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Duncan, Lois
GALLOWS HILL
New York : Delacorte, 1997.
IL YA  RL 6.6
ISBN 038532331X
(I brought in a paperweight to use as a prop.)  It was supposed to be merely a paperweight.  A paperweight I used to tell fortunes at the Halloween Carnival.  Simply a prop while Kyra fed me information via her walkie-talkie and my earphones.  It was all just a lark until Charlie came for his fortune.  Charlie is overweight and the other kids call him Lard Ass.  He seemed likable, though, so I decided to give him a good fortune.   But as I’m telling Charlie about going on a cruise to Hawaii it’s as if the paperweight was filling up with smoke.  In the smoke I see Charlie at the top of a flight of steps.  A foot snags his ankle and he pitches down the steps.  It’s just a paperweight.  I can’t tell Charlie he’s going to fall down a flight of steps.  When I look back into the globe, it’s clear.  No smoke, no visions.  I rush Charlie out of the booth and close down for the night.   On Monday Charlie comes to school with a cast on his right arm.  He had fallen down a flight of stairs.  It was just a coincidence.  I couldn’t have predicted it.  But after Eric convinces me to set up a fortune telling business, it happens again, and again.  What sort of force is working through something that should be just a paperweight?  (Mary Huebscher, Librarian, Holy Cross High School, San Antonio, TX 78228 <marwood45@hotmail.com>)
SUBJECTS:     Witchcraft -- Fiction.
                        Extrasensory perception -- Fiction.
                        Reincarnation -- Fiction.

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