Cartomancy (4 page)

Chapter 12

After Waverly had explained to Astrid’s
father and her own mother that she had made the fliers during the
two days that Astrid had been in bed, she apologized for doing so
without asking. “I was only trying to drum up some business for
Astrid and myself. I really want for us to make some money this
summer.” She said softly. “Well, I do admire your spirit and drive
to succeed Waverly, I just don’t want our home address on display
for everyone at the supermarket and I hope you can understand
that.” Astrid’s father spoke in a calm and understanding way that
made Astrid realize that they were no longer in trouble. Waverly
nodded her head in agreement. The silence in the kitchen was broken
by the tip-tip-tip sound of Waverly’s dog Orion walking across the
tile on the floor. “Here comes my tap dancing dog” Wave said to try
to lighten the mood. “Well, I suppose we should be off, we don’t
want your mother’s ice cream melting in the car.” Astrid’s father
had announced as a way of exiting the conversation as well as the
house. “Dad, is it okay if Waverly spends the night?” Astrid’s
father had already said no in the car, but she knew he would never
say no in front of Astrid’s mom. “Why certainly, I mean, it is up
to Waverly’s mother of course.” He said jovially. Waverly’s mother
was not so jovial. “I think Astrid needs to stay in tonight, but
she can stay this weekend, if that’s alright with your parents.”
She looked awkwardly at Astrid’s father. “Well, we’ll have to see
what mom has planned but I’m sure it’ll be fine, we’ll work it out
later in the week.” Astrid hugged Waverly like they would never see
each other again and whispered to her friend “I love the idea of
the fliers, thank you so much for making them.”

Chapter 13

Astrid’s mother received a text from Kate and
Jordan’s mom. It simply read “go here now” with a link to a
bloggers webpage. She clicked on the link and was quite surprised
by what she saw.
Blog is the New Black’s
…a blog dedicated to
what’s new and trending in Black’s Glenn. Which usually isn’t much,
this week however, a tonnage. I had heard about these tweens who
are doing pretty impressive Tarot Readings on their front porch, so
I decided to take a look-see before making my way over to The
Glenn’s newest vegan eatery: The Bunny Riot. But, we’ll get to that
later. First, I was unsure what to ask the girl reading my cards,
so I just sat down and said “tell me what ya got.” Miss Waverly did
a standard three card cross. Here meaning: past, present and
future. As anyone who knows anything about cards will know, it’s
the same old scene. First she says that a rabbit will cross my path
and that he will be the bearer of bad news. I laughed this off as I
was headed to the aforementioned eatery, which I had definitely NOT
told her, and I didn’t really see how a rabbit could bring bad
news. Again, we’ll get to that. My future card was Death (of course
it was) and she explained that it only meant the end of something
or the death of something….not my own death. So, I gave the kid her
five bucks, tipped her a dollar and was on my way. Had this only
been a blog about the town’s newest Tarot readers, it would have
been pretty boring. So not the case. I was hungry and excited to be
going to a new café! And a vegan one at that! As I drove off I kept
thinking about what the girl had told me, and I kept expecting a
rabbit to run out in front of my car as I was driving and cause an
accident. I was actually looking for them on the sides of the road!
What was I doing?! This fortune teller girl had really gotten
inside my head! So, I drive the two miles to The Bunny Riot and I
see what appears to be my fiancée’s car parked there. At first I
think it’s great that he’s meeting me for lunch….until I realize
that I didn’t tell him that I was coming here this afternoon.
Confused, I park and go inside. At first the place looks pretty
busy and I can’t see my future hubby anywhere. And then I do. He is
sitting alone at booth in the back by the kitchen. As I start to
walk back, the waitress comes out of the kitchen with his food. Or
so I think. She then proceeds to sit down next to him, on the same
side of the table! MY fiancée! Not hers! What happens next is a
blur. Suffice to say that there was almost a human riot at The
Bunny Riot and I never tasted any food. Nor will I be getting
married anytime soon. Also, I am looking for a new apartment. So
for those keeping score: Zero for The Bunny Riot and one hundred
for those Tarot Girls. They were SO right and I was SO wrong. I’m
planning on getting a Death Card tattoo…but that’s a whole other
blog.

