Contents
Chapter One - Zodiac Girl
Chapter Two - Hermie
Chapter Three - Surprise
Chapter Four - Room mate from Hell
Chapter Five - Queen of Sheba
Chapter Six - Sunshine and music
Chapter Seven - Desperately seeking someone!
Chapter Eight - Preparation!
Chapter Nine - Star studded dinner
Chapter Ten - Paparazzi nightmare
Chapter Eleven - An unexpected visitor
Chapter Twelve - Chaos
Chapter Thirteen - Yasmin
Chapter Fourteen - Hermie’s return
Chapter One
Zodiac Girl
Thebe’s list of things to do
Look up this month’s (May) horoscope on the computer.
Do homework.
Lay out clothes for school.
Do internet shop for groceries.
Leave list of things to do for Mrs Watson, housekeeper.
6) Practise ice-skating.
“Omigiddyaunt!” I said to our black cat, Cosmo, who looked up with sleepy eyes from the end of my bed. “This is so fantastic.”
I was sitting at my desk and I went back to the website I’d been looking at on my computer to double check that I hadn’t dreamt what I’d seen. Actually, it was my dad’s website: www.battyestars.org. Dad being Benjamin Battye, the celebrity astrologer. He does a weekly column for the Sunday State newspaper, a monthly column in Divine Divas, the glossy designer mag, and he’s on TV every Friday on Good Morning Britain talking about what’s up and coming in the sky for the weekend and discussing a chosen celebrity’s horoscope each month. I couldn’t wait to share my news with him. I got up and raced to the top of the stairs.
“Dad. Da-ad!”
“What is it, munchkin?” Dad called, from somewhere on the ground floor.
“I think it’s going to be me this month.”
“I said it might be, didn’t I? Come on down and we’ll double check on my computer and see what’s next.”
I took a quick glance in the mirror at the end of the hall. A small thirteen year-old girl with brown eyes, coffee-coloured skin and braided hair looked back at me. “Today’s going to be your day,” I said to my reflection, then I took the stairs down two at a time and clomped along the wooden floor to find him. This was the best thing that could ever happen and it was happening to me. Me. Thebe Battye.
I’d just seen it written in my horoscope on the computer. Planetary line-ups like that only happen once in a lifetime and sometimes not at all for some people. I felt so happy, I felt like doing a cartwheel. Usually if anything exciting happened it was to someone else in my family. They’re all so glam, swanning about living extraordinary lives, being the centre of attention, and I’m usually there in the background being Little Miss Boring to whom nothing ever happens.
My mum’s famous too. She didn’t used to be when we (me and my elder sister Pat) were younger. She was a stay-at-home mum then, but about five years ago she signed up to do a business degree at the Open University and discovered that she had a talent for making money. She lost three stone in weight, got herself some hair extensions so instead of her hair being short and frizzy, it was suddenly shoulder length and sleek and then she went out and bought a new wardrobe of clothes. It was a case of, “Watch out world, here comes Estella Battye, business woman supreme and a force to be reckoned with!”
Dad says it’s because she is an Aries and Aries is ruled by the planet Mars which is the planet of war! It’s true, Mum is not someone to mess with when she has a project on! Now she runs Battye Enterprises which deals with everything and anything to do with astrology. All aspects. You name it, she sources it then sells it: star-sign mugs, T-shirts, pendants, rings, books, cards, key rings, personalized horoscopes written by Dad. He had always been famous but Mum made him rich and famous. When she started raking in the mega bucks, she bought us a bigger house and named it Zodiac Lodge. It’s near Osbury, which is a village built on a sacred site. Legend has it that it was a home of the ancient gods and twinned with Mount Olympus in Greece. All the rooms are decorated on an astrological theme. For example, the bathroom is the Pisces room as that’s the sign of the fish as well as being a water sign, and Pisces is ruled by the planet Neptune and Neptune is known as the King of the sea – so the bathroom has a strong marine theme. It’s blue and green in there with pictures of fish and mermaids and a border around the top with shells on it. Very pretty. The décor of the whole house was worked out that way – each room with its own theme according to the stars. My best friend, Rachel, loves coming here and looking into all the rooms. She says it’s like visiting a colourful art gallery.
