And This Is Laura

by Ellen Conford

  “No wonder you were so happy! It must have been awful lying awake the whole night waiting to find out.”

  Suddenly a shadow crossed her face and she frowned. She bent toward her locker and started fooling with more books.

  “Beth, what is it? What were you just thinking?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Beth!”

  She turned to face me. Her eyes darkened and she gnawed at her lip a moment before she replied.

  “All right,” she said finally. “All right. What does it prove?”

  “What do you mean, what does it prove? I was wrong.”

  “Once.”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “And you were right once. So far your score is fifty-fifty. How do you know which it is this time?”

  Jamie Arons sat behind me in homeroom. As I slid into my seat, still disturbed by Beth’s reasoning, she tapped me on the back.

  “Are you really psychic, Laura?”

  Startled, I blurted out, “How did you—” then stopped myself. But it was too late.

  “I happened to hear you and Beth talking,” she said innocently, “and at first I couldn’t figure out what you were talking about. But then it hit me. Laura’s psychic, I said to myself. That’s the most fantastic thing I ever heard.”

  The look of admiration on her face almost, but not quite, made me forget about Dennis.

  “Well,” I said vaguely, “it is and it isn’t.”

  “Oh, how can you say that? It’s absolutely phenomenal. Why, there isn’t one person in a million who can tell the future and here’s someone in my own school, in my own homeroom, with the Gift. Think of it!”

  Her eyes shone with excitement.

  “But I’m not sure I can really—”

  “Just because you’re not always right doesn’t mean you haven’t got the Gift,” Jamie said with great certainty. “I read this book, The Weird World of Psychic Experience—did you read that?”

  I shook my head.

  “It tells all about people like you. People who have precognition—” She stopped, seeing the puzzled look on my face.

  “Precognition. That’s ‘knowing before.’ It means like seeing things before they happen. Anyway, lots of times they aren’t exactly right. Nobody’s one-hundred-percent perfect, and you know why they’re not always right?”

  I shook my head, feeling almost hypnotized by her description of “people like me.”

  “Because lots of times they’re not sure of what it is they’re seeing. They misunderstand it, or they don’t understand it at all. And it isn’t until later, after the thing actually happens, that they realize what it meant.”

  I let this sink in for a minute. “Then you could see something and it would never really happen, but you were right anyway?” I was beginning to get confused.

  “Well, look, you’re not always right. Nobody is. But, for instance, there was this college girl who saw her boyfriend in a huddle with his football team and suddenly this giant, golden bird comes along and sinks his blood-red claws into her boyfriend’s shoulders and lifts him right out of the huddle and flies off with him in his talons.”

  “That’s horrible!” I shuddered.

  “Yeah, that’s what she thought. She was scared to death. She was so upset for days afterwards that she couldn’t tell him about it. She was sure it meant he was going to die horribly, or be in a plane that was hijacked when the team was flying to a game. So she finally worked up her courage to tell him, and he laughed and laughed. And she said, ‘What’s so funny?’ And he said, ‘Well, I had something to tell you too. I’ve just been drafted by the Philadelphia Eagles.’ ”

  “Good grief.”

  “Yeah. Here she thought something really bad was going to happen and it didn’t turn out that way at all. So you don’t always know.”

  “Well, that’s a relief,” I sighed. She certainly seemed to know what she was talking about, and it made a lot of sense. At least, if anything about this whole thing could make sense.

  “But what do you suppose,” I wondered, “that thing with the dolls could be?”

  Jamie shrugged. “I don’t know. That’s the whole point. I’m just saying it doesn’t necessarily have to mean something bad.”

  I took a big breath and exhaled loudly. I felt like someone had just removed a hundred bricks from my chest. “Boy, Jamie, you don’t know how much better you made me feel.”

  “Good,” she said. “Glad to help out. Now you can do something for me.”

  Even without that look of eager anticipation on her face, it wouldn’t have been too hard to figure out what she wanted me to do for her.