Chapter 14

Astrid’s father had been at work for a short
period of time when he opened his laptop and had quite a few emails
from some of his friends and work associates. They pretty much all
had said the same thing: “check this out: “Blog is the New Black’s”
with a link to the web page. So, her father had opened the link and
read the blog and was pretty impressed with the Tarot part of it.
Even though he still thought it was a fluke. He also made a mental
note to check out The Bunny Riot this coming weekend. Astrid’s
father was also quite surprised at the number of blog post replies.
He read the posts, most of them were just talking about how much of
a creep the fiancée is and how she’s better off knowing that now,
as opposed to later. But, there were also a few posts from people
who had gotten Tarot readings as well and how what the girls had
told them ALSO had turned out to be true. Astrid’s father phoned
his wife. “Hey hon, check out this blog I have been reading, it’s
called…” he started to say, but Astrid’s mom beat him to it ..“Blog
is the New Black’s? Yes, I am on it now, and I honestly don’t know
what to think. I mean, how can they be so right? I heard people in
line at the grocery store talking about it too. What in the world
are those girls up to on our front porch?” she asked. “Your guess
is as good as mine, when I took them to the store, they had quite a
bit of money, maybe this scheme as you call it, has more to it than
we originally thought.” Her father sighed. “Well dear, I will let
you get back to work, just one more thing…..I want to try The Bunny
Riot this weekend.” Her father laughed and said “Will you ever let
me have an idea before you do?” Her mother chuckled back “that’s
pretty unlikely at this point dear.” And they both hung up.

Chapter 15

Astrid awoke to her phone buzzing under her
pillow. She knew it would be Waverly. “What’s up Wave?” she said
yawning. “Umm…go look out your bedroom window amigo” she said and
hung up the phone. Astrid blinked a few times and walked over to
her window, she squinted in the bright light, but when her eyes
began to focus, she couldn’t believe them. Out on the lawn and all
down the sidewalk were literally hundreds of people. Waverly was
there too with a notebook writing things down, so Astrid dressed
quickly, and ran downstairs and outside. “OMG Wave, can I see you
on the porch for a sec?” Waverly finished with the lady she was
talking to and followed Astrid to the porch. “What the heck dude?”
was all she could say. “I don’t know Astrid, I’m as shocked as you,
I just got here and they were here and I didn’t know what to do, so
I just started taking names and phone numbers. We can’t see all of
these people in two hours.” Waverly stated. “Two? We can’t see this
many in twenty-four hours! How? I mean, where? Or what? How did
they all know?” Astrid was exasperated and a little in shock. “Calm
down” Waverly said. “I know it’s crazy. All I could think to do was
start taking names in some kind of order, we can read as many as we
can today, and the rest will have to come back tomorrow, we’ll just
give them times, so they aren’t just hanging out in the yard.”
Astrid thought this was a great plan but she was still trying to
get her mind around how they all found out. “I’m surprised your mom
didn’t freak out and wake you up before I got here.” Waverly said
to Astrid who was busy trying to count all the people in front of
the house. “She had an errand to run or something, she’ll be back
soon though so we better start making some order out of this
chaos.” Waverly handed Astrid a notebook and a pen. “I guess we
should see who was here first, write the names down, and see them
today and tell the other people we’ll call them later with a time
to come back tomorrow, does that sound like a plan?” Astrid just
nodded. It was better than her only plan, which was to freak out
and go back to bed. “This is all so cray-cray.” Astrid kept
repeating. “Well, you’re the one who wanted excitement, remember?”
Waverly giggled. “What is it that your grandma said? Be careful
what you wish for.” Waverly threw a handful of grass at Astrid and
continued speaking to The Questioners.

