Confessions of a Teenage Psychic (26 page)

“In what way?”

“Oh, this and that. Most recently she insisted I wait a few days before buying a new handbag I had my eye on, and sure enough the next week it went on sale.”

Serena nodded but didn’t smile. “How accurate are your predictions?”

I shrugged. “Most of the time I’m right. Except for when it’s stuff about me. Then I don’t have a clue.”

“Then you’re not psychic about your own life?”

I shook my head, but then I remembered the tape recorder and said, “No, I guess I just have to figure out stuff on my own without any extra help.”

“But she’s pretty accurate about other people’s lives,” Mom said smiling.

Serena nodded again. “Can you give me an example? Some sort of psychic insight about me, for instance?”

Okay, I didn’t anticipate having to prove myself. I paused longer than I needed to, so maybe she’d think I was giving it some deep thought. Actually, once I focused on Serena’s life I got a pretty quick hit. Finally I said, “Well, you’re moving out of that tiny apartment you live in and you’ll be sharing a bigger house with two other women. And you’ll be getting a raise soon.” I sneaked a glance at Mom, who lowered her head and smiled to herself. She knew I was dragging out my answer for effect.

Serena’s eyes got real wide. “Amazing! It’s true I’m moving in with friends, but the raise? In this economy?”

I shrugged. “Call me back in about a week after this story hits. It’ll happen.”

After Serena turned off the recorder, she said she’d do a follow-up story if she got a raise. I told her she’d have to call me in Houston, because that’s where I’d be for the summer. And actually, I enjoyed making that happy prediction for her and I’m looking forward to her phone call at my dad’s.

Serena had brought a photographer with her and the story was in the Metro section the next morning, accompanied by a fairly large picture of Mom and me smiling broadly. We’re standing in front of Mom’s store with the sign visible behind us, which was Mom’s idea to get some free publicity from the story.

Of course the interview stirred up the whole psychic story about me all over again. Kids at school were buzzing with the news.

“Hey, Caryn!” I saw one of the senior girls waving at me from way down the hall, running to catch up to me. I didn’t even know her name. “Can you tell me if I’ll meet a new boyfriend when I start at Purdue in the fall?”

“Uh, yeah… ?” I walked down the hall shaking my head.

“So what’s my future career going to be?” I looked behind me and a freshman girl I barely knew, Angie Morrison, was standing right there.

I was surprised she even knew who I was, but said without thinking, “Interior design.”

“Uh, Caryn.” It was Mark Evans, who’d barely said two words to me since the Christmas dance, shuffling up to my locker with his hand in front of his mouth. “Uh, do you see me getting… braces?”

I almost laughed, but I guess it wasn’t funny to him. “Not for another year, but then it’s going to make all the difference.”

He even smiled a little before he hurried off down the hall.

“Yo, Alderson! Tell me how I did on that AP exam!” I turned around yet again and there was Connor Stevenson, yelling at me from down the hall, his arms spread wide.

I don’t know why I saw what I saw, because I don’t know anything about AP scores. But suddenly there was a cartoon “5” dancing in my head, complete with top hat and walking stick. “Five.”
Whatever that means
.

It must have been the answer he was looking for, though, because he gave me a double thumbs-up and strutted down the hall, calling out to everyone he saw, “I got a FIVE!”

“Caryn, girl, you gotta tell me what it’s like to be you.” Janae Thomas was leaning against the locker next to mine wearing stonewashed jeans, stilettos, and a rhinestone-studded T-shirt, her hand on one hip.

I sighed. “To be me? What are you talking about, Janae?”

“Being psychic. What’s that like?”

I lifted a shoulder. “Well, it’s hard to explain. But it’s kinda like watching words and pictures on a computer screen all going by really fast, except it’s happening in my head.”

Janae smiled and I could just see the wheels turning in her head. She thinks she has the inside track on all future goings-on at Rosslyn High, with me as her personal psychic hotline for gossip.

“Girlfriend, any time you get a preview of anything juicy about to happen, you call me first, okay?”

“Okay, Janae.” But since she’s usually the first to get the news anyway, she probably doesn’t need my help at all.

