed by with her lunch tray. "Do your own thing. Don't let Rhonda here grill you too much." But Helga had paused not so much to help Providence as to bother Rhonda. She walked away to her usual lunch table with Phoebe. Arnold and Gerald were seated beside Phoebe. With a sniff in Helga's direction, Rhonda continued on as if she had not been disturbed.
"Well, I just moved here from across Hillwood," Providence explained. "We used to live on the other side but my parents have bought a more traditional home."
"You mean one of the fixer-uppers of the neighborhood?" Rhonda said with a foreshadowing of doom.
"Yes?"
"Huh! Well good luck with that!" Rhonda laughed as bragging entered her voice. "MY family also lives in a historic home but it is updated with ALL the modern conveniences. Only the best for us Lloyds. So tell me about yourself."
"Well, I was born on the same day my parents bought a winning lotto ticket. My favorite color is blue and I have a pet Yorkshire terrier. When I was three I got twin sisters and when I was five I got on cable T.V. as best costume for Halloween Day at Dinoland. I go horseback riding every summer at my aunt and uncle's ranch and I have the fullest head of hair of any girl I know. See?" said Providence pulling out her braid to spread her hair out. Rhonda eeped. Her cherished locks were shorter, less shiny, and less abundant than the new girl's. She averted her eyes in envy.
"Oh, that's nothing!" Rhonda consoled herself out loud. "I get my hair styled every week!"
"My mother's a hair stylist as well as professor in history and ethnobotany!" Providence chirped.
"How lucky!" Rhonda said before sinking low. Shoulders hunched and averting her eyes, she sucked on the straw of her juicebox.
"Please excuse me!" said Providence. She walked up to the lunch line to buy a cookie. She got a strange bill back in amid her change for her ten dollar bill.
"Boy howdy!" Sid complained to Stinky from around the corner where he spied on Providence. "A two-dollar bill? How lucky is that? That's a rare bill and very collectible! Any boy would want to get one of those!"
"Yeah? Well I heard that if she eats eggs for breakfast, she usually gets a double-yolk 'cause it's a sign of good luck," said Stinky.
"Yeah, but how lucky could she be?" Sid wondered. As they watched, Providence inserted some quarters into the vending machine. She opened a bag of puffs and pulled out a plastic figurine.
"Wow! The golden emperor penguin?" Sid gawked. "That's the rarest among rare of the Mr. Happy-Puff toy prize collectibles!"
"Yeah," Stinky nodded. "She's got luck for sure." A troubled Eugene overheard everything.
Eugene stopped by Green's Meats on his way home. The shop bell rang and he stood on tiptoe to see over the counter.
"Hello, Mr. Green! I'm here to pick up some beef short-ribs for my mother!" Eugene said. Mr. Green handed Eugene a pound of meat wrapped in butcher's paper.
"Here you go, kid!" the man said before wiping his hands on his apron. "Thank you for your business!" The shop bell rang.
"And what do we have here?" Mr. Green asked as Providence walked into the market.
"Hi, I'd like to buy three pounds of chicken drumsticks?"
"Here you go young, lady!" the man said as handed the girl her order in exchange for cash. "I'd like to welcome you and your family to the neighborhood! Oh, and by the way!" said Mr. Green walking up to a box. "I'm having a customer prize drawing. Would you like to participate?"
"Oh!" Said Providence eying Eugene. "Eugene, you go first!" the girl offered politely.
"Okay," Eugene said before reaching into the box. He drew a paperstrip and handed it to Mr. Green.
"Hm, you win a coupon for twenty percent off pork roast!" Mr. Green read. "Now how about you young lady?" Providence reached into the box. She handed a paperstip to Mr. Green. He adjusted his glasses, grinned, then pulled a string to release a flood of balloons for the ceiling.
"You win a new bike!" said Mr. Green gesturing to a blue, sporty bicycle. Eugene frowned. But now his mind was made up.
"Say, Providence," said Eugene jogging after the girl as she pushed her new bike home with a dreamy grin. "I know you're new to the neighborhood and say, how about we become friends? Hang out and stuff? Whattaya say?"
"Well.. Alright!" Providence said with a shrug.
