The Book of One Hundred Truths by Julie Schumacher Read Free Book Online Page B

Jocelyn asked.
    I shaded my eyes and tried to figure out what she was looking at. I saw a store selling hermit crabs, a rolling cotton candy booth, and a lemonade stand. I was desperately thirsty. I tried not to think about the ice and the juicy lemons, about the soggy swirls of sugar at the bottom of the cup. “Are you asking about the hermit crabs?”
    “No. I’m asking about
her.
”
    Between a frozen custard booth and the turbaned man who advertised YOUR NAME PAINTED ON A GRAIN OF RICE was a fortune-teller. She was sitting at a table in a narrow doorway, filing her nails. Over her head was a sign made of tiny plastic silver coins that trembled in the breeze. The shiny letters spelled KNOW YOUR FUTURE .
    “Oh. I guess she’s a fortune-teller,” I said. “You give her five dollars and she looks at your hand, or at a crystal ball or something.” A smaller sign hanging from the edge of the table promised that Madam Carla Knows.
    “Then what does she do?” Jocelyn asked.
    “She probably tells you your fortune—you know, what’s going to happen to you. You probably ask her a bunch of questions and she answers them.”
    “What do you usually ask her?”
    “What?” I was still daydreaming about sugar and lemons. “I don’t ask her anything. I’ve never gone to her.”
    “What would you ask her for if you
did
go?”
    The fortune-teller had put her nail file away; she seemed to be gazing toward us. “She isn’t like Santa Claus,” I said. “You don’t ask her for stuff and wait for her to hand it over. You ask about the future. She’s supposed to know things about you.”
    Jocelyn looked almost frightened. “I know what I’d ask her for,” she said.
    A bell rang behind us. Two men on a double bike pedaled by. They were followed by a woman pushing an ice cream cart, a silver refrigerator on wheels. I wondered aloud if the woman might take pity on us and give us some water.
    “Do you want me to buy you something?” she opened her patent leather purse.
    I stared at her. “You’ve got money?”
    “It’s the change from the milk.” She climbed gracefully out of the basket.
    “That’s Nenna’s money,” I said. “But I guess she wouldn’t mind if we used it.”
    The ice cream woman paused beside us. “Can I get you two ladies something?” Her voice was gravelly and low, and she had a mole on her face that was shaped like a comma.
    “Do you have sherbet or Popsicles?” Jocelyn asked.
    “You don’t want an ice cream?” I studied the pictures on the side of the cart.
    “Ice cream is high-fat,” Jocelyn said.
    I looked her up and down. Some of the Grummans—Celia and Ellen, in particular—had what my mother called generous figures. I liked to consider myself medium-sized. But Jocelyn was a waif. She probably weighed about forty pounds.
    “Besides, I’m allergic to dairy foods,” she added.
    “They’re not good for my skin. I always have to be careful.”
    “You
are
always careful,” I said.
    The ice cream woman turned her head and bellowed as if she were in pain:
“EEEEiiiiice creeeeeam! Get your ice-cold-eeeeeice-cream heeeeere!”
    Jocelyn bought two medium lemon ices, tucking the change back into her purse, and we sat on a bench with our backs to the ocean. We peeled away the sticky paper lids and licked them. “I think we should go exploring like this every day,” she said, chopping her lemon ice with a wooden spoon. “We’ll borrow Granda’s trike and we’ll ride everywhere in Port Harbor. And we won’t tell anyone where we’re going.”

    Truth #20: Not telling anyone where you’re going is incredibly stupid.

    I took a huge bite of lemon ice and let it melt against the roof of my mouth. “We should have left a note,” I said. “We should have left a note for Nenna.” I took another bite of lemon ice, then pinched the bridge of my nose with my fingers. The space behind my eyes was tingling: I was getting a brain freeze. “Ow.” I leaned forward on the bench. The