The Lucky Wheel Read online

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER 1: A BIG ANNOUNCEMENT

  CHAPTER 2: LOGAN TELLS A LIE

  CHAPTER 3: THE BAD-LUCK DAY

  CHAPTER 4: FIXING THE WHEEL

  CHAPTER 5: ANTHONY’S BRIGHT IDEA

  CHAPTER 6: LOGAN CONFESSES

  CHAPTER 7: COOKING GLUE

  CHAPTER 8: THE NEWSPAPER OFFICE

  CHAPTER 9: A SURPRISING CUSTOMER

  CHAPTER 10: THE FIX-IT PARTY

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  ‘THE BIG CITY’ EXCERPT

  ABOUT GRACE GILMORE AND PETRA BROWN

  A BIG ANNOUNCEMENT

  It was Monday morning, and Logan Pryce was late for school.

  He ran through the door, out of breath. His knickers and boots were muddy. The other students were already at their desks. Everyone turned and stared at him, including his sister Tess and his older brother, Drew.

  Tess mouthed the words, Where were you?

  Their teacher, Miss Ashley, glanced up from her roll-call sheet. A vase of daffodils sat on her desk, next to her inkwell and feathery quill pen. “Oh, there you are, Logan. I was about to mark you as absent.”

  “I’m sorry, Miss Ashley!” said Logan, plucking a dried-up leaf out of his messy blond hair. “I was on my way inside with the others. Then I spotted a broken button that I thought I could use in my Fix-It Shop. I was about it pick it up when I slipped and fell in a puddle, and—”

  “What is a Fix-It Shop?” Miss Ashley asked.

  “My Fix-It Shop is where I fix old things and invent new things!” Logan said proudly.

  Miss Ashley smiled at Logan’s answer. “That sounds very interesting. In the future, though, please be more mindful of the time. You may take your seat now.” She added, “Class, please face forward!”

  The children turned in their seats. The boys sat on one side, and the girls sat on the other. The six- and seven-year-olds sat up front near Miss Ashley. Drew, who was eleven, sat in the back with the older kids. Logan, who was eight, and Tess, who was nine, sat in the middle.

  Usually, there were twenty students present in the one-room schoolhouse. But spring was planting season, so a few of the boys were missing. Farmers usually kept their oldest sons at home to help with the plowing and sowing. Pa used to keep Drew home for this reason.

  “I have an announcement to make,” Miss Ashley began. “As you can see, our school is overdue for some repairs.”

  Logan looked around. Three of the floorboards had split and buckled. A breeze whistled through a cracked window. A large hole gaped in the ceiling across from the bookshelves. The walls needed fresh paint.

  “I will try to find volunteers to do the repairs,” Miss Ashley continued. “But first, we have to raise ten dollars to buy lumber and other supplies. So I need each of you to bring in fifty cents by next Monday.”

  Fifty cents?

  Logan added up the numbers. Fifty cents from him plus Tess plus Drew equaled a dollar fifty total.

  Their family couldn’t afford that kind of money!

  LOGAN TELLS A LIE

  That night, the Pryces sat down to dinner: Pa, Ma, Drew, Tess, Logan, and little Annie. The family dog, Skeeter, crouched at Logan’s feet and chewed on a piece of hide. The kitchen was warm from the cookstove, and the kerosene lamp cast plenty of light. Outside, the first stars twinkled in the sky.

  Ma had prepared turnips, carrots, and other vegetables from the root cellar. The first spring crops, like spinach and asparagus, wouldn’t be ready for a while.

  Canned beets from last fall and freshly baked bread were also on the table.

  “Mrs. Wigglesworth doesn’t like beets,” Annie complained, cradling her doll. “They make her mouth turn terribly red!”

  “Well, Mrs. Wigglesworth doesn’t have to eat the beets. But you do,” Pa told her. “So how was school today?” he asked the other children.

  “Fine,” said Drew.

  “Fine,” said Tess.

  “Fine,” said Logan.

