Mimosa Fortune and the Smuggler's Curse Read online

  Title Page

  Mimosa Fortune

  And the Smuggler’s Curse

  Echo Freer

  Publisher Information

  This edition published in 2014 by

  Acorn Books

  www.acornbooks.co.uk

  Converted and distributed by

  Andrews UK Limited

  www.andrewsuk.com

  Copyright © 2014 Echo Freer

  The right of Echo Freer to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

  1

  You know the worst thing about talking to spirits? They never tell you what you want to hear - well, not the really important stuff anyway. For a start, it would be quite nice to know next week’s winning lottery numbers. I don’t mean so that I could win for myself - spirits never tell you things for selfish reasons - that’s one thing I have learned. But imagine how many starving children and homeless people I could help if I won!

  Or what would have been really useful was if the spirits had given us a hint that the guy sitting across the crystal ball from Wanda and me was a member of the Dutch underworld, trying to locate some hidden loot through the spirit of his recently deceased brother. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m not asking for a thunderbolt to blast through the ceiling, but I think a subtle hint along the lines of, ‘Hey you might think he’s been working his pecs down the gym but, actually, he’s packing a shoulder holster under his jacket,’ wouldn’t have gone amiss.

  But, that was obviously too much to ask, so there we were again, Wanda and me, doing a runner with the Amsterdam Mob in hot pursuit. And, to be honest (which of course, I almost always am) I’m fed up with running. If the Universe had meant me to be a runner, it would’ve given me sneakers for feet.

  Wanda’s my mum by the way. She hates being called Mom, or Mother or any of those older generational sort of names. She says it makes her feel old. Well, hello! Wake up and read the tealeaves! Not that she’s ancient or anything - in fact, Wanda’s quite cool really. But talk about Wanda by name, wander by nature! Over the past fourteen years I’ve probably lived in more places than most people could even name, but never for very long and there’s usually a string of irate locals on our tails when we leave. We’ve done all the conventional escape routes, like planes, trains and the odd ‘borrowed’ automobile - plus more than a few unconventional ones - such as the time we had to be rolled up in a carpet to dodge a pretty furious hotel owner in Istanbul.

  On this occasion though, Wanda had surpassed herself; she’d fluttered her eyelashes and managed to get us free passage - travelling zillionth-class, scrunched up under some very smelly lobster pots, on a boat that was smuggling booze from the Hook of Holland to Whitby in Yorkshire!

  ‘What a nice man! His name’s Teddy,’ she whispered. ‘She was smiling in the direction of a burly man in a sou’ wester. ‘I’m getting a good feeling about Whitby.’ She was trying to simultaneously to wave at Teddy and untangle the sequins of her headscarf from where they’d had got trapped in the mesh of a lobster pot.

  Personally speaking, I wasn’t getting a good feeling about anything at that moment. In fact, lying curled up under half a tonne of smelly fishing gear with leg cramps, sea sickness and the meanest looking crustacean I’ve ever seen giving me the evils, the only feeling I was getting was nausea.

  ‘Yes, I think this is going to be a good place to make a new start,’ Wanda continued, tucking her hair back into her scarf. ‘And of course, they’ll speak English, so you can go to school again.’

  ‘Great.’ I must admit I wasn’t totally over the moon about that. Don’t get me wrong; I love learning. I’ve always got my head in a book - when Wanda doesn’t want me to assist at a sitting or help her with the cooking or something. It’s just that all that formal education stuff’s a bit of a waste of time if you ask me. Last time I was in school we were in Barbados and, I’m not being funny, but who needs pythagorisms, or whatever they’re called? And as for all that sport! But, with any luck, Wanda would upset the punters and we’d be out of England again in a couple of months - preferably somewhere hot, so I wasn’t going to lose sleep over a bit of schooling.

  Famous last words! Did I say I wasn’t going to lose sleep over a bit of schooling? Well, rewind!

