Nancy Clancy Sees the Future Page 3
“Before you came, I sent a message to Bree asking if she wanted company,” Nancy explained to Clara as she unfolded the message. “Oh, good. Bree says to come over now.”
They brought the cookies with them.
Bree was in her parents’ bedroom. She was lying on a chaise. That is a kind of armchair that stretches way out in front. You say it like this: “shays.”
Bree had a little plastic bag with ice pressed against her face. “Look!” she said, and lowered the plastic bag.
Bree had a black eye! Except it wasn’t black. It was purplish.
“Oh, chérie! I’m so sorry! Does it hurt?”
“No. It feels fine. I have to keep ice on it so it doesn’t swell up.”
“It’s a pretty color,” Clara said.
Nancy agreed. “It’s the same shade as that eye shadow Annie has. Purple Passion.”
While they were eating the cookies, Clara told Bree about Nancy helping her for the spelling test. “So the future won’t come true,” Clara explained.
Nancy’s cookie dried up in her mouth.
Bree looked perplexed. “What?”
“Bree! You were there when Nancy was telling fortunes, remember?” Then Clara smacked her forehead. “Silly me! I forgot. You weren’t there. It was at recess.”
Nancy stood up. “Um, Clara, maybe we should let Bree rest some more.”
“No. Come on. I want to hear.” The bag of ice covered half of Bree’s face, which made it hard for Nancy to tell what Bree was thinking.
So Clara filled Bree in. At the end, she said, “I better get going now. I have to bike home before dark or my mom’ll kill me.” Clara grabbed a cookie for the road.
When it was just the two of them, Bree asked, “How much money did you make?”
“A dollar seventy-five. Are you mad?”
“No. It’s not fair to be mad. I’m not the boss of you.” Bree split the last cookie with Nancy. “Are you going to tell fortunes again tomorrow?”
Nancy sank down on the end of the chaise. “I don’t think so.” She paused. “No. I’m not.” Bree was her best friend. She could tell her anything. “I was just guessing answers. I think my powers ran out.”
“You mean like a flashlight battery?”
“Yes, Bree. Just like that. Otherwise I wouldn’t have bonked you in the face.”
“But you didn’t know I was on the other side of the door. It was just an accident.”
Nancy sighed. “Exactly. My powers should have seen the accident coming and warned me. And they didn’t.”
Right at that moment, Bree’s mom popped her head in. “Sorry, ladies. It’s time for Nancy to go home. And Bree, keep the ice pack on!”
The next morning, Bree was back in school but Clara was out sick. That was a shame. Clara was going to miss the spelling test. Last night Nancy had called to tutor her on “fragrant.” Nancy couldn’t think of any trick to learn it. She just made Clara repeat the letters over and over. By the time they hung up, Clara had “fragrant” down cold.
Nancy, however, got it wrong on the test. She forgot the second r. Nancy hadn’t predicted she’d get “fragrant” wrong. She also hadn’t predicted it would rain. Otherwise she wouldn’t have worn her gold clogs. It looked like her powers were gone for good. Au revoir.
On the screen in the gym, a bunch of kids in China were flying kites that looked like dragons. Nancy didn’t mind being stuck indoors or sitting through the movie about foreign children. Because there was no recess, she didn’t have to make up excuses about why she wasn’t telling fortunes.
At the end of the day Mr. Dudeny reminded everybody about the words “intuition” and “coincidence.” “Dudes, find out what they mean and we’ll discuss them tomorrow.”
As soon as Nancy got home, she tried to look up both words in her dictionary. Neither word was there. So Nancy went downstairs to the living room and looked up the definitions in the big dictionary. Oh, how she adored long words—and “definition” was such a superb one. It was a long word that explained what other long words, and short ones, too, meant.
Frenchy had been sleeping in her doggy bed. Now she jumped on the couch and curled up next to Nancy. “Coincidence” came before “intuition,” so Nancy looked that up first.
A “coincidence” meant something surprising and unusual that happened just by chance. Bree’s parents both had the same birthday. That counted as a coincidence. Was it fair, Nancy wondered, for her to use that example in class tomorrow? The coincidence belonged to Bree, after all. On the other hand, two people could think of the same example. Maybe that counted as a coincidence too!
“Intuition” meant a good guess. Long ago, when the Clancys had gone to an animal shelter in town, Nancy’s intuition had told her Frenchy was the right puppy to bring home.
The phone in the kitchen started ringing.
Nancy heard her mom say, “Oh, hi! Yes, sure I’ve got a minute.”
After that her mom said, “She was doing what?”
And after that she said, “No! I had no idea.”
Nancy wished she could hear the other side of the conversation. She bet JoJo had been bad again at preschool. Last week JoJo’s teacher had called because JoJo kept hogging all the blocks in the blocks corner.
“Well, I’m very sorry about this. I’m going to discuss this with her right now!”
Ooh, it looked like JoJo was really in for it.
