Herculeah Jones Tarot Says Beware by Betsy Byars Page A

fear. She kicked, trying to shake off his fingers, but the puppeteer’s grip was strong. His fingers held.
    She kicked again—and again. He was as desperate as she. They were both fighting for their lives.
    Herculeah twisted. With her free foot she stomped down, hitting the puppeteer’s wrist. There was a grunt of pain, but he held her fast.
    Tarot, frantic with alarm, was flapping around Herculeah’s legs, adding to the confusion, raising her fear. She glanced down.
    In the moonlight she saw the knife in the puppeteer’s free hand. She saw him draw it back. He was ready to strike.
    Herculeah stomped again, this time with all her considerable strength. And this time there was a real scream and this time the fingers lost their grip.
    Herculeah took off. She ran around the house, across the old lawn. She took the fence in one jump and kept running. She flew across the street.
    As she came up on the pavement, she ran straight into something that knocked her breath out. It felt like a frying pan.
    â€œHelp me! Help me!” she gasped. She clutched the person who held it. “Help me! There’s a man back there—a murderer. He tried to murder me, and he did murder Madame Rosa. He’s got a knife. He may be coming—”
    She broke off and glanced in fear over her shoulder. The street behind her was deserted. “He’s—” She sagged, completely out of breath. Anyway, it was impossible to explain what had happened to a stranger.
    â€œI knew you were going to get yourself into trouble,” the woman Herculeah was clinging to said. “As soon as I saw that bird on your shoulder I knew no good would come of it.”
    This was not a stranger. Herculeah looked up. Lit by the streetlight was the surprisingly beautiful face of Meat’s mother.
    â€œAm I going to need this frying pan, or are you safe?”
    â€œI think we’re going to need more than that. We need the police.”
    â€œI already called them. I hung up on my sister—long distance from Chicago. I said, ‘I got to hang up, Tiff.’ I said, ‘That was a girl at my door, and she had a bird on her shoulder that gets people in trouble. I’m calling the police.”
    â€œI’m glad you did. Oh, it was just awful. I can’t describe it. I thought I was going to get away, and then I felt his hand grab my ankle—like that.” She made a claw of her hand and shuddered at the memory. “It was the puppeteer.”
    Meat’s mother went back to her original topic. “And as soon as I hung up after talking to the police, I went to the kitchen. My frying pan was waiting for me on the stove. I came out here and stopped on this very spot. I told myself I wasn’t going to cross the street again unless I absolutely had to. I wasn’t going a step closer to that murder house until I heard screams.”
    â€œI did scream.” Herculeah thought that Meat’s mother and her frying pan, her weapon of choice, would have been a welcome sight.
    â€œNot loud enough. You have to work on your screams if you expect me to hear you.”
    â€œI will. But the puppeteer screamed, too. Didn’t you hear him?”
    â€œI wouldn’t lift my frying pan for the likes of him,” Meat’s mother said firmly. She looked up. “Well, here they come at last.”
    A police car, blue lights flashing, siren wailing, came around the corner and stopped at the streetlight. A second car came racing around the back road, blocking off the alley.
    â€œIt’s about time,” Meat’s mother told the first officer who got out of the car.

26
    LIVING UP TO HERCULEAH
    Herculeah was still standing with Meat’s mother across the street from Madame Rosa’s.
    â€œWe ought to go in the house,” Meat’s mother said. “It’s cold. You’re shivering.”
    â€œI’m not shivering from the cold.”
    â€œCome on. Let’s go