Freaks Out!

I said yes, we had to. She was our friend; we didn’t do things separately. Besides, it might cheer her up. Stop her being so glumpy.

“Even though she thinks it’s rubbish?”

“We’ll tell her it’s just a game,” I said. “After all, it’s not like we’re really expecting things to happen.”

“So long as it is only a game,” said Skye.

I assured her that it was. “Just a bit of fun!”

“So long as that’s all.”

“It is. I just said.”

“Cos I think it’s really stupid, when people take this sort of stuff seriously.”

I laughed, as if the very idea was absurd. “Whoever would?”

“You’d be surprised,” said Skye.

“Well, but sometimes –” Jem jumped in eagerly – “sometimes they get it right. It’s just a question of working out what they mean. It’s not always straightforward. Like if your horoscope said ’Beware of big hairy monsters!’ and later that night a bunch of spiders went marching across your bedroom ceiling, well, you mightn’t realise that that’s what it had meant. You might have been expecting something more, like, a load of big hairy muggers coming along and…” Her voice faltered slightly under Skye’s withering gaze. “And mugging you,” she said. “Or something.”

“You might,” agreed Skye, “if you were dumb enough.”

“No, honestly,” said Jem, “they can predict things! Like with my auntie. There was this one time—”

Omigod! She was going to go on about the tomato ketchup again.

“I think we should get started,” I said.

“But I want to tell Skye about my auntie! See, her horosc—”

“Later!” It’s important, with Jem, to stop her before she gets going. Preferably as soon as she opens her mouth. Mr Hargreaves, our maths teacher, once said that if uncontrolled babble was an Olympic discipline, Jem could babble for England. And get a gold medal. “We don’t have time for all that now,” I said. “We’ve got horoscopes to write.”

Jem looked at me, hurt. “Just because you’ve already heard it!”

Just because I didn’t want Skye hearing it. Fortunately, Skye came to my rescue.

“No, Frankie’s right,” she said. “If we don’t get started we’ll never get anywhere. Everybody pay attention! First we need to get organised.”

Jem pulled a face. Normally I’d have pulled one too, and even given an inward gro-o-an, cos when Skye starts organising she turns into this really evil dictator type, bossing and bullying and laying down the law, but at least she’d managed to stop Jem going on about her auntie all over again.

If Skye had heard the tale of the tomato ketchup she’d have gone into full boffin mode and started lecturing Jem about being gullible, cos you can just bet she’d know what gullible meant. Jem would then have got upset, and then they’d have had words, and then they’d have tried dragging me into it, both of them wanting me to be on their side, like, “Frankie, tell her! You heard about my auntie,” and “Frankie, for goodness’ sake! You don’t believe in all that rubbish?”

I wouldn’t have known what to say. I mean, I did sort of believe. Sort of. Just not in the tomato-ketchup story. What we needed was some kind of definite proof, which was exactly the reason I was conducting my experiment. Cos that was what it was, I suddenly realised. Not just a game or a bit of fun, but a proper bony fido experiment. Or whatever the expression was.

“What’s that thing you say when you mean something’s, like, real?” I said.

“You mean, like, real?” said Skye.

“I mean like bony fido, or whatever it is.”

“Bona fide. It’s Latin,” said Skye. God, she’s like an encyclopaedia, that girl! I guess it’s cos of her mum and dad both being teachers. Always telling her to find things out and look things up. “Bona means good and fide means faith, and what’s it got to do with anything, anyway? I thought we were going to get started?”

“We are, we are!”

“Then let’s work out the ground rules.”

“What ground rules?” Jem was sitting cross-legged on my bed, cuddling Rags. She was obviously in a bit of a sulk. “What do we want ground rules for? Why can’t we just make up horoscopes like we said?”

Oh, but it wasn’t that simple! Nothing is ever simple, with Skye. First off, she made me Google “Star Signs” on my laptop. Then she told me to write them all down.

“Neatly.”

Jem and I exchanged glances. Jem put a finger to her forehead and tapped. I just did what I was told. It seemed easier, somehow.

These are the star signs:

Aries (ram)

Taurus (bull)

Gemini (twins)

Cancer (crab)

Leo (lion)

Virgo (virgin)

Libra (scales)

Scorpio (scorpion)

Sagittarius (archer)

Capricorn (goat)

Aquarius (water carrier)

Pisces (fish)

Now, said Skye, we would cut them up.

Excuse me?

“Cut them up!”

She held out her hand for the scissors. I passed them across. Me and Jem watched without saying anything, as Skye turned my list into a load of shredded strips.