Lottery

The third scroll was dropped onto her binder as she rushed between classes at mid-morning break. The halls were crowded, she's hadn't seen anyone of note beside her - the scroll hadn't been there, then suddenly it was To her left, she spotted an open maintenance closet, full of cleaning solutions and wet mops. Stepping in, she closed the door and fumbled for the light switch. Frantically she tore at the ribbon and the wax seal, not caring if the paper ripped As her eyes reluctantly returned to the black message scrawled across the page, the light bulb's electric after-image danced across her retinas, confusing her vision, but the third scroll's contents had already been seared deep into her memory. Congratulations! You are this year's lottery winner. Every student at Saskatoon Collegiate knew that all the most important aspects of school life were controlled by a secret club called Shadow Council. Each fall, Shadow held a traditional lottery during which a single student's name was drawn. The rest of the student body called the student the lottery winner. But Shadow Council knew better; to them the winner was the lottery victim. Whatever the label, the fated student became the Council's go-fer, delivering messages of doom to selected targets. In reponse, the student body shunned the lottery winner for the entire year. This year's victim was fifteen-year-old Sally Hanson. In this tense, complex novel Beth Goobie once again stakes her claim to being Canada's finest writer of teen fiction. The Lottery is her fifteenth book. Before Wings (Orca, 2000) won the Canadian Library Assocation Young Adult Book Award, received the Mr. Christie Silver Seal Award and was a finalist for the Governor General's Award for Children's Literature.Goobie, Beth is the author of 'Lottery' with ISBN 9781551432380 and ISBN 1551432382.