“Hey Dad. How do you think the Sun is manifested down here?” I asked. “I forgot to ask Hermie who they were all here and what they did.”
“Oh, we asked him when you were in the kitchen,” said Mum.
“And you didn’t tell me! Mu-um. I am the Zodiac Girl you know, not you.”
Mum chuckled and tickled me under the chin. “Oo, you’s so sweet when you’re cross. Isn’t she cute when she’s cross, Benjamin?”
Dad began tickling me too and soon I was across one of the sofas laughing and gasping for breath. I am the most ticklish person in the world. “Just tell me what the other planets are, Dad,” I gasped as they let me go.
“Erm, let me remember. Okay. Hermie—”
“Motorbike messenger,” I said.
“Correct,” said Dad. “Venus. Now tell me about Venus, Thebe?”
I sighed. This is how I got to know everything I did about astrology – Dad turned every simple question into an opportunity to teach me a lesson. “Venus rules Taureans and Librans and is the planet of love and beauty,” I replied.
“Correct. And she runs a beauty salon in Osbury and in the evenings she runs classes in how to discover your inner goddess.”
“Cool,” I said and got a piece of paper from Dad’s desk on which to write the planet people down.
“She should run a dating agency,” said Mum. “If we meet her, I’m going to tell her. It would be perfect for her.”
“Er, Mum, I think they are here to tell us, that is me, what to do, not the other way around.”
“Says who? There are no rules. Did Hermie give you a set of rules?”
“No Mum. Do Mars next, Dad. And before you ask, Mars is the ruler of Aries, god of war.”
“Ex-marine, teaches classes in karate and self-defence,” said Dad.
“Brilliant, obvious,” I said as I added Mars to my list.
“See if you can guess the next one, hon,” said Mum. “Let’s do… Jupiter.”
“Planet of jollity and expansion rules Sagittarius,” I said. “Hmm. Clown?”
Mum shook her head.
“Caterer?”
“Close,” said Dad. “He runs a deli in Osbury. Venus is called Nessa down here by the way, and he’s called Joe.”
“Okay. Let’s guess for Uranus,” I said. “Rules Aquarius, planet of the unexpected and magic. Hmm, magician?”
“Again, not a bad guess, Thebe,” said Dad. “He runs a magic shop and a cyber café. He’s called Uri and he’s also in Osbury. I just knew they’d all be around here somewhere.”
“So who’s left then?” asked Mum.
“The Moon, Sun, Neptune, Saturn and Pluto,” I said.
“Saturn, the taskmaster. He’s here as a Dr Cronus, a headmaster,” said Dad.
“Perfect,” I said as I wrote that down.
“Pluto, the planet of transformation,” said Dad. “He’s an interior designer. Neptune, Lord of dreams and King of the sea, he runs a fish and chip shop and I do believe owns a couple of boats and takes tourists out for day trips.”
Our discussion was cut short by the sound of the phone ringing. Mum picked up and I could tell by the expression on her face that it was bad news. After a few minutes, she put the phone down and turned to face us.
“As I thought. Mattie and Norrece are going their separate ways. At least for a while.”
“What are they going to do?” asked Dad.
“Take a bit of time out to think things over. She’s going to stay with relatives in Jamaica. He’s going to an island in Greece to chill out and think about what he wants.”
“Yasmin going with her mother?” asked Dad.
Mum shook her head. “You know you can’t just swan off from school in the middle of term. Plus they don’t want her getting behind. They’ve asked if she can stay here. It’s just for a month.”
“A month!” I blurted. An hour with Yasmin here would be enough to drive me insane, I thought.
“Uh-huh. A month. So Thebe, hon, you got the biggest room so she’s going to have to go in with you.”
“Me? But what about the spare room?”
Mum and Dad both cracked up. The “spare” room which had been done out as the Saturn room was anything but spare at the moment. It was stuffed as high as the ceiling with merchandise samples for Mum’s business, plus anything else that we couldn’t place elsewhere – bikes, old toys, rollerblades, books, old clothes and shoes in black bin bags. It was like a charity shop in there and you could hardly get the door open, it was so full. Tidying it up and having a good throw out was on my “to do” list.