  I’d managed to put off enrolling at college for a while, partly because it was the Easter holidays when we arrived and partly because we were getting settled into our new cottage. It seems that for once, Wanda’s instinct had been right and Teddy, the trawlerman who’d let us stow away in his hold, really had taken a shine to her. And, even better than the free passage across the North Sea, (what could be worse?) was that he owns a holiday cottage that he wanted to let out, and he said that we could live there rent-free! The only condition was that we decorate the place for him. Wanda always says, ‘There’s no point in worrying about the future, sweetie, because the Universe always provides.’ And, you know what - she’s never been wrong yet!

  I reckoned it would take Wanda a good few months to earn enough money to even buy the paint, so I felt fairly sure that we’d be here for a while - clientele permitting! After years of squatting in condemned caravans and derelict barges, what a relief that would be; to stay put - in a proper house, with a proper bed, a proper flushing toilet and a roof that didn’t think it was a colander. And, as an added bonus, it was really pretty too.

  Whitby goes back hundreds of years and the Old Town has narrow cobbled streets with lots of little yards behind them. There could be half a dozen fishermen’s cottages in each yard, some of them built on top of one another and our cottage was one of those. It was down a little alley that led to a small beach at the mouth of the harbour and it had stone steps up to it with pots of geraniums all the way up to the front door. But the best bit was; my bedroom looked right out over the harbour, which meant I had the most amazing view of the sunset. I loved it and I was thinking that I wouldn’t mind if we did settle here for a while.

  Or so I thought! But the minute the schools went back, Wanda and I found ourselves standing in front of a woman who was built like a nuclear fall-out shelter. And boy, was she giving Wanda a grilling about my education - or lack of it. Oh my days! If ever an aura was in need of cleansing, it was Miss Basham’s.

  ‘And why has Mimosa been out of full time education for over a year, Mrs Fortune?’ She was speaking to Wanda as though she’d just crawled out from under a very slimy stone.

  ‘Oh, she hasn’t, and call me Wanda, please.’

  Miss Basham sniffed like she’d just trodden in something ucky. ‘So kindly explain her lack of formal schooling, Mrs Fortune.’ Uh oh! If she knew Wanda, she so wouldn’t emphasise the Mrs part.

  ‘I’ve been educating her at home.’ Wanda was smiling, but it was one of those smiles that had about a zillion volts behind it. ‘And, as I said, I am Wanda Fortune. I’ve nothing against men but I’ve never felt the need to attach myself to one and I have no need for a title. My marital status is no one’s business but my own...’ She looked over Miss Basham’s shoulder to where a load of certificates were hanging on the wall and added, ‘...Euphemia.’

&
nbsp; Miss Basham was standing arms akimbo like a Sumo wrestler in tweed and Wanda was squaring up to her. It looked like they were both cruising for a bruising, so I thought it would be best if I stepped in before things started to turn ugly.

  ‘So anyway, have you got a place for me, or shall I carry on learning at home?’ I tried to keep it light. ‘No pressure - I’m easy either way.’

  And that’s how I ended up in GCSE Science the next morning. The teacher was OK - young and pretty cool. He did his best to make me feel welcome. ‘Now, Mimosa, I don’t know how much of the syllabus you’ve covered in your last school...’

  ‘Oh none,’ I said fairly confidently.

  He looked a bit weird at that but he carried on anyway. ‘At the moment we’re discussing renewable energy...’

  ‘Brilliant,’ I said, because if there’s one thing I know masses about, it’s energy.

  He looked a bit happier. ‘Would you like to tell us what you know?’

  Would I? ‘OK, well, Reiki is renewable energy for a start.’ I noticed the guy was looking a bit confused. ‘I mean, it comes straight from the Universe and the Universe is infinite, right?’ His eyes were screwed up, like he didn’t understand what I was talking about. ‘And instead of draining the healer it actually energises the person giving the Reiki, so, in a way, Reiki is the ultimate renewable energy.’ I thought I’d acquitted myself pretty well to say it was my first day. Then I added, ‘I was the youngest Reiki Master ever when I was attuned.’

