The Psychic

by Juliette Lynch, age 13
Juliette is a writer in the Bay Area. She enjoys art and lacrosse.

“The psychic lived in an old house on the end of a deserted street. Her house was 200 years old and was situated on a volcano. She never left her house, and she only drank herbal tea.”

The psychic lived in an old house on the end of a deserted street. Her house was 200 years old and was situated on a volcano. She never left her house, and she only drank herbal tea. She believed that drinking herbal tea would make her live longer, so she drank 20 cups of it a day.

After the death of her husband, Mike, she had gotten 60 hamsters to console her and to keep her company. Many people who lived in the village below her thought she was weird, but at least she had three patients that came to see her every day. Jen, Madeleine, and Lola had been her best friends and patients since the age of five, and they spent all of their free time together.

On the psychic’s birthday, a beautiful, sunny day in November, the three patients decided to plan a party for the psychic. They were going to bring her on a hike to the top of the volcano for a beautiful picnic. Once the psychic found out about their plan, she was furious they had planned something for her. She had always spent her birthdays with her 60 hamsters and 40 cups of herbal tea. This was the one time she had to be alone with her prized possessions and not with her friends that literally spent every hour of the day with her. She couldn’t go up to her best friends and only patients and tell them that she didn’t want to go to her party, so instead she just kept her mouth shut.

At the top of the volcano, after two tortuous hours of loud screaming and singing had gone by, the psychic said to her patients, “Ladies, ladies, listen up. I am very grateful that you have planned all of this for me, but something doesn’t feel right… We should go back. I am getting a vision of my hamsters drinking all of my herbal tea.”

“Nonsense!!” Jen said. “This is our chance to do something nice for you. Forget about your tea and your hamsters for once.”

“Please,” she begged. “Oh wait,” she said, “I also just remembered today is the day of the month when I must clean the hamsters’ cage. I have to get back immediately!”

“Come on, Nadia,” Madeleine said, “stop making excuses.”

“But I’m not making excuses.”

“You need to spend some time away from that old, smelly house of yours. You barely go outside. You only drink herbal tea, and you wonder why people think you’re weird.”

Nadia just stood there shocked. No one had ever dared to insult her love for her tea. Her friends had just crossed a line. That was it. Nadia had finally lost her temper. Her face became as red as a tomato and her eyes as dark as the night. She was determined to save the loves of her life!

All of a sudden, clouds came out of nowhere and covered the sun, leaving the sky gloomy and gray. The three girls felt a rumbling beneath their feet, and a giant cloud of smoke rose from the peak of the volcano. This massive gust of wind threw them off of their feet. As they stood up, they found Nadia facing them with explosions of lava surrounding her.

As she spoke, her voice cracked at the beginning of every sentence, and her voice had become much deeper.

She grabbed her least favorite patient, Jen, by the arm and said, “Jen, in your future I see you dying by being thrown off the side of a volcano.”

She picked her up and threw her into the magma. Next, she reached for her patient Madeleine and gave her the same fate as Jen. As she went to grab her last patient, Lola, she felt the ground beneath her rumble, and before she could take another step, the rock she was stepping on had broken into millions of pieces, and she was falling into the volcano. The last thought that crossed her mind as she was getting closer to the end of her life was a vision of her hamsters drinking her herbal tea.