Instant Winner

By Gary Soto

An original novella from award-winning children's author and poet Gary Soto

Jason Rodriguez is a twelve-year-old who never had much luck—until he wins $3,700 in the lottery and becomes an Instant Winner! Jason can't believe he's won the lottery and decides he will use the money to get his crazy Uncle Mike out of jail. That's where the real adventure begins.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
• Release date: Mar 3, 2014
• ISBN: 9781482101966

Gary Soto

Gary Soto is a National Book Award finalist and a recipient of the Andrew Carnegie Medal, the Hispanic Heritage Award for Literature, the Tomás Rivera Book Award, the NEA Author-Illustrator Civil Rights Award, the California Library Association’s Beatty Award, and the PEN Center West Book Award. He lives in Northern California.

Book preview

11

Chapter One

In his bedroom, Jason Rodriguez opened up a drawer, stared at its contents—old batteries and printer cartridges, a herd of marbles, pens and chewed pencils, report cards, baby photos from when he was still toothless, a birthday card—and closed the drawer. Frantically, he opened another drawer, then another. He was searching for the small envelope where he kept his money, three dollars of mostly quarters, possibly more. Plus, there was a Buster Posey baseball card worth twenty-seven dollars. He was desperate to raise forty-seven dollars for the pair of shoes he knew would make him a better basketball player.

Jason was twelve, the seventh best player on the sixth-grade team, which wasn’t saying much. His team, the Grizzlies, had yet to win a game this season—they were a gasping squad stuck at the bottom with a 0-5 record. They had little chance to win their next game against the Sierra Falcons, who had a worthy 4-1 record, because the Grizzlies best star player—Enrique Gomez—was out with a sprained ankle. And even if Enrique hadn’t sprained his ankle, Jason wasn’t sure if he could help the team.

Because of Enrique’s hurt ankle, Jason had moved up a rung and became the sixth best player, certain to get more playing time. He loved to bang shoulders with the opponents—provided they weren’t too rough. And now he would sometimes clock more than just three minutes on the court, usually when it was a blowout. Last week, Coach Bacon had barked for him to get ready when they were losing 32—12, with four minutes to go. Still, Jason jumped from the folding chair, peeled off his sweatshirt and ran onto the court, his shoes squeaking like tiny little mice. Immediately, he scored a layup and clapped for his own effort because none of his teammates on the bench had done so. It wasn’t that he was unpopular. In fact, everyone at school liked him, even the bullies. But one good effort wasn’t enough. The team, heads bowed, had given up. A single bucket didn’t begin to close the gap.

They lost 41—17.

But now it was Saturday. He had been kicking around during the Thanksgiving vacation—ski week, the school called it, even though there was no snow for a hundred miles. Enrique Gomez would have ages to heal his ankle. But what if their star player didn’t bounce back? Jason felt the responsibility to step up his game, and he needed those shoes to bring greater spring to his legs. Plus, they were cool looking, with a neon stripe on the side.

Dang, Jason muttered. He couldn’t find the envelope. He shoved the drawer closed. He turned and assessed his bedroom: it was a mess. The envelope could be anywhere.

Jason, he heard his mother shout from the living room. He stiffened, like he did when religious people with pamphlets rang the doorbell. His family had learned that when those people called, nobody was to move. If you were walking from the living room to the bathroom, you stopped, cooled your engines, and waited for the second and third rings. After one full minute of silence, then you could resume activity.

Jason held himself as still as a statue. If his mother heard a footstep, he was certain that he would be sentenced to the boring chore of raking the leaves. He waited. He felt his heart beating beneath his Fresno City College sweatshirt, a hand-me-down from his dad after it had shrunk in the wash.

His door opened suddenly.

Mom, you’re supposed to knock first! he bellowed. His mother always barged into his bedroom when he was lounging on his bed chewing candy bars, or on his cell phone talking stuff with his friend, Blake—mostly about who liked who that week, like Grace liked Robert, but Robert liked Sonia.

Oh, really? his mother said. Are you the President? The Pope in stinky gym clothes? She sniffed the air and her face soured. This bedroom smells.

Jason couldn’t argue there. Underneath his bed and in all four corners lay unwashed socks, the worst being the cheesy-smelling gym socks that he wore repeatedly for good luck.

Your uncle’s here, she announced. He wants to talk with you.

That would be Uncle Mike, a former guitarist in a group that went nowhere. His uncle was thirty-three, long-haired, tattooed on his unimpressive biceps, leather-vested, and as smelly as those gym socks because he sometimes lived out of his car.

You’re a true musical artist, his uncle had once argued, when you’re forced to sleep with your feet on the dash. Feel me?

Jason jumped into his shoes and trod outside.

Jason loved Uncle Mike. He told solid but beautiful lies, like about the time he played guitar for Justin Bieber.