So the day wasn’t half as bad as I’d imagined it would be. I went straight home after school the day the newspaper story hit, eager to tell Mom my social life wasn’t over after all.

But by the time Mom got to the apartment she was fried. I guess the phone had been ringing off the hook at the store all day and she couldn’t take down the messages fast enough.

“Thank goodness you’re home, Caryn. Here, start returning these phone calls.”

I looked through the slips of pink paper she handed me. “Who are these people?”

She shouted to me from the kitchen where she was raiding the refrigerator. “They all saw the newspaper story this morning and now they want to make an appointment with you for a reading.”

I shuffled through the stack. There had to be thirty messages. “Reading?”

“Yes. People want to pay you money to predict their futures.”

“Predict their futures?” I repeated, dropping the messages on the table.

Mom stepped back into the living room, a frown on her face. “It’s called a reading, Caryn.”

“But, Mom, I’ve never given one before.” Was she serious? For total strangers? How could I?

Mom stared at me like that was the most ridiculous thing she’d ever heard. “Sure you have, Caryn. Not a formal one maybe, but you do it all the time.”

“Yeah, but these people would expect me to, you know, be accurate.” I picked up the messages and tried to give them back to her.

Mom put her hands behind her back “Yes, and you usually are accurate, Caryn. Why don’t you give it a try and see if you like it?”

“Oh, Mom, I just couldn’t.”

Mom looked at me pleadingly. “We should take advantage of the publicity. These are paying customers, honey, and it could be really good business for the store too.”

People not only wanted me to give them my psychic insights, but they were willing to pay for it? I kicked the thought around in my head for a few minutes. On the one hand, I’d have to rev up my psychic abilities to give people their money’s worth. On the other hand I could also pick up a little cash that would come in handy on my visit to Houston this summer. On the other hand…

“You’re only entitled to two hands!” said a laughing voice in my head.

I stifled a giggle. Mom raised her eyebrows at me, so I said, “Nothing. Just Uncle Omar.”

She just shook her head.

“How much do you think I should charge people?” I asked, trying to remember how much Astros tickets cost. “Ten dollars?”

“Ten dollars?” Mom said, pausing on her way back to the kitchen.

“Too much?”

“Not enough! At least twenty. You’re worth every penny.”

I flopped my head back on the sofa trying to take it all in. People wanted
me
to tell them about their futures. Offering to pay me for my advice, and yet only a few days ago I was still pretending I made lucky guesses all the time. Things had changed so fast I could barely catch my breath. But I liked the idea of having a little money of my own, not having to depend on my parents all the time.

So I returned some of the phone calls and actually set up a few appointments. Just three for starters because, well, I’m a kid, and I also want to do normal stuff.

When I got to the store the next day after school, I couldn’t believe what I saw. The store was packed with customers, which of course was a good thing. But I didn’t know if I should help wait on people or go start my readings like Mom and I had agreed. I caught her eye and waved both of my arms over people’s heads. Mom didn’t have time to spare, but she pointed to the back room and then continued waiting on customers near the bookshelves. Sybil had a line of people at the cash register waiting to pay for their merchandise, so she couldn’t stop to talk either.

I smiled politely at people as I squeezed my way past them to the storeroom where I was supposed to begin my career as a professional psychic. I was nervous enough already, but all those people set my fears into hyper-drive. What if I gave someone bad advice? What if more of them wanted readings than the ones I’d counted on? Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea after all.

Too late to back out now, though, since I’d already made appointments. Mom had set me up in a corner of the storeroom with a dinette table, two chairs, and a floor lamp. She even used Grandma’s white linen tablecloth to make it more attractive. It was pretty cozy and private, actually. But I was still nervous.

I sure could use some help right now
.

I heard Uncle Omar laughing. “You’ll be G-R-E-A-T!”

I dropped my head in my hands but couldn’t help laughing too. “Uncle Omar, no one does that tiger thing anymore. It’s the twenty-first century now!”

But his joke helped me relax.

The lamp next to the table had a low-wattage bulb which cast a soft light, and on the table was a deck of playing cards.