  Pa laughed. “Okay. But what did you learn? Arithmetic? Geography?”

  “The advanced group studied science,” Drew replied. “That means the oldest and smartest kids,” he added to his younger siblings.

  Logan and Tess made secret, scrunched-up faces at each other. They did this whenever Drew was being annoying.

  “Miss Ashley also asked me to help some of the kids parse sentences,” Drew went on.

  “What are parsley sentences?” asked Annie, who was four and didn’t go to school yet.

  “Parse sentences,” Ma corrected her. “That’s when you take sentences apart and figure out which words are action words, which words are things-and-people words, and so on.”

  Pa smiled at Annie. “You’ll learn when you go to school someday, honey. Isn’t that right, Alice?” he said to Ma.

  “That’s right, Dale,” Ma agreed.

  Logan ate some beets as he listened to the dinner conversation. They were sweet and earthy and made him think of harvesttime on their farm.

  Except that their farm was no more. Just last month, Pa had decided to stop being a farmer because he couldn’t make enough money growing crops. He was trying to find steady work in the city of Sherman, near Maple Ridge. In the meantime, he was earning a few dollars here and there doing odd jobs.

  “What else happened at school today?” asked Ma as she sliced the bread. “Anything interesting?”

  Logan looked nervously at Drew and Tess. He wondered which one would bring up the business of the fifty cents.

  But neither of them did. Drew started talking about something called “electricity.” Tess cut up Annie’s beets for her.

  It was up to Logan.

  “Miss Ashley said we each have to bring in fifty cents for school repairs,” he blurted out.

  “I already have my fifty cents. From my birthday money,” Tess spoke up.

  “Me too.” Drew reached for the water pitcher. “I earned fifty cents by hauling hay for Mr. Gruen. What about you, Logan? You must have money in your piggy bank, right?”

  Everyone stared at Logan and waited for his answer.

  “Sure I do,” Logan mumbled.

  “That’s wonderful, son,” Pa said, patting him on the back. “I’m so proud of all of you for using your own money to help your school.”

  Logan squirmed. He didn’t feel good at all.

  He had just told a big, fat lie. His piggy bank—Percy the Pig—was empty.

  How was he going to come up with fifty cents in the next seven days?

  THE BAD-LUCK DAY

  The next day, gray clouds churned in the sky as the Pryce children walked home from school. Logan lifted his face and felt a raindrop. Then another.

  “Rain!” he announced to Drew and Tess.

  “Just our luck,” Drew grumbled. “Of course, none of us brought our umbrellas or our slickers.”

  “Maybe Pa will come get us in the buggy,” said Logan hopefully. It was a mile back to their house.

  “That’s not likely. Pa’s seeing Mr. Dawson about a job today,” Drew remarked.

  “Mr. Dawson? Who’s that?” asked Logan.

  “He’s a newspaperman from Sherman,” Drew replied. “He’s starting a weekly paper here in Maple Ridge. He needs extra hands to help him move into his new office.”

  “Oh, I do hope Pa gets the job!” Tess said eagerly. “He hasn’t worked in a while—not since he built that fence for Mr. Kranz’s goats.”

  Drew turned up the collar of his jacket. “At least we didn’t have to ask him and Ma for money for the school repairs. I gave my fifty cents to Miss Ashley this morning.”

  “I’m going to bring mine in tomorrow,” said Tess as she tied a big scarf over her long brown braids. “What about you, Logan?”

&nbs
p; Logan stared at his boots and said nothing. He pulled his lunch pail onto his head like a hat. Raindrops plinked against the metal and echoed sharply in his ears: plink, plink, plink.

  Tess tapped him on the arm. “Hello?”

  “I don’t have it,” Logan whispered.

  “What did you say?” asked Drew.

  “I don’t have it,” Logan repeated, more loudly. “I lied last night. Percy the Pig is empty.”

  “Oh, Logan!” said Tess. She thought for a moment. “Well, I have a nickel left in my piggy bank. You can have it. But you’d still need forty-five cents.”