  ‘That’s ...er... interesting, Mimosa. But we were actually discussing geothermal energy and its impact on the environment.’

  Woops! But that was cool too. ‘Oh, I know masses about that as well. I used to live right next to a geothermal spa when I was in Iceland and, come to think of it, when we lived in Japan too. And, actually, we lived rough in Yellowstone National Park for a while when I was a baby, not far from Old Faithful, that massive geyser. But I don’t really remember that very well - not without being regressed, anyway.’

  I looked round and everyone in the class was staring at me - I was thinking, maybe I shouldn’t have shown off with the whole youngest Reiki Master thing. Oh well, what the heck! As Wanda always says, ‘Let your light shine, sweetie and you’ll give other people permission to let theirs shine too.’

  There was only one boy in the whole class who wasn’t gawping at me like I’d just been beamed down from the mother ship. Kameran, he said his name was and he was smiling at me in this really friendly way - not flirty or anything, just really sweet. I don’t often stick around long enough to do the making-friends thing, so I smiled back. They always say that boys and girls can’t be friends because the whole lurve thing gets in the way, but I don’t think that’s true. Although, to be honest, I wasn’t really sure how friendships worked, but I was getting a nice energy from Kameran so I was up for giving it a go.

  2

  I knew my first instinct about education was right: talk about regimented! I was expected to dress up in a uniform that made me look exactly like everyone else. In loads of the schools I’ve been to students have been allowed a bit of creativity and personal expression in their clothes, but not here! I hate uniforms, they’re so militaristic and they suck the flair and individuality out of anyone - but that’s just me having my little soap-box moment!

  There’d also been a couple of sticky incidents with the teachers in the first week. In English, Mrs Mitchell asked us to write an essay on To Kill a Mocking Bird - but my argument that it’s never acceptable to take the life of another living creature, didn’t seem to be what she had in mind. I ended up doing a detention - which, actually didn’t turn out so bad because she said I had to use it to familiarise myself with the book. A whole hour to sit and read! You see, the Universe knows what it’s doing.

  Plus, Wanda had acquired an old bike for me to get around on, but college was at the top of this whacking great big hill and there was no way I was going to cycle up that in a morning. In fact it’d taken me so long to push it up there, I’d been late every day and had ended up having an unpleasant encounter of the military junta kind with Miss Basham. So, all in all, I was relieved when it was Friday. And I’d been really looking forward to the downhill ride after school. I’d even bought a couple of those kiddie’s windmills to stick in the basket on the front so that they’d spin round as I went whizzing along.

  ‘Hey, Mimosa! Wait!’ It was Kameran calling after me.

  He’d been really sweet all week. Two girls in my tutor group, Milly and Amanpreet, had been assigned to showing me round and Kameran had asked if he could join them. So, I’d got to know him a little bit but even so, I was surprised to see him running across the grass towards me on a Friday afternoon. He was still in his basketball kit and a group of girls by the wall were practically dribbling as he ran past them.

  ‘Hi,’ he said to me. ‘Do you mind if I walk with you?’

  What a dilemma - the chance to build a friendship or five minutes of free-flow exhilaration? ‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘Normally, I’d say yes, but I have a hill to freewheel down.’ He looked a bit disappointed, so I added. ‘But maybe we could walk half way.’

  ‘Thanks,’ he smiled. ‘Hey, listen - Milly Ventress says that you told them in RE that you can read tarots. Is that true?’

  ‘Of course it’s true!’ I was a bit cheesed off that he had to even ask. I mean, why would I lie about it? Especially the way that old fossil Miss Devine practically had one of those appo-plastic fits, or whatever they’re called. ‘The occult, the occult!’ she started wailing, the minute I got out my cards. ‘I will not tolerate devil worship in my lessons.’ I did tell her that she needn’t have worried because I don’t believe in any sort of worship, but that just seemed to make her worse. Two girls had to carry her out to the medical room to recover. Anyway, Miss Basham thinks it’s probably best if I don’t take RE as one of my options now, which is fine by me - if option is supposed to mean choice, then it wasn’t one of my options anyway. In fact this whole going to school thing, is definitely not my option at all, but there you go!