“Nancy!” her mom called loudly. “Nancy! Where are you?”
Say what?
“In here,” Nancy answered in a small voice. “Doing homework.”
Her mom strode into the living room. Frenchy jumped off the couch and skittered upstairs. Frenchy could always smell trouble.
“Clara’s mother just called,” Nancy’s mom said. “It seems we have a little situation here.”
A situation? That was never good.
“Yesterday . . . were children paying you to tell their fortunes?”
“Um. Yes.”
“And did you tell Clara that she wasn’t going to do well on a spelling test?”
“Not exactly. I said it was highly doubtful. But then I tutored her.”
Her mom just kept shaking her head. “Well, Clara stayed home today pretending to be sick. Later her mother found out the real reason. Clara didn’t want to take the spelling test.”
“But she knew all the words. Even ‘fragrant.’ I spent ages tutoring her,” Nancy repeated, hoping her mom might say what a thoughtful gesture that was.
“Clara woke up with a tummy ache. She was nervous because of your prediction.”
Nancy sighed. “I explained how it didn’t have to come true, how we could change the future.” She shut the big dictionary. “If you ask me, Clara needs to get a more positive attitude.”
“No. That is not the prob—” Nancy’s mom rubbed her forehead. She blinked and looked confused. “Hold on a minute. Are you saying that you honestly believe you can see the future?”
Nancy nodded. “I could for a while. I had powers. Remember the pizza and the call from Grandma? I said both were going to happen and they did.”
“Oh, honey. Those were hunches. Good guesses.”
“You mean intuition.”
“Exactly. Think how often Dad brings home pizza. And how many nights does the phone ring during dinner and it’s Grandma?”
“Well, w-well—I predicted rain the next day, and it did.”
“Which day? Tuesday?”
Nancy nodded.
“The Weather Channel said there’d be rain.”
Nancy spread out her hands. “But did I know that? No!”
“Yes, as a matter of fact, you did. When you came home from Annie’s, you sat in the living room with Dad and me. The Weather Channel was on. You described Annie’s earring tree in great detail and asked if I’d reconsider letting you get your ears pierced. Remember?”
Hmmmm. Perhaps Nancy did recall that part.
“The weather report was on the whole time. Even t
hough you weren’t paying attention,” her mom went on, “it must have stuck in the back of your mind.”
“Really?” Nancy sat back and pondered. Pondering meant her brain was thinking extra hard. So . . . her ears had heard things while her brain was half switched off? Did that mean she’d never had powers? Then Nancy remembered the coin toss with Lionel. Ha! Her mother couldn’t explain that away. “Mom, I called a coin toss right three times in a row. Are you saying that was only a coincidence?”
“No. It was luck. Odds. Every time a coin is tossed, there’s a fifty percent chance it’ll come up what you call.”
Room 3D hadn’t gotten to “percent” yet. “What?” Nancy asked.
Her mom reached into a pocket of her jeans. She got out a nickel and tossed it up. “Heads or tails?”
Lionel’s nickel had worked much better than her mother’s nickel. This time, Nancy missed the coin toss two out of three times.
“Sweetie, you can’t see the future. Nobody can.” Her mother put an arm around Nancy. “All you can do is work hard so there’s a better chance of making things turn out the way you want. That’s what you were doing when you helped Clara.”
Nancy leaned her head against her mother’s shoulder. Her mother always smelled a little like warm bread. It wasn’t perfume. It was a special mom scent.
“Do you understand what I’m saying, Nancy?”
“Yes. Mr. Dudeny said the same thing.” Nancy pondered some more and came to a conclusion. “It’s probably better that my powers weren’t real.” It had been exciting. It made her feel special. But what if she’d started seeing scary stuff that was going to happen? Nancy imagined herself running around trying to warn people about earthquakes or alien invasions. No. Not alien invasions. They weren’t real either.
Her mom smiled at her. She didn’t look angry anymore. Then she said, “So tomorrow, I want you to return the money to everyone.”
Nancy felt like she’d been zapped in the back with a joy buzzer. “No! Please don’t make me do that! Can’t I just give the money to a good cause? I was going to anyway.” Then Nancy added, “Well, not all of it. But some.”
Her mom didn’t answer right away.
“Please, Mom. Please,” Nancy pleaded. “What’ll I say? That I’m a big fake? Grace will never let me live it down!”
Her mom seemed to be pondering now. Finally she stood up and said, “Honey, you’re not a little girl anymore. You’re old enough to decide for yourself what to say.”
The next morning, Nancy and Bree met up at the corner. Bree was wearing sunglasses to protect her black eye and looked très glamorous. Nancy had a bunch of envelopes in her backpack—with the money she was giving back—as well as a perfect excuse. She had written a note that said:
It has come to my attention that no one is permitted to make money on school property. So I am returning your money. I have also decided to quit the fortune-telling business for good.