  “Give me a reading.”

  “A reading?”

  “Yeah, read my future.”

  “Look, I’m not sure how much control I have over this. I don’t know whether or not I can do it on demand.”

  “I know that,” she said impatiently. “Goodness, you think I don’t know that? All I’m asking you to do is try.”

  “Okay, I’ll try.” I really didn’t have that much confidence in my ability at this point, and I couldn’t help sounding doubtful. “But I can’t guarantee anything.”

  Jamie came home from school with me that afternoon. Beth was dying to come too, but she had to stay for an orchestra rehearsal. She said she’d call me the instant she got home, to see if I’d been able to read something for Jamie.

  Dennis greeted us at the door. So did the sound of the piano.

  “I can’t hear the television,” Dennis said mournfully.

  “I’m not surprised,” I replied. “Why don’t you watch in Mom and Dad’s room?”

  “Mom’s writing. She won’t let me watch there.”

  “So watch in Douglas’s room.”

  “He says I can’t use his television because I always break the channel tuner.”

  “That’s ridiculous. If he’s going to bang away at that piano—”

  I went over and tapped Douglas on the shoulder.

  “What?” he asked, without stopping the music.

  “Either stop playing that thing or let Dennis watch your T.V. You’re not being fair.”

  “Life isn’t fair,” Douglas snapped. He kept on playing.

  “Are you so wrapped up in your music that you aren’t even aware of what’s going on around you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good.” I walked back to where Dennis was moping and leaned down to whisper in his ear. “Go up and watch his set. He’ll never know the difference.”

  Dennis eyed me suspiciously.

  “Go ahead,” I insisted.

  Without further urging he raced up the stairs.

  Jamie giggled. I motioned her to follow me and we went up to my room. I closed the door, which shut out the sound of my mother’s typewriter, but only slightly muffled the piano.

  “He’s cute,” Jamie said.

  “Which one?”

  “Both of them, really. But I meant the little one.”

  “That’s Dennis. The big one is Douglas.”

  I flopped onto my bed and gestured toward my desk chair for Jamie to sit down.

  “How do you start?” she asked. “What do you have to do to see something?”

  “I’m not sure. I’m not very experienced at this.”

  “Do you go into a trance?”

  “I don’t know,” I repeated helplessly. “I think it sort of looks like I do.”

  “Well, do you want to keep talking or should I be quiet, or what?”

  “I guess let’s be quiet a minute and see if something happens.”

  I closed my eyes and tried to concentrate on Jamie. I waited. Nothing seemed to be happening. Jamie, Jamie, Jamie. I repeated her name over and over again in my head.

  I suddenly felt as if I was in a goldfish bowl. My eyes snapped open and I saw that she was leaning forward eagerly in the chair, gazing at my face.

  “Hey, read a book or something. I’m beginning to feel kind of self-conscious.”

&nb
sp; She went to my bookcase and grabbed a book without even looking at the title. She sat back down on the chair and opened the book at random. She peered down at the page, seeming to be absorbed in the story.

  “Jamie,” I said drily, “that’s My Golden Picture Dictionary. It’s Dennis’s. I don’t think you’ll be too thrilled with the plot.”

  “Oh, what difference does it make? As long as I’m not staring at you. Just pay no attention to me.”

  I took a deep breath and closed my eyes again. I began to feel terribly sleepy. And no wonder, since I’d hardly had any sleep the night before. Even with Douglas pounding the piano, I was more likely to doze off than to see Jamie’s future, but I was so tired I didn’t care. After all, I hadn’t made any promises, except that I’d try, and in my condition she could hardly expect me to—

  Jamie was dancing. She was wearing a floor-length velvet skirt in some dark color, and a white blouse. Her long, light brown hair was pulled tightly back from her face and held with a ribbon at the nape of her neck. I had never seen her wear it that way and it wasn’t flattering. Otherwise she was lovely. She danced with her arms out and around an invisible partner. She had a dreamy, satisfied expression on her face. She turned so I could see her in profile. On the side of her forehead, right near her eyebrow, was a big red “A+” with a circle around it.