  ‘Would you read my tarots?’ Kameran asked.

  Phew, what a relief - at last, someone who was open-minded. ‘Sure. I charge thirty Euros for a full reading but I could do you a short one for ten.’

  He did a quick calculation then said, ‘That’s about six pounds seventy-one pence. Will you do it for a fiver?’

  Hmmm - nice negotiation! I grew up bartering in the bazaars of Marrakech - until Wanda and I had to make a hasty exit across the desert on camels one night - so I was impressed with Kameran’s easy bargaining. ‘Six pounds, to stay as near to the original price as possible but I’m rounding it down to keep the math simple,’ I replied.

  He grinned at me. ‘A fiver for me and I’ll drum up more clients in school and you can charge them six quid a piece?’

  Quite the entrepreneur! ‘Done!’ And we shook hands.

  ‘Excellent! Can I come round tonight?’

  I wrote the address of our cottage on a page in his rough book and, by the time Kameran came round, I’d persuaded Wanda to let me use the front room for the reading. She’d designated it to be her ‘parlour’ but she didn’t have any clients that night. Anyway, it was so rare for me to have people round, I think she was secretly relieved that I seemed to be doing ‘normal’ teenage stuff. And I must admit, it was nice to have someone I could call a friend.

  ‘Cool sneakers,’ I said when he arrived, but he looked at me as though I’d just said something in a foreign language. ‘Your sneakers.’ I pointed to his footwear. ‘I like them.’

  ‘Oh - my trainers,’ he corrected. ‘Thanks.’

  Pardon me for not speaking the Queen’s English! I thought - but I didn’t say anything. I beckoned him inside. ‘Come through and take your jacket off.’

  I’d lit the fire and drawn the curtains in the p
arlour so that it looked really cosy. And I thought I’d got everything prepared but, when we sat down, my tarot cards weren’t there. Which was weird, because I distinctly remembered placing them in the middle of the table before I answered the door.

  ‘Hold on a sec,’ I said, leaving Kameran alone.

  Wanda was baking muffins in the kitchen. ‘You haven’t seen my tarots have you?’ I didn’t have to ask if she’d moved them - Wanda knows better than anyone that you never touch another person’s cards.

  ‘I thought you’d taken them into the parlour,’ she said through a veil of flour.

  Hmm! So did I! ‘Never mind, I’ll just have to use my Astrological ones.’

  But when I got to my room, the strange thing was, the little carved Burmese box that I keep my runes and tarots and everything like that in was wide open - and both my packs of cards were sitting right in the middle of my bed! I was sure I’d only taken out my regular pack.

  I did a mental re-play - open box, take out cards, close box, go downstairs. Nope - nowhere in my memory banks was there the tiniest recollection of putting both packs on my bed. Oh well - maybe I was losing my marbles as well as my tarots? Which is a little bit worrying because Wanda told me that Grandma Goodfox (that’s my grandmother on my father’s side) ended up in an institution for the criminally insane - something to do with a pick axe and an obsession with the cable guy. But Wanda’s almost certain it’s not hereditary.

  Just let it go, I told myself, giving my head a little shake - it’s just a few colly-wobbles because this is your first reading in a new town. And, of course, it’s always more nerve-racking when you’re working with a friend - if Kameran counted as a friend after only a few days. I wasn’t sure.

  And when I got back to the parlour, I started to think that maybe he didn’t count as a friend yet because he seemed to have done a runner on me. I was three hundred per cent positive I’d left him sitting at the table when I’d gone off card hunting and yet, hey presto, here he was - gone! Hmm! Now, forgetting where you’ve put your cards is one thing, but forgetting where you put your client is way more worrying!