06 - Eye of the Fortuneteller (4 page)

But the people on the beach didn’t move.

Why wasn’t anyone helping her? What was wrong with them?

“Kelsey!” Drew shouted. She spun around to face him. “What is wrong with
you?”

“Jellyfish! Jellyfish!” was all Kelsey could say, shaking her stinging arms
and legs.

“What jellyfish?” Drew asked, staring out into the ocean.

“The ones all over me!” Kelsey cried. “Look!”

“Kelsey,” Drew replied, “there are no jellyfish on you.”

Kelsey stared at her arms. She stretched out her legs and searched them. She
ran her fingers through her hair.

No jellyfish.

“There
were
jellyfish,” Kelsey insisted, rubbing the skin on her arms,
trying to get rid of the slimy feeling she still had. “They were all over me!
And the whole ocean was full of them!”

Kelsey noticed that the people all around them were listening to her—trying
not to laugh.

“Do you see them now?” Drew asked.

Kelsey stared into the water. She and Drew stood there.

Silently.

Watching the water wash up around their feet.

Clean, clear water. Not a jellyfish in sight.

“No,” Kelsey admitted. “But something really creepy is going on.”

“I’ll say,” Drew agreed.

“You don’t think I’m going nuts, do you?” she asked.

“Nah,” he answered. “You’re not
going
nuts. You
are
nuts.”

“Ha, ha.” Kelsey tried to smile.

Then she felt something hit her ankle. And she jumped away, practically
knocking Drew over.

“Jellyfish!” she screamed before she could stop herself.

Drew looked down.

Kelsey saw his face freeze in horror.

“Is it a jellyfish?” she cried. “Is it?”

“No,” Drew whispered. “Not a jellyfish.”

Kelsey slowly glanced down. There, lying at her feet was the Fool card.

All in one piece.

Grinning up at her with its evil grin.

“M-maybe this is a different card,” Drew stuttered.

Kelsey kneeled to pick it up. “Drew, I think that fortuneteller really did
put a curse on me.” She sighed. “I can’t believe it. I spend my whole life
living on Fear Street and nothing terrible happens to me. But I come down to the
shore for a week and I end up with a curse!”

“Look,” Drew said nervously, “if you really have been cursed, there’s got to
be a way to get rid of it, right?”

“How am I supposed to know?” she shot back. “Do I look like a gypsy to you?”

“Well, maybe we should go find that weird old lady again,” he started. “And
maybe if you apologize to her, she’ll take the curse off.”

“She should apologize to me,” Kelsey said. “She’s ruining my vacation.”

“Get real, Kelsey. We’ve got to do something.”

“Okay, okay.” Kelsey agreed. “Let’s go find that stupid witch.”

Kelsey told their parents that she and Drew were going to play some skeet
ball at the arcade. Then they headed for the boardwalk to search for the old
gypsy woman.

“What am I supposed to say when we find her?” Kelsey asked Drew. “I’m sorry I
thought you were a fake—please take this curse off of me?”

“That sounds pretty good,” Drew said as they headed down the boardwalk.
“Look. Here’s the pizza place. The shack should be right around this corner.”

Kelsey followed Drew around the corner—and there it was. As Kelsey approached
it, a horrible thought crossed her mind.

What if the gypsy refuses to remove the curse?

What would she do then?

“Are you ready?” Drew asked, walking up to the door.

Kelsey nodded.

Drew opened the door and Kelsey stepped inside.

The skeleton was still there. But now it seemed to be staring right at her.
Following her every move.

Kelsey shivered.

Then from a darkened corner a voice called out, “Welcome.” Kelsey stared at
the figure. She sat at the table, staring into her crystal ball.

But something about her wasn’t right.

“Welcome,” the shadowed figure called again. Even though Kelsey couldn’t see
her face, she knew that it wasn’t the same gypsy.

“The Amazing Zandra will tell your fortune,” the woman continued, without any
kind of accent at all.

When the Amazing Zandra finally glanced up, Kelsey could see that she wasn’t
nearly as spooky. Or nearly as old as the other gypsy.

In fact, the Amazing Zandra didn’t look much older than Kelsey’s next-door
neighbor—who just started high school last year.

