Orwell's Luck Read Online Free PDF Page B

insight:
YOUR SISTER WANTS YOU FOR A FRIEND.
    The next day, Scorpio was advised
YOUR MOTHER NEEDS HELP AROUND THE HOUSE.
    Each time, I did as I was told. My sister and my mother were so grateful for my small acts of kindness that I figured it wouldn't hurt to be nicer to them all the time.
    On the day I accompanied my father to the Saturn-Mart, my horoscope gave me an especially handy tip:
STUDY SCHOOL BOOKS TONIGHT
POP QUIZ TOMORROW.
    As my father was paying for his two-dollar ticket to easy street, I had a low-level brainstorm.
    "How much does a newspaper cost?" I asked.
    "Fifty cents," the clerk said.
    "I'll take one," I told him.
    "Why waste your money?" my father asked as he wasted two perfectly good dollars. "That's exactly like the one we have at home."
    "Maybe," I replied mysteriously. "And maybe not."

Orwell offers a clue
    Tap-tap-tap-ta-tap!
    The cat was waiting outside Orwell's door when I arrived and announced myself with our secret knock.
    "Scram!" I told him, giving the sly feline a gentle shove with my sock-covered toes. "
Sortez!
"
    "Take a look at this, Orwell," I blurted out the moment I entered his peaceful hideout. "Same newspaper. Same day. Same astrological sign. Different horoscope. What do you make of it?"
    The newspaper I'd plucked from the curb in front of my house carried the half-light, half-dark moon-that-can't-make-up-its-mind sign and warned me of an impending challenge at school:
STUDY SCHOOL BOOKS TONIGHT
POP QUIZ TOMORROW.
    But under the identical neutral moon in the newspaper I'd picked up at the Saturn-Mart, Scorpio's daily prediction was
STAY ON TOP OF WHAT IS HAPPENING.
    "I suppose they could both mean the same thing," I admitted. "But the one in the home-delivered newspaper is much more specific. I mean, under the circumstances, you'd have to be a complete idiot not to do exactly what it says."
    Dutifully, I opened my math book and turned to the appropriate chapter. Orwell stared pleasantly at me, twitching his nose.
    "Not that I really believe it," I added. "But, you know, just in case."
    Orwell craned his neck and yawned. His tiny pink tongue extended slightly as he stretched his upper body. He seemed bored.
    "I wonder how they do it," I said.
    Orwell stretched his forelegs until his paws touched the curled-up edge of the newspaper that lined his bathtub bed. He casually raised his right paw above the paper's brittle edge. With those cushioned, circular pads that protect his furry feet from cold and shock, he softly sounded out a signal.
    Tap-tap-tap-ta-tap,
went Orwell's little rabbit foot.
    Tap-tap-tap-ta-tap!

A taste of spring
    It was one of those late winter days where you'd swear it was spring. The sun was shining and a warm breeze had brought with it the aroma of a distant rain that never arrived.
    It was a great day to be alive and kicking. It was a great day to be outside.
    Strapped securely into my sister's pink umbrella-style doll stroller, Orwell watched the world go by as if he didn't have a single care in it. Trotting along beside us, sniffing excitedly, first at Orwell, then the trees, then the edges of the sidewalk, was the elderly family dog, hardly believing his good fortune at being freed from the dull routine of the house.
    Our little parade must have made an amusing sight, but I didn't care what passing strangers might think. I was following the instructions of my horoscope for this fine day in February and I felt like a million dollars.
    The morning after Orwell surprised me with his mastery of our secret knock, the message that appeared in my horoscope was
IT'S NOT WITH THE TONGUE WE SPEAK.
    You did not have to be a great detective to see that my messages were somehow being customized for my eyes alone. So when the next day's home-thrown horoscope suggested beneath a familiar smile face moon
WHY NOT TAKE YOU-KNOW-WHO FOR A WALK,
    I responded by saying, "Why not indeed!"
    What a sight we were! We ambled, we trotted, we strolled. The three of us paraded merrily