“Be Strong,” the psycho woman said

â€Å"Stuart you must learn to look on the bright side.† What bright side? I'm a sixteen year old lad and my cat has just died. Big deal you might think. But you weren't the one in the washing machine, spinning round ten times a second! Poor cat. Dad thinks I'm mad. That's why he sent me to the psycho woman in the first place. Well she's a psychologist, and ok that wasn't the only reason. My real mom had an affair and ran away with the postman. He just happened to be my dad's brother, that's all. Which sent me â€Å"Off the rails.† Or so they told me. I mean I'm not a train. I kept getting into trouble at school. You know, mixing with the wrong people, skipping classes at school, Stealing sweets, that kind of thing. Nothing really. What did they expect? Me to just except my moms gone and that I probably wont see her again. Plus the fact we wont get our mail delivered any more! No, I shouldn't joke about it. There is a bright side! I'm laughing about it already. I've just realised I come from a broken home. Prison here I come! That was four months ago, and dads already got a new woman. ‘Ginger Gill!' Bet you can't guess what colour her hair is? There I go taking the mick again. Dad said I shouldn't: â€Å"It'll come back on you one day,† he bellows. Anyway I have a right, who calls there kid Stuart? I hate my name. After thinking long and hard, I have decided I am a tiny bit crazy. But only a bit. Who isn't? Talking of crazy people: we live in front of a once nice green field, in Cornwall. I say once because ‘travellers' moved in last week. Actually they are gypsies, but ‘travellers' is the more polite way to say they are scruffy, no-hopers. I'm too cruel. Also, of course that's what they call them on the news, so it has to be more polite. I kind of got talking to one of the gypsy girls, whilst walking my aunties dog, Bessie. She's around my age (the girl not Bessie!) and quite good looking. But also a bit weird. She can't pronounce her ‘R's', which is amusing. She was telling me about her grandmother, Rose. Or â€Å"Wose†, as she pronounces it. She said Rose could see into the future, and has been known to predict peoples' lives. Very likely. She thought I should see her grandmother, as she could help me, more than any head doctor could. As if I need help. She was fascinating I thought. That's a lie. It was boring. She was boring. The only thing she said that remotely interested me was that one of her other ‘gypo' relatives, held the world record for the loudest burp. Now that was fascinating! It was when I got home, that I really took what the girl had said to me in. (‘the girl'-I didn't catch her name! Oh well, ‘gypsy girl' will do.) Maybe Rose could help me? After all I would like a few questions answered: Where is my mom? How could she leave me? Why did Casper (the cat) get into the washing machine? Why doesn't ‘Ginger Gill' dye her hair? There I go again! And most importantly, why is abbreviation such a long word? The next day, I wagged school. The psycho woman is really helping, don't you think? Anyway I paid my gypsy friend another visit. This time I was introduced to her grandmother ‘Wose'. I mean Rose. I suppose I hoped she would be scruffy looking, with a crystal ball and a glass eye. But no, she looked pretty normal. As normal as a gypsy can look. Someone stop me! She was in her early sixties, I would say. She had long dark brown hair, covered in hair clips and beads. There had to be over one hundred. How did she hold up her head? She had a deep, manly voice, which was freaky. Disappointingly, both her eyes were real. I didn't have chance to speak to her, as she had a headache, and went to bed. I'd have a headache, with all those hair accessories on my head. Me and Crystal, that was her name, I discovered, spoke for hours after. Today she didn't seem so boring and dull. She said she hates living in a caravan. Who wouldn't? She told me that her mom had died of cancer the previous year, and really missed her. Which made me feel stupid. I was upset that my mom had left, and the cat had died, well killed. She made me realise I should be grateful for who I am and what I have. See I can be serious. Crystal had arranged for me to visit ‘Gypsy Rose', for one of her fortune-telling sessions. I really didn't know what to expect. What if she told me my mom had become a stripper and was living under the sea? Ok, so that was not exactly going to happen. But she could tell me somethings I don't want to hear. On the other hand, she could tell me Casper is ‘cat heaven's' answer to Brad Pitt. Either way I knew from tomorrow, my life would change. Who knows? I might even find out why abbreviation is such a long word!