Freaks Out!

“So if it’s only a game, why can’t we look?”

“Cos even games have rules. There’s no point playing, if you don’t have rules. I’m going to go now, I promised Mum I’d be back by five. You coming?”

“In a minute,” said Jem.

“I’ve got to go now. I’ll take these with me.” Skye scooped up all the bits of paper, neatly stuck with Sellotape. “Cos I know what you two are like.”

“Are you saying we’d cheat?” said Jem.

“Well, you would, wouldn’t you?” Skye opened her schoolbag and stuffed the bits of paper into one of the inside pockets. “They’ll be safe there. I won’t look.”

To be fair to Skye, we knew that she wouldn’t. After she’d gone, Jem giggled and said, “D’you want to know what I picked?”

I struggled for a few seconds with my conscience. There wasn’t any reason I shouldn’t know. Just cos Skye had decided it had to be kept secret. Me and Jem hadn’t decided. But it was true that Skye was honourable, and we weren’t, so I very nobly said no.

“Better not tell me.”

“Don’t see why not,” said Jem. “What right’s she got to dictate?”

None at all, really, except that she was our friend and if she wanted to make up rules – well! That was just Skye. At least she’d joined in.

“Wouldn’t be fair to go behind her back,” I said.

Jem looked for a minute as if she might go off into a sulk again, but then she gave me this mischievous grin and said, “If I was doing your horoscope now, know what I’d say? I’d say, Keep an eye on Daisy Hooper.”

“Why?” I couldn’t resist asking.

“See if she gets a clonk on the head!”

“Is she likely to?”

“Well…” Jem cackled. “Someone’s going to. Hope it’s not you! You didn’t pick that one, did you?”

Before I could stop myself I said, “No.”

“That’s good,” said Jem. “Means it could be her!”

Me and Jem watched eagerly the next couple of days, waiting to see if Daisy Hooper would get clonked on the head. See if anyone got clonked on the head. Just cos Jem had written it for one of her horoscopes, didn’t necessarily mean it was going to happen.

“Skye could be right,” I said. And Mum, and Tom. And Dad. “Could all just be coincidence.”

It wasn’t what I wanted to believe, cos I like to think there’s stuff going on that’s a bit mysterious. But if you’re conducting a scientific experiment it’s important to keep an open mind. Jem already seemed to have made hers up.

“If it’s all just coincidence,” she said, “why would anyone bother? There’s got to be something in it. I mean, look at my auntie! You’re not telling me that was just coincidence?”

I didn’t wish to talk about Jem’s auntie. Rather sternly I said, “We are conducting an experiment. We must wait for proof.”

“But that is proof!”

“More proof.”

Jem giggled. “Want to know another one I wrote? Beware the hairy monsters… I thought I might as well use it. Wonder who got that one? Wasn’t you, was it?”

“We’re not supposed to be telling,” I said.

“Oh, pooh!” Jem tossed her head. “What’s it matter?” She danced round me, waggling her fingers. “Big hairy monsters! It was you, wasn’t it?”

“Not saying.”

“It was, it was! You’re going to get a bunch of huge enormous spiders marching across the ceiling!”

“Yeah, or I might get mugged by a load of huge hairy muggers. Might end up in hospital. Then what’d you have to say?”

Jem’s face fell. She looked at me, suddenly uncertain. “It wasn’t really you, was it?”

“Well, if it wasn’t,” I said, “it’s someone else, and then you’ll be responsible if it comes true.”

Quick as a flash, Jem said, “I’m not saying everything does! Just some things.”

In the meantime, we kept our eyes fixed firmly on Daisy Hooper. I guess I wouldn’t have minded if she’d got clonked on the head, but all that happened was she got whacked by a hockey stick. On the ankle, not the head.

Jem tried claiming that was just as good. She said you had to know how to interpret these things – they were never straightforward. Clonk on the head didn’t have to mean clonk on the actual head, it could just as easily mean clonk on the top part of something, such as for instance the top part of the foot, which was, of course, the ankle. Well, if you looked at it one way it was. The ankle was on top of the foot. In other words, it was the head of the foot. And Daisy had been clonked on it and was now all bandaged up and hobbling.

We wouldn’t normally wish ill upon someone, but Daisy Hooper is such a disagreeable person. Really loud and overbearing. And mean. She is so mean! Plus she hates us and we hate her.

Jem was eager to open up all our bits of paper and check whether clonk on the head had been matched to Daisy’s star sign or someone else’s. She said, “I know which sign she is, I asked her, she’s Libra! So please can we just look? Please, Skye? Please?”

But Skye said no. She was very firm about it. The end of term was when we were going to look. Not before.

Jem grumbled to me later that “Skye can be such a bore at times!”

I had to admit she was being a bit more bossy than usual.

“Why do we put up with it?” wondered Jem. “It was our game – we invented it. Then she comes barging in and takes over. I think we should tell her.”

“Tell her what?”

“That we’ve had enough! We want all our bits of paper back, and we’ll play the game without her.”

“Thing is…” I hesitated.

“What?”

“I wouldn’t want to upset her.”

“But she’s upsetting us!”

“Yes, but she’s been really funny just lately. Like there’s something on her mind.”