Kelsey even thought she was kind of pretty. Her wavy hair was long and brown.
And her eyes were ordinary. Brown. Both of them.

Zandra’s fingernails were painted purple. And she had a ring on every finger. She wasn’t nearly as mysterious or spooky as
Madame Valda.

“I have to see the other gypsy,” Kelsey announced.

“There is no other gypsy,” Zandra informed them.

“Yes, there is,” Drew said. “She was here yesterday. She’s really old and
wrinkly.”

“You must be mistaken,” Zandra insisted. “There is no other gypsy here. And
there never has been.”

Kelsey felt her heart sink.

“Oh, no,” she moaned. “Now what am I going to do? I’m going to be cursed
forever!”

“Are you sure there isn’t another gypsy?” Drew asked again.

“Look, kid,” Zandra replied. “I’m the gypsy who works here, okay? The only
gypsy. Now do you want me to tell your fortune or not?”

The Amazing Zandra is lying to us, Kelsey thought. She has to be.

“Look, Amazing Zandra,” Kelsey said as politely as she could. “We were here
yesterday. But you weren’t. There was a different gypsy. She was real,
real
old.”

“And scary,” Drew added.

But Zandra just kept shaking her head no.

“She had a really strange accent,” Kelsey went on.

Nothing. Just more head-shaking from Zandra.

“She put a curse on me,” Kelsey said hopelessly.

With that, Zandra’s expression changed. “A curse?” she gasped, clutching her
heart. “If you are under the curse of a gypsy, you are in very serious trouble.”

“Tell me about it,” Kelsey said.

“Perhaps I
can
help you,” the Amazing Zandra replied.

“Really?” Kelsey asked nervously.

“Yes, really,” Zandra answered. “Only it isn’t easy to remove a curse,” she
added. “And it isn’t cheap, either.”

“How much?” Kelsey asked Zandra.

“Ten dollars.”

“Ten dollars!” Kelsey gasped.

That was a lot of money. It was all the money she had. She had planned to
spend it on carnival games and rides and ice cream.

But she had no choice. She didn’t know if Zandra was a real gypsy or not. But
she was her only hope.

She handed the money over to the fortuneteller. “Take the curse off me,” she
told her.

“First you must explain to me exactly how you were cursed,” Zandra said. “Did
the old gypsy give the curse a name?”

“No,” Kelsey said. “But she called me a name.”

“And what was that?” Zandra asked.

“A fool,” Kelsey told her. “And she got real mad at me for not believing in
her.”

Zandra shook her head gravely.

“Now all these terrible things are happening to me,” Kelsey continued.
“Yesterday, we got lost. And last night hundreds of sand crabs attacked me in my
sleep.”

“And this morning,” Drew jumped in, “she thought she was smothered in
jellyfish.”

Zandra cringed.

“And no matter what I do,” Kelsey went on, “I can’t seem to get rid of this
card.” Kelsey placed the Fool card down on the table in front of Zandra.

“I’ve torn it up twice. But it just keeps coming back, right after something
really bad happens to me.”

“Ah,” Zandra nodded knowingly. “The Fool Card Curse. This is a very powerful
curse,” she told Kelsey. “But the Amazing Zandra can remove it.”

“Are you sure?” Kelsey asked.

Zandra nodded. Then she closed her eyes and started mumbling, rolling her
head around in a circle.

Zandra didn’t chant like the old gypsy. And she wasn’t using the same weird
language, either.

When Zandra finally came out of her trance, she took a thick, red marker and
made an X on the face of the Fool card. Then she picked up the card and put it into a metal box—which she snapped shut and locked.

“This card will no longer trouble you,” Zandra assured Kelsey.

“Is that it?” Kelsey asked. “Is the curse removed?”

“Not yet,” Zandra answered. She reached into another box and pulled out a
small object. “You must wear this magic amulet for protection.”

It didn’t look like a magic amulet to Kelsey. It looked like a crystal bead
on a string. But Kelsey took it anyway and slipped it over her head.

“Wear the amulet for three days. Never take it off. And at sundown on the
third day, the curse will be broken forever.”

Kelsey made it through the rest of the day without any problems at all. And
she even made it through the night without any creepy nightmares. So by the next
morning she was starting to feel a lot better.