Mom knows I don’t need props to read people so it must be for effect only, but since I didn’t know what else to do, I picked them up, shuffled, and dealt out a hand of solitaire.

“Uh, Caryn?” I heard a familiar voice call out.

“Back here!”

My first customer had arrived— Harris Rutherford! He grinned at me shyly, shook my hand, sat in the chair opposite me, and fidgeted for a moment before finally speaking.

“Um, are you going to read my future with cards?”

“No,” I said, stacking the cards back into a deck. “I was just fooling around. Now, what do you want to know?”

I guess what he wanted to ask was really important because he looked me in the eye and blurted out his question without waiting another second. “Why don’t the girls at school like me?”

Talk about a loaded question. I didn’t want to hurt his feelings with the truth, and I didn’t want Harris to think I wasn’t taking his question seriously. So I thought for a minute and focused really hard on his problem.

Finally it came to me like a lightning bolt. “Remember last October when I told you to concentrate on getting good grades?”

He nodded and his shoulders slumped like he already knew what I was going to say, but I was sure he didn’t.

“Well, all that hard work is going to pay off, Harris. You’re going to some kind of camp this summer where there’ll be lots of other brainiac kids like you. All because of that 4.0 you earned this year.”

His smile was crooked, but he didn’t seem very happy with that answer. “Yeah, I just got accepted to a science camp held by some local pharmaceutical company, but that’s not— ”

“Who’s Jenna?” I interrupted him.

He frowned and then shrugged. “I don’t know any Jenna.”

I smiled, because I liked this particular vision. “You will. You’ll meet her at that camp this summer, and she’ll become a good friend. The two of you will have lots in common. You know, science stuff.”

I saw a whole roomful of geeky kids like Harris, all engrossed in their science projects, and I knew he’d fit right in and be happy. And Jenna? She’s shorter than Harris, has curly brown hair and wears thick-rimmed eyeglasses that actually suit her. She’s cute and has that intellectual type of humor that most kids don’t get, but Harris does. I knew he’d like her.

Harris looked skeptical, though. “Do you really think so? I mean, so far girls… ” He didn’t finish and even without psychic powers, I knew what he wanted to say.

“Trust me, Harris, this girl Jenna’s really gonna like you.”

A smile slowly crept onto Harris’s face. He’s kinda cute when he smiles like that. “Well, thanks, Caryn. How much do I owe you?”

It just didn’t seem right to charge him money, and I remembered something I’d told myself last month in Mrs. York’s class. “About three or four math-tutoring sessions next fall should do it. Maybe. I’m really bad at math,” I said.

Harris beamed. “Okay, great! I’ll call you in August.”

He stood up, shook my hand again, and walked away with more swagger than I’d seen all year.

And that was my first professional reading!

It was way past the store’s usual six o’clock closing time when I finished my last reading— a college student who wanted to know if the guy she was dating was
Mr. Right
(he wasn’t!)— and I felt a rumbling in my stomach as I made my way out of the darkened back room and into the brighter lights of the shop. Standing near the cash register, with a big smile on his face, was Quince. Hello, butterflies!

“Hi, Caryn!”

I managed to smile back at him. “Hi, yourself.”

“I know I said something about coffee, but I’m famished and wondered if you’d like to go get a burger with me instead.”

Wow! Quince Adams was asking me for a date, and all I had to do was open my mouth and accept. But of course, I was speechless.

“But if you’re busy… ” he said, after a lengthy pause.

“No! I’d love to go!”
Congratulations, Caryn, you did it
.

“Great!”

Quince held the door open for me, and as we strolled out into the warm, early-evening sunshine, I saw Uncle Omar leaning on a parking meter. “Told ya so,” he said with a wink.

“Thanks, Uncle Omar,” I said under my breath.

“Did you say something?” Quince asked.

I looked up again but all I saw was a car parallel parking next to that meter. I smiled at Quince. “Oh, just telling myself how lucky I am to be here with you.”

Quince smiled back at me and took my hand as we walked down the street to the fast-food restaurant.

Lesson #2: It’s okay to stand up for what you believe.

I never was in favor of Megan’s protest march against the administration for trying to force kids to wear school uniforms. But this time it looks like the kids won.