As soon as Madame M shut the door with a thud, my heart began to pound. I was so excited I practically screamed, because I knew exactly what her reading had meant, and I couldn’t wait to get Eleanor’s opinion.
“Eleanor! Ohmygosh, ELEANOR!”
But Eleanor didn’t turn around. She was already darting back across the mounds of snow toward the street.
“You have to slow down, Eleanor. This snow is way too soft for me.”
I managed to find my tracks from before, but this time I was sinking even deeper, which made me even slower, and made my breathing raspier from all this crazy rushing around.
“I need to hurry, Ruby—I’m late.”
Now I could see only the top half of her body behind the snowbank at the end of the alley.
“But what about our psychic readings? Was that freaky or what? And Madame M was so good; she read my mind like my head was a crystal ball!”
Eleanor bobbed up and down, glancing back and forth like she was expecting to see her mother leading a search party.
“We’ll talk tomorrow.”
“But, El—”
“I really have to go,” she called. “See you at school.”
And just like that, she disappeared. Our one free afternoon together had ended.
My orange leggings were so damp and freezing as I walked home that I could barely feel my legs, making my excitement grow colder too. I knew what I wanted to do about Madame M’s dream reading, but I wasn’t absolutely sure without first talking it over with Eleanor. And when I thought about that very thing—talking stuff over with Eleanor—I realized I never got to talk stuff over with her. We only talked between classes in the crowded hallways, or sitting on the bleachers in gym class, faking injuries, or during lunch, where we were always surrounded by the Math Squad boys, who drooled all over Eleanor, even though she had no idea they all liked her—especially that Anton Orlov. He was so in love with Eleanor that he couldn’t stop insulting everyone around her, especially me.
It didn’t seem fair that her mother forced her to do all these special activities and classes, and then run home instantly every single day. I had never heard of anyone who had so many rules and chores and lessons, like the cello, not to mention all the other junk she had to sign up for.
The funny thing is, she was never expected to work at her father’s gas station. If kids had any extra time to do anything around here, they would work, especially if their families owned businesses. But Eleanor said her thaththa (which is “Dad” in their Sinhala language) told her she had the rest of her life to worry about making money; he believed childhood was the time to learn and explore. The problem was, her amma (which is “Mom”) told her what to learn and where to explore. And none of it ever included me.
On my way home, I had to stop again and catch my breath. For some reason, my wheezing had been acting up more than usual lately. I rested against the tall iron fence in front of the town’s only mansion near the far end of Maine Street, at the corner of Bon Hiver Lane. Mim had told me that the people who built the giant stone house back in the 1800s were rich railroad folks, and their relatives had lived there for more than a hundred years, until the train business went belly-up and they moved away.
All I know is, I’d never seen a bigger front yard in my entire life, except in pictures of those humongous castles over in France. Come to think of it, this mansion reminded me of a real French castle with its tower at each end, and an enormous rectangular section in the middle with lots and lots of windows.
After the train family left for good, other millionaires bought and sold it, but no one ever knew who they were—probably rich Outers who wanted somewhere to ski. But since the economy had been bad for a while now, that old mansion had been sitting empty. Until today.
In the distance, beyond the front yard, an eighteen-wheeler (the kind Pop drove) was backed up behind the house with several guys moving furniture down the ramp. I pressed my face between the cold metal bars to see if there were kids or dogs or horses or anything interesting.
And that’s when I saw him.
A boy stood way over to the left side of the property, far from all the commotion. He was even taller than Eleanor, and skinnier, too, and I mean stick-figure skinny, like someone who doesn’t even like food. He had a mess of brown hair hanging down around his face, and I think he wore glasses—it was hard to tell from so far away. His baggy green jacket came down to his knees and it was unzipped, even though a cold wind blew down from the mountains.
He peered at me through a pair of binoculars like he was a spy, so I jammed my arms through the fence and waved, pretending to surrender.
“I give up! Come on over and arrest me.”
But instead of laughing, the boy dropped his binoculars like he thought it was a real holdup.
“Sorry, I’m only goofin’ around,” I yelled. “What’s your name?”
I couldn’t tell if he could hear me or if I had truly scared him, because all of a sudden he turned and took off around the corner of one of those towers. It seemed like everyone was running away from me today.
“Charlie! Quit touching every cookie chunk with your nasty little hands. And Henry, move your melon head so I can see the television, mister.”