But she wasn’t going to take any chances. Not until three days had passed.
She and Drew stayed around the house the first day, where it was safe. She
actually had a lot of fun playing Ping-Pong and board games. She hardly thought
about the curse.

By the second day she felt even braver. Brave enough to go to the arcade.

On the very first quarter she dropped on the Wheel of Fortune, she won the
video game Drew wanted!

“Wow! Drew, this charm is great!” she said, fingering the amulet around her
neck. “It’s working against the curse—and it’s bringing me good luck, too!”

By the time she and Drew headed home, they had armfuls of stuffed animals
that Kelsey had won.

On the afternoon of the third day, Kelsey was finally brave enough to go to
the beach. The sun was shining. The ocean was warm. And Kelsey was feeling
pretty confident that Zandra had removed the curse.

Kelsey and Drew started building a very fancy sand castle.

“Let’s build a moat around it,” she suggested as she dumped another bucket of
sand on the castle.

“Good idea,” Drew agreed.

“Here,” Kelsey said, waving away an annoying horsefly. “Go fill this bucket
with water. I’ll start digging.”

Drew took the bucket and headed for the water.

Kelsey started digging the trench around the castle.

She glanced around. Their castle was by far the biggest and fanciest one on
the beach. She decided to decorate the top with the beautiful, thin, orangy
shells her family always called potato-chip shells.

Bzzz.
The pesky horsefly landed on Kelsey’s leg.

“Ouch!” Kelsey cried as it bit into her skin. “Go away!” Kelsey shooed the
fly away again. She noticed a spot of blood where the horsefly had landed.

Bzzz.
The fly circled the castle.

Drew came back with his first bucket full of water and poured it into the
unfinished trench. The sand sucked it all up.

“We’re going to need a lot more than that,” Kelsey told him.

“Right,” Drew agreed. He headed back to the water, bucket in hand.

Kelsey went back to digging the moat when she felt the tickle of tiny legs on
the back of her neck.

The horsefly.

She reached back to shoo it away before it could sting her.

It took off, but it continued to buzz around her as she worked on the castle.
She jerked her head from side to side as it swooped down at her.

“Just go!” she yelled at it impatiently.

Finally it landed on a shell near the castle, and she continued her
work—until she felt a tickle on her leg. Another horsefly.

Before she could swat at that one, a third appeared, landing right on the tip
of her nose.

Kelsey jumped up, flailing her arms to get rid of the horseflies.

“Ouch!” she screamed as she felt a sting on the back of her leg. She looked
down to see where she’d been bitten, and noticed that there were three
horseflies crawling up her thigh.

“Get off!” she shrieked, trying to swat them away.

But they wouldn’t leave. In fact, it seemed that as she fought to get rid of
them, more of the horrible green-eyed bugs appeared.

“This can’t be happening!” Kelsey cried, reaching up to touch her magic
amulet. But the amulet was coated with buzzing horseflies. Horseflies that
started stinging her hands the moment she touched the charm.

Kelsey began to feel tiny pinpricks all over her body. Hundreds of horseflies
flew at her. Hundreds. Stinging her. Over and over again.

She kicked her legs. Waved her arms.

She ran in circles, trying to dodge the ugly insects. But they followed her.
They dived at her.

If she didn’t get rid of them, every inch of her body would be bitten and
bloody.

Their bulging eyes burned brightly as they buzzed around her head.
Buzz.
Buzz. Buzz.

The black cloud of insects circled her face. Closer and closer.

She couldn’t breathe.

“I’m going to choke!” Kelsey screamed. “I’m going to choke!”

She swung her head wildly. Her sweat-drenched body heaved in terror.

The flies still surrounded her. Biting deeper and deeper. Burning her flesh.

She tried to shake off the flies, but there were too many of them now. And
she fell to the ground, exhausted.

She gasped for breath. She inhaled deeply. Inhaled a mouthful of sand.

Sputtering, gagging, she headed for the ocean. “I’ll drown them! I’ll drown
them!” she screamed.

She raced to the shore, blinded by the horseflies smothering her face.

“Hey! Watch it!” some little kids yelled as she stumbled over their pails and
shovels.

Finally she felt the ocean splash beneath her feet. She was about to dive in.
Dive under the cool water to soothe her raw, stinging skin.