  “I have a nickel too,” Drew offered.

  “Wow, thanks!” Logan took his lunch pail off his head. “Now I just have to find a way to make forty cents.”

  “Maybe you could sell something from your Fix-It Shop?” Tess said. “One of your great inventions!”

  Logan mulled this over. “Hmm, maybe.”

  Just then they spotted Skeeter up ahead. He waited for them by the side of the road just past the Pritchetts’ apple orchard. He seemed to be sniffing something.

  “What is it, boy? What did you find?” Logan called out.

  Skeeter barked. Logan, Tess, and Drew began to run. Their boots slogged in the mud forming on the winding country road. Birds fluttered out of bushes and flew away.

  Skeeter stood over an abandoned buggy wheel. It lay in a patch of milkweed and Queen Anne’s lace.

  The rim and one of the spokes was broken. The wood was scratched up, but still solid.

  “Skeeter! This is just what I needed!” Logan exclaimed.

  Skeeter wagged his tail. Tess and Drew looked puzzled.

  Logan grinned from ear to ear. The bad-luck day had just turned into a good-luck day!

  FIXING THE WHEEL

  The next morning, Logan woke up earlier than usual. It was pitch-black outside as he headed to the barn. A sliver of moon lingered in the sky. The air was clear and cold, and he could see his breath. Skeeter trotted along beside him, alert for raccoons and opossums.

  In the barn, Logan raced through his usual chores. First, he milked the cows. Next, he brushed the horses, Lightning and Buttercup, and mucked their stalls too.

  When his chores were done, he got to work in his Fix-It Shop. The shop took up one corner of the barn. A worktable, a chair, and some crates were its only furniture.

  The broken wheel sat on the side of Logan’s worktable. He picked it up and studied it.

  He had a plan.

  First, he would have to replace the damaged spoke. Then he would mend the rim. Finally, he would sand the whole thing down to make it smooth. When the wheel was finished, he would sell it to someone for forty cents. He would give the money to Miss Ashley next Monday along with the two nickels from Tess and Drew.

  Logan was eager to get started. He reached down and began digging through his crates. They were filled with a hodgepodge of odd and discarded items like broom handles and copper lids.

  There! He spotted a spoke made of sturdy oak. With a little trimming, it would fit his wheel just right. It was a different color from the rest of the wheel, though. A coat of paint might do the trick, Logan thought.

  But what about the rim? Logan didn’t have a spare one in his crate. And he had no clue how to repair the splintered wood.

  The barn doors burst open. Drew walked in.

  “There you are, Logan. We’ll be late for school!”

  “What?” Logan had lost track of the time.

  Drew glanced at the wheel. “Are you really fussing over that old thing?”

  “It’ll be good as new when I’m done with it,” said Logan abruptly.

  “You know, no one is going to buy just one wheel. You need four matching ones. Unless you’ve invented a one-wheeled buggy?” Drew joked.

  Logan’s cheeks grew hot. “Someone will buy it,” he insisted.

  Someone has to buy it, he thought.

  ANTHONY’S BRIGHT IDEA

  “I am pleased to report that we have already raised seven dollars for our school repairs,” Miss Ashley announced in class, “thanks to those of you who have brought in your money. I am still waiting on contributions from six more students.”

  “I’ll have mine next Monday, Miss Ashley!” Anthony Bruna spoke up. He was Logan’s best friend. “My pa collects his pay from the factory on Fridays.”

  Miss Ashley turned to Logan. “What about you, Logan? Will you have your money in by Monday too?”

  “Yes, Miss Ashley,” replied Logan. “I’m fixing up a broken buggy wheel to sell.”

  In the back of the room, a couple of boys snickered. Tess whirled around and glared at them.

  “Kyle! Lenny! That will be quite enough,” Miss Ashley scolded.

  “Pay no attention to them,” Tess whispered to Logan.

  Logan shrugged and tried to act like he couldn’t care less about Kyle Chambers and Lenny Watts. It wasn’t easy, though. Those boys could be pretty mean sometimes.