Yours truly,
Nancy Clancy
“You were right all along,” Nancy admitted to Bree as they walked to school. “I never had powers. Nobody does. All the stuff that I thought was seeing the future was only good guessing.”
Bree stopped on the sidewalk. “Okay . . . I have to admit something to you too.” Bree scrunched up her face. “I didn’t want you to have powers. . . . I was jealous. You had something special that I didn’t.”
“So you believed in my powers!”
“A little. I wasn’t sure. It also made you too different from me. That made me feel funny. I like us both just being regular girls.”
Yes, Nancy could understand that. “My fortune-telling ensemble sure was lovely. I wish you had seen it. I wore a long, ruffly skirt of Mrs. DeVine’s and a shawl and these big clip-on gold earrings.”
At school Mr. Dudeny asked everyone to wait outside the classroom for a minute. “Clara is almost done taking the spelling test that she missed.”
When the door opened again, Clara was hopping around her desk doing a little victory dance.
“I nailed it!” She came over and hugged Nancy. “I remembered ‘ear’ in ‘hearing’”—she lowered her voice—“and ‘pee’ in ‘peering.’ My mom says that seeing the future is crazy talk but that you’re right about having a positive attitude.”
Nancy decided to hand out the envelopes at recess. Grace was busy jumping rope, double Dutch, with girls from one of the other third-grade classes.
First Nancy went up to Joel. Joel was kneeling in the dirt. “Eight, seven, six . . .” he counted down. Nancy waited for his Lego spaceship to blast off.
“Joel, I have something for you.”
Joel wasn’t paying attention. “This is Mission Control. The third-stage rockets have fired. You are leaving Earth’s atmosphere.”
Nancy was about to leave the envelope on the ground, where he’d be sure to see it. Then something really weird happened. Nancy’s hands tore open the envelope and took out the quarter. Her finger tapped Joel on the back, and when he spun around, she held out the quarter. “I shouldn’t have taken money from you. I can’t see the future.”
Joel looked irritated at being interrupted. “I never really thought you could.” He pocketed the quarter. Then he went back to zooming his spaceship around and around.
Nancy told the truth to everybody. It turned out not to be a big deal. Lionel was the most disappointed. “Your career was just getting started!”
As soon as she got home, Nancy told her mother about returning the money. “Nobody was mad. And Grace doesn’t even know. I had this great excuse made up, but something stopped me from fibbing. Mom, it was like this invisible force came out of nowhere and took possession of me! It forced me to tell the truth.”
Her mom smiled and kissed the top of Nancy’s head. “I know about that kind of invisible force. . . . It’s called your conscience.”
On Saturday, Bree and Nancy ran into Annie at Belle’s Fashion Boutique. Her hair was very short.
“It’s most becoming,” Nancy said to be polite. She could tell Bree didn’t like Annie’s haircut either.
“Up till when I sat down in the chair at the salon, I thought I was going to get the hairstyle with bangs, the one Nancy predicted,” Annie said. “Then I changed my mind. This is called the Chop.”
It didn’t surprise Nancy that another one of her predictions turned out to be wrong. However, as they waved good-bye to Annie, Nancy told Bree, “I can make one prediction that I absolutely, positively know will come true.”
They had been looking through the jewelry case. Bree wanted to know which earrings Nancy liked best, and Bree would buy them for her birthday. Now suddenly, an “Oh no, not the powers again!” look came over Bree’s face.
Then Nancy said, “I can predict right now what I’m going to be next Halloween.”
Bree giggled. “I bet I can predict that too.”
At the same time they both said, “A fortune-teller!”
JANE O’CONNOR is truly a native New Yorker. She was born and raised on the glamorous Upper West Side and, after graduating from Smith College, returned to the metropolis (that’s fancy for city) to begin a career in publishing. Currently Jane works as an editor for Penguin Books for Young Readers.
Jane has written more than sixty books for children, including the bestselling Fancy Nancy books, seven of which were #1 New York Times bestsellers.
Jane is married to Jim O’Connor. They have two grown sons and a rambunctious canine (that’s fancy for naughty dog) named Arrow.
Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins authors.
ROBIN PREISS GLASSER, a former professional ballet dancer, has illustrated more than fifty children’s picture books, including the New York Times bestselling Fancy Nancy series, written by Jane O’Connor. Robin lives in San Juan Capistrano, California, with her husband, Bob. She has two grown children, Sasha and Ben, and a dog, Boo, who looks exactly like Nancy’s dog, Frenchy!
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Cover art © 2013 by Robin Preiss Glasser
Cover design by Jeanne L. Hogle
Copyright
Nancy Clancy Sees the Future
Text copyright © 2013 by Jane O’Connor
Illustrations copyright © 2013 by Robin Preiss Glasser
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
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ISBN 978-0-06-208297-8
Epub Edition © JULY 2013 ISBN 9780062082985
Version 10182013
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FIRST EDITION
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