  Instantly I was back in my room. I sat up on the bed, rubbed my eyes and frowned.

  “What?” she demanded. “What was it? Tell me the whole thing.”

  “I’m not sure I didn’t just fall asleep,” I said, shaking my head. “I’m really exhausted. But—”

  “But what?”

  “No. No,” I said, certain now. “I wasn’t asleep. I mean, it wasn’t just a silly dream. Because it was like all the other ones.”

  “What was?” she cried. “What did you see?”

  “It was really weird. I don’t understand what it means at all.”

  “Laura!” She seemed ready to leap out of her chair and pounce on me.

  “All right, all right.” I told her.

  She leaned back in the chair and wrinkled her forehead in concentration.

  “What in the world could that mean?” she mused.

  “I don’t know. It was so crazy. And the minute I saw the ‘A+’ I woke right up again, so I’m sure that was the important thing.”

  “Maybe, maybe,” she muttered. “And it was like a grade on a test?”

  “Yeah, like with a red pen and circled, the way the teachers sometimes do it.”

  “A grade on my forehead . . .”

  “Well, not exactly on your forehead, because I could only see it in profile. More like here.” I pointed to my temple.

  “Hmm.” She chewed on her thumbnail while she pondered this.

  “Maybe it means you have an A+ brain?” I suggested.

  “No, that can’t be it. That’s not really a prediction so much as a character analysis. Anyway, I have a B- brain.”

  “Maybe you’re going to get an A+ on a test or an important paper or something.”

  “Then why the dancing?”

  I shrugged.

  “This is going to drive me crazy. Here you actually manage to see something very important in my future and I can’t even figure out what it is.”

  “It might not be all that important,” I said. “Besides, I should be the one who tells you what it means. After all, I’m the one with the . . . Gift.”

  I liked the way that sounded! And I was beginning to believe that I really did have the Gift. After all, I was seeing something out of the ordinary, even if no one knew for sure what it was.

  “Yeah, but you’re new at it. You can’t expect to be able to figure things out right away. You have to get a feel for it first. But I’ve read so much about this . . .” She shook her head.

  “I’m really sorry, Jamie.” I felt disappointed.

  “Sorry? Why in the world should you be sorry? You were absolutely miraculous. It’s just a matter of time before we come up with the true meaning, that’s all. But you did it.”

  She got up and collected her books and her jacket. “And thank you,” she added as we went downstairs.

  “Oh, for nothing,” I protested. “I didn’t really tell you anything.”

  “Stop saying that!” She paused at the front door and looked me in the eye. “What you can do is not nothing. It’s the most amazing thing in the world, and only very special people are able to do it. It’s a rare gift, Laura, and don’t you put yourself down.”

  “Well, thanks,” I said, a little embarrassed.

  “Thank you.” I closed the door behind her.

  The piano practice had stopped. Douglas brushed past me carrying a huge sandwich and was up the stairs before I realized what was bound to happen.

  At the sound of the shouting I finally recognized a crisis in progress. I started to run up the steps. Simultaneously, Douglas came charging down them with his sandwich in one hand and a black plastic channel selector from a television set in the other. My mother emerged from her room like she’d been shot out of a cannon, and Dennis shrieked, “Laura said! Laura said!”

  “Just where the hell do you get off telling him he could use my set?” Douglas raged. “I told him he couldn’t. You know why? Because every time he does he breaks it. This is the fourth time he’s broken it. And he really outdid himself this time. Look at this. Look at it!”

  “Douglas,” my mother said. Her voice was full of quiet menace. “Douglas.”

  He whirled to face her. “What? What?”

  “Control yourself.”

  In the silence that followed Douglas took deep breaths and glowered at me. Dennis piped shrilly, “Didn’t you say I could, Laura?”

  “I did,” I admitted. “There was no place else for him to watch.”

