And where would she, Gina, be? What was there for her?

Maybe she’d better visit ‘Madame Bettina’ and try to find out. It was time to have some more fun. Maybe then she and James could compare the futures that Betty Travers and her crystal ball had invented for them.

CHAPTER TWELVE

‘COME IN, DEAR,’ said Madame Bettina. ‘Sit down here.’ She indicated a chair on the other side of the little round table from hers. The table was covered with a billowy cloth on which stood a crystal ball on a polished wooden stand. The little tent felt stuffy and humid.

‘Thank you, Madame Bettina,’ said Gina, entering into the spirit of the fortune-telling. ‘Do I have to cross your palm with silver first?’

‘No, love. It’s thrupence, that’s all.’ Madame Bettina indicated a pudding basin in which there were a good many thrupenny bits and Gina added one from her purse. ‘Thank you, love. Now, let me concentrate and the images will come before me,’ she said, leaning over the crystal ball and looking hard at it without blinking. She sat like that for a long time and Gina was impressed at her technique. Betty must have been practising, she thought.

‘What do you see?’ she asked eventually, unable to bear the suspense any longer.

Madame Bettina was frowning. ‘I see a journey.’

That sounded exciting. ‘Will I go far?’

‘Where you go will be different from here.’

‘Who will I go with? Will I be alone?’

‘You will never be alone, dear,’ said Madame Bettina. ‘You will always have someone special and very close to you looking out for you. Whatever you do, you need not fear that you will be alone.’

That sounded both comforting and perhaps a little bit frightening at the same time. Still, no one wanted a life in which nothing happened. And this was only Betty Travers with a headscarf on. The crystal ball looked shiny and solid, though; quite an impressive prop for a village fête.

‘Will I go on this journey soon?’

‘Sooner than you expect.’

‘Will I be rich?’

Madame Bettina gazed into the ball for a long while again. Eventually she said, ‘Your life experiences will be rich and varied.’

That sounded good. It was just a pity Betty wasn’t a real fortune-teller.

‘Do you see anything else, Madame Bettina?’

The so-called clairvoyant waved her hands back and forth above the crystal ball, as if wafting away obscuring clouds. Gina was amused: Betty had all the right mannerisms.

Suddenly Madame Bettina’s face changed to an expression that combined anger and anxiety. She looked up and fixed Gina with furious eyes.

‘What?’ gasped Gina. ‘Tell me what you’ve seen.’