  The rest of the morning flew by. Miss Ashley split the class up into groups. The oldest students helped the youngest students with their penmanship. Logan, Tess, and Anthony did subtraction. Miss Ashley worked on spelling with the rest of the children.

  At lunchtime, Anthony and Logan sat outside together. They discussed Logan’s wheel project as they ate their bread and hard-boiled eggs.

  “I can’t figure out how to mend the rim,” Logan told his friend.

  “Gosh, what’s wrong with it?” asked Anthony.

  “Allow me to demonstrate!”

  Logan twisted his cloth napkin and made a circle with it. Then he made the circle come apart. “It’s cracked, like this. I’m not sure how to put it back together again,” he explained.

  Anthony nodded slowly. “I think I have the answer to your problem.”

  “You do?”

  “Yeah. It’s a recipe that my mama makes.”

  Logan frowned. How in the world could Mrs. Bruna’s famous meatballs fix his wheel . . . or her pickled vegetables . . . or her spaghetti with tomato sauce?

  “I’m talking about glue,” Anthony said with a laugh. “I’ll bring you the recipe tomorrow!

  LOGAN CONFESSES

  That night, Logan was finishing up with the spoke when Pa came into the barn.

  “Hi, Pa!” Logan greeted him. “What are you doing here?”

  “I wanted to look in on Buttercup. She scraped her leg while we were in town today,” replied Pa.

  Logan glanced over at the golden mare. “Will she be okay?”

  “I put some ointment on the wound. She’ll be good as new soon.” Pa nodded at Logan’s worktable. “You’re up awfully late, son. What’s keeping you so busy?”

  “I found this wheel by the side of the road. I’m fixing it up to sell it,” replied Logan.

  “I see. Do you have a buyer in mind?”

  “Nope. I need to come up with one, though.” Logan hesitated. “By Monday.”

  “Why Monday?” asked Pa curiously.

  Logan looked away. “Pa, I lied about having fifty cents in my piggy bank,” he confessed.

  “Logan Dale Pryce!” said Pa sharply. He and Ma often used Logan’s full name when they were angry with him. “You know very well that lying is wrong. Why didn’t you just tell us the truth?”

  “I’m sorry, Pa! But I didn’t want to have to ask you and Ma for the money. So I pretended that I had it.”

  Pa frowned and was quiet for a couple minutes. To Logan, it felt like forever.

  “You can always come to us, son,” he said finally.

  “Yes, Pa.”

  “We’re a family. We solve all of our problems together.”

  “Yes, Pa.”

  “Have you thought about Mr. Mayberry at the general store? He might be interested in buying your wheel. He could then resell it to one of his customers for a profit.”

  “That’s a swell idea, Pa!” Logan exclaimed. “Except . . . what’s a profit?”

  “A profit means making mo
ney,” Pa told him. “If you sell it to Mr. Mayberry for forty cents, you make a profit of forty cents. If he resells it to someone else for a dollar, he makes a profit of sixty cents.”

  Logan nodded. Pa made a lot of sense.

  “Thanks, Pa,” he said softly.

  Pa squeezed Logan’s shoulder. “You’re welcome, son.”

  COOKING GLUE

  The following evening, Logan sat at the kitchen table and studied Mrs. Bruna’s glue recipe. Anthony had given it to him at school. It was in Mrs. Bruna’s nice handwriting and said:

  Ma and Tess read the recipe over Logan’s shoulder. “We have all the ingredients,” said Ma after a moment. “Tess, can you fetch the flour, sugar, and vinegar?”

  “Yes, Ma.” Tess retrieved two metal canisters and a glass bottle from the pantry.

  “Do we have a measuring cup?” Logan asked Ma.

  “We sure do!” Ma reached into the cupboard and pulled out a tin cup with numbers on it.

  Logan and Tess measured the flour, sugar, and other ingredients and poured them into a cast-iron pan. Ma set the pan on the stove and stirred the mixture with a wooden spoon.