It was a strange week at P.S. 118 following that. Strange in how calm it was. Eugene didn't fall down the stairs that week despite pail of soapy water which Eugene sidestepped. Pencils flying like javelins missed Eugene when Stinky tripped over his shoelace in the hallway, perhaps because he strolled alongside Providence. Wolfgang's attempt to trip the boy on the school playground failed because he was attacked by a squirrel just in time.
"Wow," Stinky observed to Sid. "It's like all of Eugene's BAD luck is negated by all Providence's sparkling GOOD LUCK."
"Yeah!" Sid agreed heartily before the two boys slunk back behind a clump of bushes near the chainlink fence.
An ecstatic Eugene power-walked to Providence's house. Days passed and each day he passed by his old friends like Arnold and Gerald to go to Providence's house. Each day, he waved goodbye to his new friend from the street with a smile on his face. At first the grin was wide, but then it got slimmer and slimmer with each rapid sunrise and sunset. But what was the reason why?
"Providence?" asked Eugene seated on the couch of Providence's living room. "Er, except for going to school don't you ever go out and do something? Like play sports?" said Eugene sweeping his hand. Providence shrugged.
"Oh, no! I don't," said Providence. "I don't do any of those things. Sports are risky. I might twist an ankle or something."
"You're afraid to twist an ankle?" Eugene wondered.
"Oh yes!" Providence shrugged. "It's better to play it safe. I've never broken a bone in my life."
"Never broken a bone?" Eugene repeated, trying to process such a concept. "So how about other things? Have you ever gone to the park to draw portraits and mountains with bits of colored chalk?"
"No, I don't actually go out much," Providence shifted her eyes uncomfortably. "Why? Do you wanna go someplace?"
"Well, yeah. No offense, but I'm getting a little bored. How about I call up all my old friends and we spend tomorrow at the movie theatre instead?"
"Well, okay," said Providence. "That doesn't sound too risky."
So the next day, Arnold and a slightly annoyed Gerald showed up at the movie theatre. They waited for Eugene by the entrance.
"Hello Eugene," Arnold said with a smile. "Glad to see you again! We've missed you at Gerald's Field. Are you ready to go in?" But Eugene's reply was interrupted by a shout from Harold.
"Argh! Stupid machine!" Harold griped. "It ate all my quarters again!" Harold shook the controls of a crane-game machine violently but it did not spew prizes or return his quarters. Helga shoved him away from the controls.
"Let me have a try, Pink-boy!" Helga said depositing some change. The crane in the machine groaned. But then there was a double-clink as the machine swallowed up the change.
"Nope! Sorry, Pink-boy, no good for me, either! Just forget it! This thing is just a waste of time and a real-money-maker for its inventors."
"Awww!" Harold complained almost teary-eyed.
"I'll have a go!" said Eugene holding up a quarter.
"You shouldn't!" Providence warned.
"Why not?" Eugene asked.
"Well… because you might not win!" Providence said, half-turned on her heel. "It's better not to play." Eugene frowned unhappily.
"Oh look!" Arnold observed pointing. "A lunchbox shaped like a sea-turtle! I've never seen that before."
"Uh-huh," Gerald nodded with disinterest.
"Awwww!" Harold groaned again. "I don't have any quarters left! I'll never win!"
"What could you want so badly anyway?" Rhonda sniffed. She stared down into the machine then gasped. She pressed one of her manicured hands against her chest.
"Oh, my gosh! A limited-edition, Mary Stue pink-rock band-haired doll! I used to have one of those when I was a little girl! I SO want it!"
"Too bad you can't buy it." Helga snickered.
"Can't buy it?!" Rhonda snapped. "Humph! Just you watch!" With her nose in air, Rhonda put two quarters into the machine. She tried then failed.
"Hah!" said Helga. "Well, see you later! The movie's about the start!" Helga paid for a ticket then walked in. Forty-five minutes later, Helga and all her friends walked back out of the theatre to find Rhonda still at the machine's controls.
"Still haven't given up yet?" Helga said with some surprise. Her friends looked on at the girl with a mixture of surprise and pity. Rhonda's usually perfect hair was tousled and a few hairs stuck up out of place.
"I WILL have this toy!" Rhonda raged at the controls. But Arnold and Gerald walked forward and pressed the girl forward.
"Come on, Rhonda," Gerald said compassionately. "Time to call it a day!"
"Argh!" Rhonda grumbled as her friends led her away. But something of an obsession had taken hold.