The Magnificent Lizzie Brown and the Mysterious Phantom by Vicki Lockwood Page B

face. Suddenly, he jumped to his feet. “Lizzie, I’ve got it! We can’t change the past, but we can change the future.”
    â€œWhat are you going on about?”
    â€œMaybe you’ve been given visions so that you can stop bad things happening!”
    â€œHow?” Lizzie asked, flabbergasted.
    â€œThink about it. If something bad hasn’t happened yet, maybe it doesn’t have to happen at all,” Malachy said.
    â€œIf you knew when and where a robbery was going to happen,” Hari added excitedly, “you could get there first and stop it!”
    â€œYou could be a hero!” Erin said.
    For once, Lizzie was completely lost for words.
    * * *
    The next morning, Lizzie was ready for work bright and early. She looked at herself in one of the carnival mirrors. Dressed in the dark, formal clothing she’d borrowed, she looked like a mourner at her own funeral. She sighed. Time to go face Madame Aurora’s wrath.
    But the moment Lizzie headed for the fortune-teller’s tent, she started to attract attention. A clown smiled through a beard of shaving foam and waved. Women whispered behind their hands, and an old man blew out a cloud of pipe smoke and nodded knowingly.
    Lizzie picked up speed, but that only made people more excited. Now people were standing up, abandoning half-eaten breakfasts, stowing away borrowed newspapers. She heard someone call out, “There she is!”
    Lizzie spotted Nora’s red hair and strode across to her.
    â€œGood morning!” Nora said with a smile that spoke volumes.
    â€œDid you and Erin tell everyone about me having visions?” Lizzie demanded.
    â€œOh, we might have let it slip,” Nora said breezily. “Now would you look at that, you’ve got customers already.”
    Lizzie spun around. Sure enough, people were heading directly for her. A group of eight or nine circus folk quickly gathered around her, talking excitedly.
    A lean, brown-skinned man stepped forward first. It was Zezete, the man she had met taking Akula the elephant for her bath. “My nephew Hari tells me you have a gift,” he said.
    â€œHari too?” Lizzie rounded on Nora. “So the whole lot of you have been telling tales about me, have you?”
    â€œMy dear girl, it is nothing to be ashamed of!” Zezete smiled at her. “Such gifts are given for a reason, always.”
    Lizzie shuffled her feet. “I don’t want it.”
    â€œWhy ever not?” Zezete asked.
    Lizzie lowered her eyes. “I’ll just get called a freak.”
    â€œBut we are all freaks at Fitzy’s circus,” said Zezete with a wink. “You will fit right in.”
    Lizzie couldn’t help but smile at that.
    â€œSo, madam, would you do me the honor of reading my palm?” Zezete asked.
    Lizzie took a deep breath. “All right.” She took his warm hand in hers, and the gathered crowd looked on eagerly. She found the life line. It was deep, like a weathered canyon carved through rock. The moment she put her finger to the line, visions began to appear in her mind. She saw a blazing sun, men wearing turbans, women with brightly colored cloth wrapped around them, and cows wandering down the middle of a busy road.
    â€œI can see a town, but it’s not in England. There’s crowds of people, and cows in the street,” Lizzie began.
    â€œIndia,” Zezete said confidently.
    Lizzie gasped at the colors she saw before her — red and blue banners, gleaming gold on temple roofs, bright powder paint exploding like bombs in the midst of a joyous festival.
    â€œThere’s a celebration,” she said. “People chucking paint everywhere.”
    â€œYes, yes!” Zezete said excitedly. “Holi, the festival of colors. Excellent. Very good. Go on.”
    â€œYou’re a little boy, and some old man is touching your head,” Lizzie continued. “He looks holy.”
    â€œSwami