The boy’s got decent pipes, he’d said as he fingered an air guitar, then burst into a solo that had made him close his eyes. Generous, too, he’d added as he came out of his exhausting riff. He once flew me and a buddy of mine to Hawaii, just because.

You’re making it up, Jason had laughed at the time.

Uncle Mike had just offered a smile and let his arms fall to his sides. He’d admitted he had never really played for Bieber, nor did he play guitar on one of his CDs as he’d once bragged. But he had recorded a CD back in 2008. At the time he’d been the lead guitarist with a group called Los Blue Chones. But his guitar playing was sketchy and full of errors. One night, he’d been asked to step away from the limelight and let someone else replace him as lead guitarist. But he realized his mistake when shortly thereafter he’d been asked to leave the band completely, to leave town and move to the country, where he could play his lousy guitar to howling coyotes!

Today, Uncle Mike needed his nephew’s help. He was standing in front of his car with the hood up. The engine block ticked and the carburetor breathed like Darth Vader.

Hey, Uncle, Jason greeted.

Hey, little man, he greeted in return. They bumped fists.

What’s what, Unc? Jason asked. He stared at the engine compartment and backed away when steam suddenly rose from the radiator.

What’s what? his uncle asked with a smile. Bad luck on such a nice day. He lowered the hood. He mumbled about the reliability of American cars—his get-around vehicle was a Ford Tempo that he had picked up from an old lady with blue hair, a bargain at the time, when the odometer had read only seventeen thousand miles. But for his uncle, the car drove as if it had seventeen million miles—it would chug along for three miles, roll to a stop, shiver, heave up toxic-smelling smoke, and after a few minutes start again. It took a long time to get anywhere.

Uncle Mike wiped his hands on his jeans, looked up and down the block as if there was a better place to go, then turned to Jason. He smiled and said, Let’s do lunch. They went into the house.

Lunch was a sandwich with a monstrous pile of chips, plus tomato juice, courtesy of Jason’s mom, who sat with them in the kitchen. Always on a diet, she was drinking tea flavored with artificial sweetener.

Mike, you got to get a regular job, she told him. She stirred her tea and looked at the weak brew. You’re not getting any younger.

Nah, I can’t do that. I’m an artist. We don’t work. He winked at Jason. He brought the sandwich to his face, and bit off a mighty chunk.

I’m serious. You got nothing—no job, no house. Really, you look like a mess.

He chewed and chewed before he countered, Who needs a house when you got the loving temple of music? He raised his arms into a guitar position and did a riff.

You’re thirty-four. It’s time you settled down.

In music, at my age is when you get started. And anyway, I’m thirty-three. My birthday is next month and don’t you forget it, Sis. Maybe you can make me a spice cake. He chuckled, sipped his tomato juice, and said, Hey, Jason, wasn’t your birthday last week? He picked up another chip, the last whole one. The others on the plate were flakes. You have fun?

Yeah, right! He had turned twelve, and been spanked playfully that number of times—in front of two friends who had come like starving dogs just to eat cake! His birthday presents included a backpack and a packet of gym socks, plus forty dollars. Unfortunately, he had to use the forty dollars to pay for insurance to play on the basketball team. Jason felt that it was a rip-off—insurance for what? How was he going to get hurt if he never got to play?

Yeah, I did, Jason answered and stuck a hand inside the empty potato chip bag. When he licked his fingers, he was able to glue a few flakes to his fingertips and savor the salt.

Uncle Mike swallowed the last whole chip, cleared his throat, and said as he stood up, I got a present for you. He pulled out of his pocket what Jason thought at first might be a ticket to a concert. But he was wrong. It was a lottery ticket.

You might be the big winner, Uncle Mike said. We can go to Hawaii.

That would be cool. I could miss school. We could eat shrimp on the beach and wrestle a shark!

Jason’s mother interrupted their plans. In your dreams, son. That’s not about to happen, and, Mike, I don’t want to you put any silly ideas in his head. He’s already silly enough. She stood up and gathered the plates.

Jason thumbed the lottery ticket. Although he was antsy to see if he was an instant winner, he put the lottery ticket in his back pocket. He would scratch off the silver-colored squares when he saw his friend, Blake—it would give them something to be excited about at a time in their lives when all they had to look forward to was lunch and dinner. He got up, scooting the chair back noisily.

Hey, dude, you want to hear my new song? I almost got the chords down.

Jason had heard his uncle play before in Los Blue Chones, and before that in six other bands, including one that toured valley towns. His uncle, Jason knew, played air guitar better than a real guitar. He sang a little better than a frog. Still, he looked like a musician, unkempt in appearance—was that a dirt ring on his neck? But Jason had somewhere to go. He had made plans to shoot hoop with his friend Blake.

"Ah, Unc, I’m sorry but I got to