The Lucky Breaks

By Allan Zullo

Short story

24-25th July 2019

 

 

I got this short story from a book called “Weird but True Tales”.
I chose this story because it has a great storyline. The story is so
interesting.

 

The main storyline is that a girl called Jackie gets into a skiing accident and
this was birthday skiing trip. ‘Jackie was on the final run of the family
weekend ski trip, which was a gift from her parents for her sixteenth
birthday.’ Jackie’s trip takes a horrible turn when a skier smashes into her and breaks her leg.’ The six, foot, 200, pound skier smashed into the slightly built, five-foot-two, 110-pound teenager with a sickening thud. The impact knocked off Jackie’s hat, goggles, and gloves and sent her sprawling five feet into a snowbank.’ and ‘ “You have a broken leg and a possible concussion,” her mother replied. “You’ll have to spend a couple of days here.” “Oh, no,” Jackie whipped. “This vacation has been so great- and now it’s turned into a nightmare.” Jackie doesn’t know that she is about to uncover a secret that will change her life forever, She sees this as plain bad luck. I think this story has shown how terrible Jackie feels about her accident, Jackie is being called Sheila by the nurses , Jackie finds out why, She finds out that she and Sheila were adopted without their parents knowing they were twins.

 

The characters I enjoyed are Jackie Langdon and Sheila Walters. Jackie is an
amazing character as she is there from the start of the story. She sees the
accident as a negative setback, then finds her twin and see as a positive
setback. It’s like it was meant to be. She has taken one place where none of us wants to be (hospital) and saw the good in it. I have had this experience. When I was ski racing I was sent to ski patrol because some snowboarder’s edge caught the top of my lip and it sliced it open. It wouldn’t stop bleeding. My mother and father came to see me but they kept going into to see someone else who laying on a bed. I didn’t know who was laying there.  When I was told that I was okay to finish skiing, I went straight to first aid. As soon as I was in the first aid room, I went into the curtain  and saw my sister laying on the bed. If I hadn’t cut my lip I wouldn’t have known my sister was going to the hospital. Sheila Walters may seem like an easy charcter to discuss because I talked about Jackie but everyone is different. Jakie and Sheila have so many similar interest’s and what they like. ‘Just as remarkable, the girls discovered that they each owned a cat named Tiger, wore the same kind of perfume, loved flowers, enjoyed Chinese food, and liked the same music. They each had a boyfriend who was a goalie on the school soccer team.’ This was the most amazing event happening in their lives.

 

At the end of the story, the two sisters get fortune cookie with some great messages. ‘At the end of the meal, everyone was given a fortune cookie. Sheila opened hers first and laughed as she read it. “You will find a long-lost relative who will bring you great joy.” “Okay, Jackie. Top that one.” Jackie split her cookie and pulled out the fortune. After silently reading it, she announced, “I think I can. My fortune says, ‘Sometimes bad breaks bring good results.” ‘This is a true tale which makes this event even more incredible. Seeing these notes right after what these girls had gone through. I feel as though I can use this in these quotes in the real world. The great message in the story. Sheila’s isn’t easy to relate to, because I never had a long lost relative but the note in Jackie’s fortune cookie. I think it is like the quote “there is always light at the end tunnel.” It means even something might seem the worst at the time, some good will come out. The message in about seeing the postivie out of negative place. When she broke her leg it seemed as though there was nothing good to come out of it. I once crashed in a ski race but I got up and finished the race. When I went for my second run I knew what to expect, so I didn’t make the same mistake. I knew what to do. When I crashed I felt as though I had just lost my hope of getting a good time. It is very hard to focus on postivie impact, when the negative hit’s.  I am pretty sure that most people can relate to this quote in one way or another. One more personal exprince is that one time I tried out for a place in ski race team and I was guttered when I found out I hadn’t made it. But in the end I was allowed to join after they timed me again because I chrashed both times. They thought my times were slow because I had to hike up to where I chrashed to go through the gate.

 

The challenge that Jackie had to face was break her leg. This is one massive problem. The main challenge happens to Jackie when the nurse’s started calling her Sheila. Although Jackie finds out she has a twin sister, which makes Jackie look at Sheila in a different way. I still know how stressful it must have been for Jackie; with all this pressure on her. She handled it well. She also had to learn that she was in an accident. Even with these problems I still feel that this story is great for year 12 to read.

 

The title of this story(The Lucky Breaks) is kind of hard to find out what the story is about but when you read you find out how well it fits. I think a better title is “The Great Accident.” The story is true and that makes it better because this makes you feel as though you could go through the same experience because they did. I can tell that the author had to think about the title, they did an ok job. I think my title could work, I give a bit more insight into the story. That’s how I feel but I’m sure there will be people who like the author title a bit better.

 

I would recommend this book to year 12 students because it has an interesting and supring twist. It doesn’t have too many storylines happening so it would be hard to get confused. This story is one I will always remember because of the messages in the fortune cookies. I think year 12 students should read this book because the messages in this can help them overcome the problems they have today. I would also recommend this becauses of the strong messages and people should see the postive in negative place.

 

This book was one I picked up because it had a way to revealing the plot to  you. It is as if you can see everything;  you’re watching a movie. Something this small (only ten pages long), really made the book so much better for me.