“We could empty it,” I said. “We’ve been meaning to make it into a proper spare room for months.”
“We could,” Mum agreed, “but she’s coming tomorrow. We’d never get it done by then. Besides, where would we put all the stuff? The garage is piled high too.”
“Why can’t she go in with Pat?”
“Because this is Pat’s GCSE year and the loft room doesn’t have space for another bed. Plus she needs space and quiet to study and you have a spare bed in your room.”
It was true. I had a bed in there for when Rachel stayed for a sleepover. I was just scanning my mind for any other alternative (like a tent in the garden!) when my zodiac phone bleeped that I had a text.
“Oo, it’s the Zodiamobile,” said Mum. “Let’s see. Let’s see.”
I quickly had a look in the hope that it might be some good news.
“Surprises aren’t always what you think, love Uri,” said the text.
Dad cracked up laughing. “Can’t argue with that then, can you munchkin?” he asked. “And Uranus is also the planet of the rebel as well as the planet of surprises. Now are you going to go all rebellious on us?”
Mum laughed too but I couldn’t join in with them. No. No. NO. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO, I thought. Yasmin coming to stay can’t be my surprise. It is my zodiac month. It’s supposed to be the best month ever. There has to be some kind of mistake.
Chapter Four
Room mate from Hell
Thebe’s list of things to do
Tidy room and get Mrs W to make up bed for Yasmin.
Put flowers and fruit next to her bed to make her welcome.
Call Hermie to synchronize diaries for my zodiac month.
Do homework.
Practise ice-skating.
“And that scraggy thing can think again about coming in here,” said Yasmin as she picked up Cosmo and shoved him out into the hall. He looked up at me accusingly and I tried to communicate by telepathy that I was sorry. It wasn’t my decision. He wasn’t appeased. He looked how I felt. Disgruntled. He padded off down the corridor towards Mum and Dad’s room with his tail down. It wasn’t fair. Yasmin’d only been in my room ten minutes and already she was taking over.
“His name is Cosmo and he always sleeps in here,” I protested. “It’s his home.”
“Bu… uh, I’m allergic, a…a…chooo,” said Yasmin in a totally fake bunged up voice. I knew bunged up when I heard it because I genuinely suffered from allergies. Pollen. Wheat. Dust. All sorts of things brought it on (although luckily cats isn’t one of them), and Yasmin was clearly putting the snuffles on to get her own way. She just didn’t like cats.
Next thing she did was to go to the wardrobe and pull out five hangers with my clothes on. She laid them over the back of my desk chair.
“But… but I already made some space for you,” I said as I indicated the free area to the right of my clothes.
“I’m fifteen. I have more clothes than you. Us older girls need more than little girls,” she said as she went back to her bed, opened her suitcase and turned it upside down so that stuff spilt out onto the mattress then onto the floor. She put a few things away and then she began to pile books from the bookshelf next to my desk on to the floor.
“What are you doing?” I asked as I sat on my bed and watched her.
“Making a line,” she replied as she laid the books out like the foundations of a bric
k wall. When she’d made a line from one side of the room to the other, she stood up and indicated the area on one side of the line. “Now this is my side, yeah?” Then she indicated the side with my bed on. “And that’s yours, yeah? No crossing over.” She then turned her back on me, threw herself on her bed and put on her iPod headphones. She was clearly no happier about the change in her living arrangements than I was, although earlier in the day I had resolved to make the most of the situation and welcome her to the house. I’d even been out and bought some flowers with my pocket money for the cabinet besides her bed and put a bowl of oranges there for her.
I don’t know why I bothered, I thought, as I made myself bite back what was on the tip of my tongue. I was dying to say that actually it was my room and she was my guest, but Mum had given me a lecture about how Yasmin’s parents breaking up must be hard on her and we must all be kind and treat her with kid gloves. I knew what kind of gloves I’d like to treat her with and they weren’t kid gloves, they were boxing gloves. I’d like to sock her right in her pretty lipglossed gob. Sometimes I even surprise myself with how violent my thoughts can be.