My little brothers and I were sprawled on the couch, watching The Price Is Right. The reruns of the original version are shown every day from three to five p.m. on channel 6. The old ones hosted by Bob Barker are, in my opinion, far better than the newer versions. And the prices don’t make sense anyway, whether the show was filmed thirty years ago or yesterday. I don’t know where the contestants do their shopping, but Mim says everything is wacky out in California, where they play the game, which is probably why the prices are nothing like ours.
The three of us were hanging out as usual, gobbling down yesterday’s leftover Monster Chunk cookies from the Slope Side Café, since it was almost dinnertime and we were practically starving to death. Mrs. Petite had been taking a nap when I picked up the twins, because her tooth ached from whatever the dentist had done. And Mr. Petite was busy painting his duck decoys on the dining-room table, so the boys hadn’t eaten a thing since lunch other than butter cream mints from the candy bowl. And, of course, Eleanor and I never had gotten to The Avalanche for that mocha ripple milkshake.
“Two seventy-five is wrong! Three ninety-eight is the correct answer!” yelled Bob Barker as the too bad music played on the TV. “Oh, too bad, Louise—but thanks for playing.”
“Three ninety-eight?” I complained out loud. “Where do they buy their pretzels? At the jewelry store?”
That made the twins crack up and repeat my words. They were always copying everything I said.
“I don’t want any more cookies,” announced Charlie, who was stretched out in Pop’s recliner, having won the honor five minutes earlier by beating Henry at stuffing the most Monster Chunks in his mouth. “I want egg rolls!”
“We’re not having Chinese take-out for dinner tonight,” I said, and sat up, which startled our old cat, Marilyn Monroe. She jumped to the ground and wandered off to the other end of the house in search of quiet. “Mim said she’d pick up fried chicken for a change.”
Charlie whined, “I don’t like chicken,” just as my stepmom burst through the front door, toting about thirteen bags. She can carry more plastic grocery sacks than any other human on earth. No matter how many are in the car, she never makes more than one trip lugging them into the house.
“Too late, sweetie,” said Mim as she dumped everything, including two greasy cardboard buckets, onto our kitchen table. “I have enough chicken here to feed the whole neighborhood.”
Henry leaned forward and scratched himself all over, the deep-fried smell waking him like an alarm clock.
My stepmom smiled like always, but I could tell she was tired.
“I’ll get the soda,” I offered, as Mim lowered herself into a kitchen chair and sighed.
“Thanks, Rosebud—and turn the channel to Hollywood Crime Watch, would you please?”
She didn’t even put the groceries away, just shoved them aside, and then pulled out the take-out paper plates, plastic forks and knives, and a pile of napkins. Both boys dug into supper like they hadn’t eaten in days.
“So what did you kids do this afternoon?” asked Mim, frosting a biscuit with butter before sliding it into her mouth.
Right then, I worried the boys would blurt out something about their visit to the dentist with Mrs. Petite, but they were so busy chomping, they didn’t hear a thing.
“Nothing much—the usual,” I replied, even though I was dying to tell her all about the mysterious Madame M and our psychic readings.
But my stepmother would have wondered why I was off running around town and not home watching the boys, which would have involved confessing my frequent tardiness, where it all began. Also, I wasn’t so sure she would agree with the way I saw my reading, which had me so excited that I couldn’t wait to see Eleanor tomorrow in gym class and get her take on it.
I peeled the crunchy skin off a wing, the best part, and ate it first.
“I want more soda with my chicken,” said Charlie.
“May I have more soda, please,” corrected Mim. “And I thought you just said you didn’t like chicken.”
“Is Pop coming home this weekend?” I asked.
“I don’t think so,” sighed Mim. “He picked up another delivery that pays such good money he couldn’t turn it down. But someone needs to get up on this roof and shovel it before it caves into the attic. I’ve never seen so much snow this early.”
The Green Gobster came on the TV, one of the boys’ favorite shows. They jumped off their seats and back onto the couch, hollering, “Louder than THUNDER, who, do you WONDER? Green Gobster!”
Mim yawned, then gulped her entire glass of root beer in one big chug.
“Oh my, I missed the end of Hollywood Crime Watch again,” she said. “I’m so exhausted, I’m gonna hit the hay, Ruby. Can you make sure the boys change into their pj’s during a commercial, in case they fall asleep on the couch?”
All at once, something about that didn’t feel right to me. It seemed like Mim should be going to bed after us, not before. And that Pop should be home by now. But instead of saying anything, I hugged my stepmom good night and opened the dessert cabinet over the sink.
“Okay, boys. Who wants whoopie pies and who wants kettle corn?”