I almost collided with Pat who came out of the kitchen holding a glass of juice. “Woah, slow down. What’s the hurry?” she said.
“Me. I think I’m Zodiac Girl this month. Isn’t that fantastic?”
Pat shrugged. “If you say so,” she said and sauntered on. Pat isn’t interested in astrology at all. Mum and Dad named her Mahina when she was born. She was born under the sign of Cancer and Cancerians are ruled by the Moon. Mahina means the moon and I think it’s a lovely, romantic name. Not my sister though. When she was nine she demanded that no one call her that any more and she changed her name to Pat. Pat! She doesn’t look like a Pat. She looks like a Mahina. She’s very pretty with big brown eyes, a heart-shaped face and black hair (extensions, like Mum) half way down her back.
Her room on the top floor is the only one that doesn’t have a Zodiac theme – at least not any more. It was decorated to reflect the Moon and had a navy ceiling covered in teeny fairy lights that twinkled like stars. Sleeping in there was like being outside on a cloudless night, plus there is a skylight in there so part of what you were looking at was the real sky. When Pat was ten, she chucked out all the star posters and the Moon-shaped lamp and painted the room white, even the ceiling. On her door, she put a poster saying KEEP OUT ON PAIN OF DEATH. STRICTLY NO ZODIAC STUFF IN HERE. ALSO ON PAIN OF DEATH. And then she added a skull and crossbones to emphasize that she was serious. Dad says she reacts like that because she has the Moon in Scorpio and being cynical about things like horoscopes is typical of someone with a birth chart like hers. She’s one of the most popular girls in our school. She’s sixteen and there’s a long line of boys queuing up for her attention. She usually breaks their hearts though, simply because she can.
I found Dad stretched out in his study at the back of the house. Dad liked to dress as if he was still in the Caribbean (which is where our family is originally from, although Pat and I were born in England.) He was wearing one of his brightly-coloured patterned shirts with red parrots on it, long shorts and sandals. With his shoulder-length dreadlocks, he looked like a reggae musician. Mum and he do look funny together, like she’s Mrs Straight and he’s Mr Chilled Out.
The study is the room that has been themed around the planet Mercury which is the planet of communication. Also Mercury was known in the time of the Greek gods as the winged messenger. Mercury is the ruling planet for both Gemini and Virgo. Dad is Gemini and I am a Virgo so we have the Mercury connection in common. Dad thought it was appropriate to have his study as the Mercury room as that’s where he does all his communicating – through his computer, his phone and all his books are in there. Loads of them. Some of them are ancient with worn, leather covers with faded paper inside and the words are written in beautiful handwriting. It’s a large, cool room with high ceilings and French windows that open out onto the back when the weather’s warm. Dad has two old leather sofas in front of a marble fireplace where he likes to lie out and read. He sometimes reads five or six books at a time and he leaves them open all ov
er the place so I often trip over them. On the walls are some paintings he got in India and they depict the various planets in astrology. In the corner near the desk, he has a life-size bronze statue of Mercury which one of his Hollywood clients bought him as a thank you. I personally think it’s a bit rude as the statue is in the nudie pants, and sometimes when you sit on the sofa, its dangly bits are exactly at eye level. Not particularly what I want to be looking at when I’m in there having a cup of tea and a crumpet with Dad, thank you very much. I put a yellow sticky note on it once to cover up the “not-so-private” private parts. Dad thought it was hysterically funny and called the whole family in to look. I had never been so embarrassed in my whole life. I find it annoying being in Dad’s study sometimes because it’s so untidy and I am dying to clear up, but he won’t let me touch a thing.
“It’s my room,” he says. “And I have my own system.” It’s weird, Virgos and Geminis might both have the same ruling planet but as star signs go, they are sooooo different. Virgos like things neat.