Suddenly Yasmin took out her headphones and turned towards me. “And what is this room?” she asked as she looked around at the décor. “It’s not normal.”
My bedroom was the Venus room in the house and Mum and I had decided that seeing as Venus was the goddess of love and beauty, that it should be the most beautiful room in the house. Venus is the second closest planet to the Sun and after the Moon it is the brightest object in the night sky. Venus is also known as the morning or evening star (even though it’s a planet!) so when we started decorating, I thought that it was only natural to go with a star theme. We’d painted the walls white, then all around the tops, I’d stencilled in stars. The lamp in the centre of the room was a silver star and the bedspreads were white but the cushions were silver. It looked clean and neat and I loved it.
On the wall between the two beds was a mural that my Auntie Francelle had done (she’s the artist in the family and had done a number of the paintings around the house including some in Dad’s study – and of course, she works as part of Battye Enterprises and designs cards and posters for Mum.) My mural depicted the goddess Venus with long hair curved around her body. It was actually a copy of a painting I’d seen in a book once by the Italian artist, Sandro Botticelli. It was called the Birth of Venus. I couldn’t wait to show it to the real Venus when she turned up which, according to a text that I’d had last night from Hermie, was probably going to be in the next couple of days. Venus and the Moon, he’d said. He also indicated that there was to be a difficult aspect, but that was to be expected with old grumpy boots Yasmin turning up. I really hoped that the Moon and Venus would come over in person like Hermie had. That would be so cool.
“That is naff,” said Yasmin pointing to the mural. She got up from the bed and picked up a roll of paper from her things on the floor. “In fact, seeing as some of the wall on which it’s painted comes over my side of the room, I’m going to put this over it.” She unrolled a poster of a huge red pair of lips with a tongue sticking out; underneath it, it said “People Suck”. She blu-tacked it to the wall.
“Nooo,” I said. “That looks awful there. Please. Be reasonable. And it covers up Auntie Francelle’s work.”
Yasmin shrugged. “So bite me,” she said. “Your mum said we had to share and that we had to be nice to each other right? I’m going through a life trauma so you’ve got to go easy on me. Right?”
She had me. “Right but… can’t you see it just doesn’t go with the rest of the room.”
Yasmin laughed. “Since when have you been Queen of Interior Design? Your mum said to make myself at home and that’s what I’m doing. Would you like me to go and tell her that you’re making me feel unwelcome?”
“No, course not.” Maybe I am being a tad unwelcoming, I thought and I resolved to be kinder. I knew I wouldn’t like it if my mum and dad were splitting up and I had to uproot and go and stay with another family. “I’m sorry. Of course you must have your poster up.”
Yasmin smiled. I think she knew that I didn’t have a leg to stand on. And then I remembered. I wasn’t alone in this. I was Zodiac Girl. The planets were here to help me for my special month. Maybe there was a message of support or some advice from Hermie as to how to deal with my new room-mate. I went to my desk (which was only just over my side) and got my zodiac phone from the drawer.
Yasmin immediately perked up. “What’s that?”
“Erm. A phone.”
“I can see that. Where did you get it?”
“Oh. Don’t know. It was a present. It’s for my birth sign.”
Yasmin nodded. “It’s cool. Could your mum get me one like it?”
“Doubt it,” I said, “and anyhow, you’re not a Virgo like me so one in this colour and the stone on it wouldn’t be right for your sign. You’re Gemini and—”
“Like I care one bit about that tosh,” Yasmin interrupted, “but it is a cool phone. Give me a look.”
I passed the phone to her and she pressed a few buttons and turned it over. “Doesn’t seem to be working.”
“It was working earlier,” I said and I prayed that she hadn’t pressed something wrong and broken it.
She tossed it back to me. “Not much use if it doesn’t work,” she said, and then she pulled out some small speakers from her pile on the floor. She plugged her iPod into them and the room filled up with really LOUD, head-banging music. She sat back down on her bed and gave me a smug smile. “Cool sounds, hey?”