Chapter 16

When it was all said and done, the girls had
earned two hundred dollars from readings and another one hundred
from selling drinks. They were quite proud of themselves for being
rich and were making plans, on the sidewalk, in chalk, to move
their base of operations to the back porch, as it was bigger and
screened in, when Astrid’s mom came outside. “Honey, there’s
someone on the phone for you.” Her mother seemed almost giddy. “Ok,
I’ll be right in” Astrid yelled back. When Astrid came back outside
she could barely contain her excitement. Waverly was still on the
sidewalk drawing hearts and rainbows in chalk. “You’ll never guess
who that was” Astrid said beaming. “Casket Discounters?” Waverly
said while attempting to outline herself in chalk. “No! It was
Kate’s mom! She wants to come over tomorrow and interview BOTH of
us for the local news! Isn’t that awesome?” Waverly looked at
Astrid in astonishment. “What are we going to wear?” was all she
could say. “I already asked my mom to take us to the mall, and she
said yes, so let’s go!” Astrid was quite literally jumping up and
down. When they got to the mall, they couldn’t decide which store
to go to first. There was a dark store for teens that only sold
black clothes, and a store for sporty kids, and one for skaters,
and one for super-trendy rich kids, and one for kids who let their
parents pick out their clothes, it was all too overwhelming.
Astrid’s mom went to get coffee while the girls decided which
direction to go in. Astrid was drawn to the darkness of the dark
store, although she didn’t know why, but she always had been.
Waverly on the other hand liked colorful, cute, cartoony clothes,
so they decided to go to a music-y store which kind of had both.
While they were looking at outfits that went together but weren’t
too matchy-matchy, a girl with black and pink hair came up to them.
“Hey, aren’t you the guys who do the tarot card readings?” she
asked. “Ummm..yep, we are.” Astrid replied. “Well, do you think you
can do mine right now?” she said. “Wowsers, I’m really sorry but we
didn’t bring the cards with us.” Astrid said. It had never even
occurred to her to take the cards with them, and she felt bad. The
girl seemed dejected. “You mean you only have one deck? You should
totally have two.” Black and Pink made a good point. This was
another thing that they hadn’t thought of. “You are so right and
thank you for mentioning that. You can always come over to the
house whenever you want.” Astrid knew that Waverly was always in
awe of high schoolers, and this one was no different. “Wasn’t she
cool? I can’t wait to be in high school and be cool like that.”
Waverly said in a dreamy voice. Astrid shrugged, they needed to get
back to the business at hand before Astrid’s mom came back and
started “making suggestions.” Eventually they had found two cool
outfits that Astrid’s mom had deemed “age-appropriate” and they
were about to leave the mall when Astrid remembered that they sold
cards at the bookstore. “Hey Madre, can we run in the bookstore
really quick?” Astrid asked. Her mother looked at her watch. “You
girls have ten minutes while I go back to SuperCoffee. Meet me back
at this spot.” The girls nodded and ran into the bookstore. They
quickly found the tarot cards and tried to pick out a good deck.
There were so many to choose from. They finally settled on the
Travelling Circus of Gypsy Clowns deck because it was the most
colorful. When the girls got back to the meeting spot, Astrid’s
mother wasn’t there. So, they sat on a nearby bench to wait. They
opened the deck, just as Black and Pink was walking by with her
cool high school friends. “Hey do you still want a reading?”
Waverly said in a loud voice. The whole group of high school kids
turned around and looked at them. Astrid was mortified. Waverly was
ecstatic. “It’s a brand new deck, so no charge.” She said
hopefully. “Umm, yeah that’s cool, let’s do it.” Black and Pink
replied. Astrid was frozen; she had no idea how to be cool in front
of high school kids yet. She looked like a deer in headlights.
Waverly, on the other hand was in her element. “Okay” Waverly
began, “I will shuffle the cards and you cut the deck. Try thinking
of a question or something you want to know the answer to while
you’re doing it.” The girl cut the deck and with her left hand
Waverly drew three cards. She stared at the cards intently. “Ok,
your cards are Justice, The Hanged Man, and Temperance.” She said.
Black and Pink seemed puzzled. “What do they mean?” She almost
whispered. “Have you recently gotten into a fight with your bf?”
Waverly asked. The crowd of kids gasped. “Dude, I just broke up
with my bf, because he cheated on me.” She answered. “Are you
totally sure he did? Because I don’t think so, I think it was a
misunderstanding.” Waverly said trying to stay impartial. “Duude, I
freaking told you no way! Brandon totally loves you!” said one of
the other kids. “Oh shut up Jason, you would have to say that.”
Black and Pink said cracking her knuckles. Waverly continued “I see
that you have been wronged, but I also see reconciliation. I also
see you getting a new job.” Waverly insisted. Just then, Astrid’s
mom walked up to the group. Astrid was so embarrassed she just
stared at her mom. Her mom pretended not to notice them and walked
to a nearby table and sat down. Astrid let out an actual sigh of
relief. “Well that’s it for the show people, if you want more
readings; you have to come to us.” Waverly said as she got up from
the table. Astrid was amazed at how calm Waverly was with all of
these high school kids. She was in awe of her best friend.