“Here, take a look at this,” said Dad, and he beckoned me over to his shelf where he heaved down one of his ancient books. When it thudded onto his desk, a cloud of dust blew up and made me sneeze.
“A-chOOOOOOO! Honestly Dad, one day I’m going to sneak in here with a feather duster and a face mask and give the place a good clean!”
“You dare. I like it like this. It’s lived in.”
“A-CHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” I sneezed again.
Dad ignored me and carried on turning pages. “Ah, here we are,” he said. “I knew it was in here somewhere.”
I glanced down at the page he had opened the book on. The words Zodiac Girls were written in large, old-fashioned letters and were illustrated in different coloured inks with a night sky behind them.
“Let’s see what it says,” said Dad and he leaned in to study the page closer. “Hmm, yes, yes, ruling planets, we know all about that. The planets are here in human form. Yes, yes…”
I had seen this chapter ages ago because I loved to go through Dad’s books, especially the older ones. I liked the sense of history in them, the feeling that someone in some ancient time, before the days of spellcheck and copy and paste, had sat and written every word and even illustrated some of them. I remembered reading that there were such people as Zodiac Girls but I hadn’t paid it too much attention until recently when Dad had said that he suspected that I might be one.
I leaned over his shoulder and read: “Zodiac Girls. Somewhere on the earth, every month, one maiden is chosen to be a Zodiac Girl. This entitles her to:
1) A gift of jewellery to wear that is appropriate to her star sign.
2) A means of communicating with the planets.
3) The assistance of the planets who are all here on earth in disguise as normal people.
4) The ruling planet of each sign will act as guardian for one month only.”
Awesome, I thought as I glanced down at the list of star signs and their ruling planets.
Ruling planet
Star sign
Sun Leo
Moon Cancer
Mercury Gemini and Virgo
Venus Taurus and Libra
Mars Aries
Jupiter Sagittarius
Saturn Capricorn
Uranus Aquarius
Neptune Pisces
Pluto Scorpio
“You know the part about the planets being here in human form?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“What will Mercury be here as?”
Dad looked at the book. “Hmm, Mercury, the winged messenger. Well your guess is as good as mine.” He flipped the page over. “See, this book is centuries old so how he appears may change from age to age. He would have been something to do with messages and communication though I would imagine. How that manifests today, no doubt we’ll find out.” Dad pointed at a birth chart on the right-hand side of the page. “But look here. This is the chart of a typical Zodiac Girl showing how the planetary line-up will look when it’s her month as Zodiac Girl.”
I glanced down at the page and saw the birth chart on the page. To someone who didn’t know, it would look like a circle with a smaller circle inside it and lines drawn across it. To me, though – I knew at a glance what most of it meant. I’d watched Dad work out birth charts for his clients just about every day of my life. I’d never known a home that lived and breathed astrology so much. Like, most babies had cot mobiles with ducks or teddy bears or fish on them, I had had a mobile with the ten planets hanging from it. By the time I was five, I knew the stars as well as I knew my alphabet. I also knew that there was more to astrology than the horoscopes in magazines or newspapers. I knew that each and every person’s horoscope was different, depending on what time they were born and where they were born and where the planets were in the sky in relation to that. It was a real science, not hocus pocus as some of Dad’s critics claimed.
“Now, quick,” said Dad, “print out the planetary line for your chart for this month. I’ve got it up on the screen now.”
I went over to the computer, pressed print and a second later the sheet of paper was in my hand. I took it over to Dad who placed it on the left-hand side of the page of the book. We looked at the chart in the book and then at mine.
“Bingo,” said Dad.
“Bingo,” I replied.
They matched each other perfectly. Same line up.
Just at that moment, there was a knock at the front door. We heard Pat go to open it then a moment later there was the muffled sound of voices. Soon after, there were footsteps in the corridor and Pat opened the study door. She looked bright-eyed and flushed. “Er Thebe. Someone here for you.”