I winced. “Not a word I’d have used to describe it,” I said, and I began to tidy up my side of the room in the hope that she might see my good example and learn from it.
Yasmin laughed. “Jeez Thebe, anyone ever told you that you’re like an old lady?” she asked as she reached out, took an orange and lay back against the cushions as she began to peel it. When she had done, she threw the peel onto the floor and began to pop segments of the orange into her mouth.
I stepped over the line of books, picked up the peel and put it into the bin under my desk. In response, Yasmin turned her music up even higher.
I looked my phone over and pressed the button that Hermie had told me to use in order to reach him. It seemed to be working again. I texted my message.
“Please help. Urgent. Cousin come to stay. Not friendly. What shall I do?”
A message bleeped right back.
“Mercury has gone retrograde. Hermie is unavailable at the moment. Call back later.”
Oh no, I thought. I knew what Mercury going retrograde meant. It happened regularly throughout the year, usually three times, but I so hoped that it didn’t mean that I wasn’t going to be able to get hold of my guardian on the very month that I was Zodiac Girl. That would be so unfair. Like winning the lottery but finding out that you’d lost the winning ticket. I went downstairs to see if Dad might be able to shed any light on the situation.
“Dad, Mercury’s gone retrograde,” I said as I burst into his study to find that there was someone with him. “Oh sorry, I didn’t realize that you had company.” Sitting opposite Dad was a man with a big silver-grey beard and a smiley weather-beaten face. He was wearing a sea captain’s hat and a smart navy blazer. Dad and he were drinking beers.
“Ah! Is this the Zodiac Girl?” asked the man.
I nodded and looked to Dad for explanation. Dad grinned. “Thebe, meet Captain John Dory.”
“Oh hi, Captain Jo –”
“Also known as Neptune!” said Dad.
“No kidding? Wow! Hi. I…” I went over to the wall and glanced at my chart. There didn’t seem to be any strong link to Neptune happening that I could see, and Hermie hadn’t mentioned anything about a visit from Captain John in his earlier texts.
“So how’s your time as Zodiac Girl going, Thebe?” asked the Captain.
“Oh. Fine I guess. Early days. Er… but I wasn’t expecting you. It’s not in my chart at the moment. I
was expecting Venus and the Moon. What are you doing here?”
Dad frowned at me as if I’d said something wrong. “Now then Thebe, all the planets are welcome in this house. It doesn’t have to be in your chart for them to pop round. Indeed no. Captain John, you come by anytime.”
Captain John raised his glass. “That’s good of you, Benjamin,” then he turned to me. “And actually all us planets affect your chart, Thebe, you should know that. Yes, some are more prevalent at certain times, but even those in the background have an influence. Now, as far as I remember, you have your Neptune in Capricorn. Know what that means?”
“Er… Neptune’s to do with dreams and ideals isn’t it? I mean you?”
The Captain nodded. “And in your case, you have very high expectations. High ideals.”
I nodded. “Mum always taught us to have goals.”
The Captain nodded again. “But make them reasonable ones, Thebe. You might find that you have to lower your expectations here and there.”
I nodded back but I was unsure exactly what he meant. Did he mean to do with my being a Zodiac Girl? No way was I going to lower my expectations to do with that. Why should I? Hermie had said that some Zodiac Girls let the opportunity go by and I certainly didn’t want that to happen. I wanted to be a girl who made every single moment of it count – which reminded me about Hermie. “So Dad, Mercury has gone retrograde. What will that mean for me as Zodiac Girl? Especially as he’s my guardian.”
“It will be for about three weeks,” said Captain John. “Mercury retrograde usually means miscommunications, misunderstandings of some sort, computers crashing, phones not working, things going missing.”
“In my case, it seems to be Hermie himself,” I said.
Dad and the Captain nodded.
“Best not to make any important decisions at the moment,” said the Captain. “Mercury is all about mental clarity, so when he’s retrograde, your judgment can be clouded. Still, it’s only for three weeks.”
Zodiac Girls: Star Child Page 3
