“Good morning, children,” Nana said, of course meaning me and Bree. She’s the undisputed matriarch of our family, and the kitchen is her throne room. “Blueberries or no blueberries?”

I went straight for the coffee.

“What’re you doing up? Didn’t you just get home?” Nana muttered at me from the stove. I mumbled back something about big day. I wasn’t thinking about a whole lot more than caffeine at that moment.

“So who’s feeling lucky today?” Bree asked from the head of the table.

Everyone’s hand went up but Ava’s. She just kept shoveling her food in, eating fast like she always did.

“What about you, Ava?” I said. “Are you excited?”

She shrugged, and answered with a mouthful of pancakes. “S’not like I’m gonna get in.”

“Don’t be so gloomy, Gus,” Nana said from the griddle. “Attitude is everything.”

If I’m being honest, though, it wasn’t hard for me to understand Ava’s pessimism at all. She was far brighter than she let on—maybe even brighter than she knew. It wasn’t about that, though.

She’d landed in our laps some months back after her mother, a junkie, had OD’d and left her to live alone on the streets of Southeast. There were still plenty of issues for Ava to work through, and I’d set her up with my own therapist, Adele Finaly. In the meantime, we had our good days and bad days.

Basically, Ava had been hardwired not to expect too much from life—and consequently, not to want too much. Every now and then I caught a smile, or an unguarded moment, and in a way it showed me the potential she had waiting for her, if we could just help her see it, too. The one thing she didn’t have was hope. It’s what I’d call an inner-city epidemic—and nothing holds a person back more than that.

If there was anything we could do to change the shitty hand life had dealt Ava so far, we were going to do it.

One good day at a time.

CHAPTER

7

FILING INTO THE GYM AT MARIAN ANDERSON, YOU MIGHT HAVE THOUGHT THERE was a carnival going on. There were balloons flying everywhere, and faculty and staff in bright yellow and green T-shirts, greeting everyone with big smiles.

Inside, the bleachers were all pulled out and chairs were set up on the gym floor. Between the kids who had applied, their parents, siblings, and school staff, there were nearly a thousand people in that gym, and the place was buzzing with nervous tension.

Nana’s lips were pursed from the second we got there. She tried to stay upbeat, for the girls’ sake, but she’d also been a teacher for forty-one years. She had some definite opinions about this particular ritual.

“Mm-mm-mm,” she said, looking around. “You know why we’re here today? Because we adults can’t get off our duffs to offer more than a random chance at a good education in this city, that’s why.”

I think the gridlock on education reform in Washington pisses Nana off more than anything else in life. There was no escaping the fact that three quarters of the people in that gym were going to leave disappointed today. Some of them—especially the poorer families—were going to be devastated. The only other free option for high school in our area was one of DC’s so-called dropout factories, where less than sixty percent of entering freshmen graduate.

We found a block of seats on the floor and settled in. Jannie stayed on her feet, looking around for some of her friends, but Ava just sat quietly in her chair.

Finally, just after nine, the school’s principal got up on stage to welcome everyone. And then they got right to it, pulling cards out of a rolling hopper and calling out the names, one by one.

“Monique Baxter…Leroy Esselman…Thomas Brown…”

With every new draw, there was a shout, or a scream, or some flurry of movement from somewhere in the gym. It really was like winning the lottery. Each kid whose name was called got to walk up on stage, cheered along by the faculty, where they got a welcome packet, and then they were ushered back out again in a flurry of applause.

As the names went by, lots of people were making hatch marks on pieces of paper in front of them, or counting down on their fingers. I had Jannie on one side of me and Nana on the other. The tension coming off both of them was palpable.

Within about ten minutes, the lottery was already starting to wind down. We got up to name number eighty-two, eighty-three, eighty-four…and then—

“Janelle Cross!”

Just like that, we were the ones jumping up and hugging each other, swept along in the excitement of the whole thing. I’m not going to pretend I wasn’t thrilled, because I was. This was a great opportunity for Jannie. But even as I headed up to the stage with her, I couldn’t help looking back to see what Ava was doing.

She was just sitting there and staring at the floor like nothing had happened. Like she was made of stone—at least on the outside. Bree had an arm around her, and waved me on toward the stage. It was a tough bit of mixed feelings for me to juggle.

But maybe, just maybe, we could get lightning to strike twice before this whole thing was over.

CHAPTER

8

NO SUCH LUCK.

By the time Jannie and I had circled all the way around and back to our seats, the lottery was over. Most of the people were on their feet now, milling around and getting ready to leave.

Ava was still in her chair, scuffing her feet back and forth. She looked numb, as much as anything else.

Nana looked angry. Bree looked heartbroken.

“I’m sorry, Ava,” I said, sitting down next to her. “I wish it had come out differently.”

“Wha’ever,” she said. “I knew I wasn’t gettin’ in.”

It was frustrating to me, when the world behaved exactly as Ava expected it to. If I had to guess, I’d say she wanted in just as badly as Jannie, if for no other reason than to feel like she’d won something for once.

Jannie came over and sat on the other side of her. Several families around us were holding each other, and a lot of their kids were crying. Some of the parents, too. It had all gone by so fast.

“This sucks,” Jannie said. “Sorry, Ava.”

“No, you ain’t.” Ava turned on her with a sudden glare. When Jannie tried to take her hand, she snatched it away and stood up fast. “Come on,” she said. “It’s time to go. The lottery’s over.” Then she started walking out ahead of the rest of us without looking back. There was nothing to do in the moment but soldier on and follow her out.

Nana took my arm as we went. I could feel her shaking with anger.

“It’s insanity, is what it is,” she said. “Why in God’s name should children have to win a damn lottery to get a good education? And right here in the nation’s capital! What does that say about our country to the rest of the world, Alex? What?”

Even the “damn” was unusual for her, but I knew how she felt. The problem was so big, and so intractable, it was hard to even know who to be mad at anymore. The school chancellor? The teachers’ union? The mayor? God?

“I wish I had some answers for you, Nana. I really do,” I said.

“Well, I’ll tell you what,” she went on. “Miss Ava Williams will not be falling through any cracks, thank you very much. That girl is going to get the education she deserves if I have to give it to her myself.”

In other words, Nana Mama was going to get done whatever the chancellor, teachers’ union, mayor, and God hadn’t seen fit to accomplish.

And I had every faith that she would. One hundred percent.

CHAPTER

9

RON GUIDICE SAT IN THE BLEACHERS AT MARIAN ANDERSON HIGH SCHOOL, taking notes as the school lottery played out. The place was jam-packed. Not too many white folks, but enough that he didn’t stand out, anyway. Nobody would even notice that he didn’t have a fourteen-year-old of his own in tow.