‘How do you know about that?’ Mirela lazily stirred a raspberry ice with a thick straw, watching it melt.
Samantha sat up. Why would Birthday know about yesterday? The whole thing felt like a dream to her, and it had all ended so abruptly. She’d been completely exhausted when their visitors had left straight after the reading. She’d gone into the caravan to pack away her cards, intending to find Lala and quiz her about what she’d felt in there, but it had been so hot, and so still. The next thing she’d woken with a stiff neck and the camp was sleeping. She hadn’t even heard the men arrive home from the horse fair. And when she’d tried to find Lala before they left this morning, she’d seemed always to just miss her.
‘Everyone knows the king went out to visit you,’ said Birthday. ‘You know how word gets around out here.’
‘Yeah,’ said Mirela. ‘From your crew.’
‘For real,’ said Birthday Jones. ‘But not everyone knows everything. There’s a little bit more to tell.’
‘Spill,’ said Samantha.
‘You first,’ he said.
So Samantha told her friend about yesterday’s events. Mirela interjected periodically until Samantha reached the moment they’d entered the caravan, and then Mirela and Birthday listened silently as she took them through her reading for the gypsy king.
‘You are a freak, Sam,’ said Mirela when she stopped speaking. ‘Just so you know.’
‘A super-freak,’ said Birthday Jones. ‘Give me a sip of that drink, Mimi.’
‘Whatever,’ said Samantha. ‘Now it’s your turn.’
‘Okay, get this,’ said Birthday. ‘You know how my Aunt Crina has a job in the palace?’ He took a big noisy slurp from Mirela’s cup.
‘Yeah,’ said Mirela, snatching back her drink.
Samantha said nothing. Technically, Birthday Jones didn’t know any of his real relatives, but he’d adopted his own family of sorts, just as she had.
‘Well, Crina was working in the kitchen when the king got home from your little enchanted picnic,’ said Birthday. ‘And he was not a happy fatty.’
Samantha bit her lip. Why couldn’t she just have done the reading the way Lala had taught her? What was going to happen now?
‘Is he mad at me?’ she asked.
‘Mad at you? Ah, no. The king loves you, superstar. He was mad at everyone else, though. Came in screaming about how he had to have you, and how Boldo the bodyguard had better get on it and make it happen. The kitchens got a call that he was on his way home and hungry, so they had a spread laid on, but Crina reckons he took the first dish she brought him and threw it – smash – straight into the wall.’
‘What do you mean, he wants me?’ said Samantha.
Birthday twisted his lips. ‘Um, you’re a big girl now, Sam,’ he said. ‘I think you can figure that out.’
‘Oh my God, Sam!’ Mirela sat bolt upright in the grass. ‘First of all – yuuuck – and second, what are we gonna do? Lala will send you away before she’ll let that pig take you.’
Samantha shook her head. Memories of the tarot reading snaked through her mind like the incense smoke in the darkened van.
‘It wasn’t like that,’ she said. ‘He wasn’t there for that reason.’
‘Tamas thought he was,’ said Mirela with a half smile. ‘He was pretty jealous.’
‘He was?’ said Samantha. ‘What did he say?’ She pushed herself up from the grass. ‘You tell me right now, Mimi.’
Birthday sat up too. ‘Um, it’s been real,’ he said. ‘But if you’re gonna sit here and girl-talk about Tamas, I’m out.’
‘No, wait,’ said Samantha. ‘Sorry, Birthday. We have to talk this out a bit more. Tamas said this guy used to be a criminal, and his driver came along with a gun. I don’t want to bring trouble to the camp. I want to figure out what he wants with me.’
Birthday gave her that look again.
‘Listen,’ she said. ‘I seriously did not get that feeling from him. You know how I’m good at kind of knowing how people feel? If anything, I think maybe he might have felt that way about his driver.’
‘Well, I have heard that,’ said Birthday.
‘You see?’ said Samantha. ‘No, when he was with me he was much more excited about the cards. But there was also something more than that.’
She chewed a thumbnail, pensive.
‘What?’ said Mirela.
‘Just say it,’ said Birthday.
Samantha looked away. ‘Well, it felt like there was more than just me, him and Lala in the trailer,’ she said.
‘What, like someone was spying?’ said Mirela.
‘Yeah,’ said Samantha. ‘From inside his mind.’
‘You think that someone was spying on you from inside the gypsy king’s head?’ said Birthday.
She just looked at him.
‘You know, Sam,’ he said. ‘I was hoping you weren’t gonna go down this way. You know the gypsy fortune-telling bullcrap is all just a show for the Gaje.’
‘It’s not bullcrap,’ said Mirela. ‘And you’re Gaje, in case you’d forgotten.’
‘I’m not Gaje,’ he said.
‘Well, you’re not Roma,’ said Mirela loudly.
‘Neither is she,’ said Birthday, pointing his chin at Samantha.
‘Would you two cut it out?’ said Samantha.
Suddenly, she reached into the grass for her sandals. ‘Don’t look now, boys and girls,’ she said. ‘Birthday, isn’t that your new bestie on his way over here with some friends for us to play with?’
She scrambled to her feet, sandals in hand. Birthday Jones snapped his head around. Running full-pelt from the market into the park, the blond giant and his Nordic clones were going to crash their party in seconds.
‘Let’s get the hell out of here,’ he said, leaping to his feet.
Mirela and Samantha sprinted after him.
The park led into a laneway and then a side street wide enough only for foot traffic. Birthday Jones ducked past a display stand on the sidewalk, but Mirela collected it, and brochures and magazines flew like birds into Samantha’s face. Her feet became entangled in the wire frame and she was suddenly airborne. But not for long. She crashed down into the gutter, palms first, chin next. She bit her tongue and tasted blood.
‘Ouch,’ she said miserably to Birthday, who was already standing over her, hands reaching down. She got the dimples.
‘Come on!’ yelled Mirela.
The shopkeeper raced out of his store pelting stale bread rolls and screaming like a steam train. While Birthday pulled Samantha to her feet, Mirela picked the rolls up from the laneway and, laughing, pegged them back at the enraged store owner.
Shouts from behind them sounded much too close. Samantha’s head pounded and her hands were on fire.
‘Seriously, Birthday,’ Mirela yelled as they began running again. ‘Why’d ya have to pick jocks as your marks? Couldn’t you have targeted a little old lady?’
‘That’s hardly fair, is it?’ he said. ‘This way.’
Skidding into the next street, Birthday abruptly jerked around a corner and into an enclave. ‘Up here,’ he shouted, running through a darkened doorway opening onto a set of concrete stairs.
‘Eww,’ said Mirela, halting at the foot of the stairs, her nose wrinkled. ‘It smells like somebody pissed in here.’
‘That’s because people do,’ Birthday called down to her. ‘A lot.’
He took the stairs two at a time, Mirela right behind him. Samantha managed them one by one, limping now, a hand on the rail for support. Birthday Jones disappeared into a room at the top and Mirela again paused at the threshold, hands on hips, sucking air.
‘Come on, Sam,’ she called down. ‘I’m not going in there without you.’
‘Hold up,’ Sam managed. Drums played at the back of her head and it felt like her jaw wouldn’t close properly.
‘You don’t look so good,’ said Mirela when she cleared the last step.