  “You had no business telling him to use Douglas’s set when Douglas said he couldn’t. And you,” she said, turning to Dennis, “could have done without television for half an hour. And you certainly didn’t have to switch that channel selector back and forth and back and forth, since you know that’s how it broke the last three times.”

  “I didn’t switch it back and forth and back and forth. Douglas must have not fixed it very good.”

  “I must have—” Douglas started to howl.

  “And so for your set,” my mother cut in loudly, “if you can’t fix it yourself this time, we’ll take it to the repair shop and have them put a new tuner on, so you won’t have this aggravation any more. The discussion is finished. Now I’m going to start dinner and I can use some help. Thank you for your cooperation.”

  She marched down the stairs, giving Douglas a little tap to get moving. He looked dazed. He never seemed to get used to my mother’s bulldozer approach to family fights, even though he’d known her longer than any of us had except my father. She so seldom ordered us around that when she did, it always took Douglas by surprise.

  It couldn’t have been more than fifteen minutes later, while Douglas was grating potatoes, I was chopping onions, Dennis was peeling a carrot and my mother was hunting through every cabinet in the kitchen in search of cornstarch, when the phone rang.

  Dennis dropped his carrot and grabbed for the phone, jumping to reach the receiver because it’s a little high on the wall for him.

  “Hoffman residence. To whom did you wish to speak?”

  “Why can’t he just say hello like everyone else?” muttered Douglas.

  “You taught him to say that,” I pointed out, “back when he was a ‘cute kid.’ ”

  “We all make mistakes.”

  “It’s for you, Laura.”

  I wiped my hands on my jeans and took the receiver from him.

  “Laura, this is Jamie. It’s unbelievable. Sit down.”

  “What? What is?” Her voice was so charged with excitement I expected her to burst right through the phone and into the kitchen.

  “Are you sitting down? I mean it, you better sit down. You’re just not going
to believe this.”

  “All right, all right.” I stretched the long cord to the kitchen table and pulled out a chair. I sat down. “I’m sitting down. Now what is it?”

  “Mark Temple just called and asked me to the ninth grade dance.”

  “What? I mean, that’s nice, but—”

  “Laura, think! Think! Dancing! A+ on the side of the head? Don’t you get it?”

  “Oh,” I gasped, nearly dropping the phone onto the table. “A mark on the temple! Mark Temple!”

  Even if I’d intended to keep the whole thing a secret from my family, Jamie’s phone call would have blown it. You can’t practically fall off a chair, gape like a fish gulping for air, and stagger a bit as you go to hang up the phone without people getting a little suspicious.

  Dennis went right on peeling his carrot and crooning, “A carrot a day keeps the doctor away,” but Douglas and my mother blocked my path back to the table.

  “Now,” my mother folded her arms across her chest, “what is going on?”

  I tried to step around her but Douglas planted himself in front of me.

  “All right,” I gave in. “I’ll tell you all about it. At dinner. I guess it’s about time.”

  It was time. Now that there was no longer any doubt in my mind it was only fair that my family knew that I had the Gift. But instead of telling just the two of them, and then having to repeat the whole thing again, it would be better to wait until we were all together. I admit there might also have been something appealing in the picture of the entire family seated around the table, listening, fascinated, as plain, ordinary Laura revealed her astonishing newfound talent.

  “All right,” my mother agreed. “We’ll wait till dinner.”

  “But don’t you go running off to Tibet or something before then,” Douglas warned.

  “I have no intention of running off to Tibet before dinner, Douglas,” I replied coldly.

  The family was assembled, the pot roast and potato pancakes had been dished out and Dennis, Jill and my father were eagerly digging in.

  “Laura,” my mother announced rather formally, “has something to tell us.”

  It was embarrassing, being introduced like that.

  My father and Jill looked over at me, with almost identical expressions of polite concern. Dennis continued to stack slices of meat and potato pancakes on top of each other to make an imposing structure of food.