“Who is it?”
“Some motorbike messenger,” she said then she lowered her voice and whispered, “and he’s a total babe, like a Greek god in biker leathers.”
A tingle of excitement went through me. I smiled at Dad and he winked back at me. “Oh, I think we might know exactly who it is,” I said. “Erm… tell him to come in. We’ve been expecting him.”
Chapter Two
Hermie
“Welcome,” said Dad, doing an awkward type of bow-curtsey, as if he wasn’t sure how to behave with a six-foot motorbike messenger in his study. The stranger appeared equally unsure and looked around at the paintings and books in amazement. He was just as Pat had described him, about eighteen, maybe older, but a total boy babe with a handsome face, a chiselled jaw and a tall, broad-shouldered body. He reminded me of the statues of the Greek and Roman gods that we’d seen in the British Museum when we went there on a school trip – too good looking to be true, and yet here he was standing in front of us radiating health and charisma. I had a feeling that I was staring at him open mouthed and I made a conscious effort to close my jaw. Not that he noticed. He had seen the statue of Mercury and was staring at it in surprise. It did resemble him and I wondered how he felt about finding a statue of himself with no clothes on in my Dad’s study.
“It’s Mercury,” said Dad with a glance at the statue, “and I’m Benjamin Battye.”
“And I’m Hermes, but you can call me Hermie,” said the messenger boy.
“Isn’t Hermes the Greek name for the god of travel and communication?” asked Dad with a sly wink at me, “and Mercury is the Roman name for the same god?”
Hermie looked impressed. “Hmm, you know your gods,” he replied and then opened his jacket to reveal a T-shirt underneath with the words Mercury Communications written on it.
“And I know my planets,” said Dad with another wink.
“Really?” asked Hermie.
Dad nodded, tapped his nose and indicated the paintings and posters on the wall and the books on his shelves. Hermie took a closer look at some of the titles while I desperately tried to think of something to say, but my brain seemed to have turned to mush and all I could do was stare.
Dad pointed at the ancient book that was still open on the chapter about Zodiac Girls. “See this
Hermie?”
Hermie glanced over and looked even more impressed. “Remarkable. Absolutely remarkable. So… you know about us then?”
Dad nodded and Hermie’s face lit up.
“I must tell the others. It’s amazing. Usually we meet with such resistance, suspicion. People think we’re delusional or living in fantasy land.”
“Not here in Osbury you won’t,” said Dad. “We know the legends about this place and were hoping that you’d be back some day. I hope that you’ll consider Zodiac Lodge as your second home. We are honoured to have you here.”
Hermie looked surprised but delighted. “It is rare to find such a welcome so that’s very kind of you sir. Most kind.”
All this time, I’d been waiting for Hermie to notice me. I was Zodiac Girl after all, not Dad, and at last he turned away from his fascination with Dad’s bookshelves, pulled a parcel out of the inside pocket in his jacket and looked at me. “Am I right in thinking that you are Miss Thebe Battye?”
I could hardly breathe. “Yes. That’s me,” I whispered.
He handed me a package. “Then this is for you.”
I felt myself blush as I took the parcel and was about to open it when there was a commotion in the hall, and moments later the door opened and Mum burst in looking her usual elegant self in a navy suit and filling the room with the scent of her expensive French perfume. She took one look at Hermie and her face broke into a wide grin showing her gleaming white teeth (she’d had them whitened last month by a top cosmetic dentist.) “Oh lord. You’re here! And so handsome.”
“Estella, this is Hermie,” said Dad. “And Hermie, this is my wife Estella.”
Mum shook her head from side to side. She was still beaming. “Benjamin thought it might be today. I got back as soon as I could. Oh lord but this is exciting. Isn’t this exciting, Thebe?” she asked without even glancing at me. She couldn’t take her eyes off Hermie. “Now Hermie, honey. You know who we are? What we do? Did Benjamin explain?”
Zodiac Girls: Star Child Page 1
