{"id":127,"date":"2014-12-02T19:06:36","date_gmt":"2014-12-02T19:06:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dlakewriter.com\/home\/?p=127"},"modified":"2018-09-23T11:42:51","modified_gmt":"2018-09-23T18:42:51","slug":"evil-eye","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dlakewriter.com\/home\/evil-eye\/","title":{"rendered":"Evil Eye"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul>\n<li style=\"text-align: left;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/dlakewriter.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/603-evil-eye-cover-for-website.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-73\" src=\"https:\/\/dlakewriter.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/603-evil-eye-cover-for-website.jpg\" alt=\"603 evil eye cover for website\" width=\"235\" height=\"271\" \/><span style=\"color: #000000;\">When gypsy queen Madam LaRue arrives in Santa Christina, she wields a strange power to daze, then capture Nancy, and whisk her away to the secret gypsy camp.\u00a0 Eddie and Kathy must act quickly to try and find her, and save their sister from Madam Larue and her son Gaston.\u00a0 But first, they need to decipher the gypsy code, and overcome the gypsy&#8217;s mastery of light.<\/span><\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">[toggle title_open=&#8221;Close Excerpt 1&#8243; title_closed=&#8221;Excerpt 1&#8243; hide=&#8221;yes&#8221; border=&#8221;yes&#8221; style=&#8221;default&#8221; excerpt_length=&#8221;0&#8243; read_more_text=&#8221;Read More&#8221; read_less_text=&#8221;Read Less&#8221; include_excerpt_html=&#8221;no&#8221;]<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">A new poster hung on the big sign board on the front lawn of the Santa Christina School when Kathy, her younger brother Eddie, and the youngest, Nancy Keenan finished the day\u2019s classes.\u00a0 The poster\u2019s red and yellow colors caught Nancy\u2019s eye.\u00a0 The poster read:<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">Coming, October 1<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">The Great and Mysterious<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">World Famous<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">Magical<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">Madame LaRue<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">Learn Your Future<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">Cure Your Sickness<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">Enhance Your Life<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">4 PM at Santa Christina Pier<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHow about that!\u201d\u00a0 Nancy said.\u00a0 \u201cImagine Madam LaRue coming here to Santa Christina.\u00a0 Do you suppose we\u2019ll get to go see her?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Eddie said, \u201cIt\u2019s tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t know,\u201d Kathy said.\u00a0 \u201cWe\u2019ve got lots of things to do tomorrow after school.\u00a0 You know how Dad is about getting our chores done right and on schedule.\u201d\u00a0 Ever since their mother died, older sister Kathy made sure her brother and sister conducted themselves the way their father wanted them to.\u00a0 This was no exception.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt doesn\u2019t hurt to ask,\u201d Nancy said.\u00a0 \u201cHe might be nice and let us.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>When the three of them got home from school that day they found their father, the attorney Albert Keenan, on the front porch waiting for them.\u00a0 \u201cWhat did you guy\u2019s learn in school today?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n<p>Kathy said, \u201cI learned about prisms, rainbows and how they\u2019re made.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Nancy followed with, \u201cI heard a story about gypsies.\u00a0 They\u2019re really mysterious and exciting.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Eddie looked at Nancy, and grunted, \u201cI learned that when your little sister follows you around, all your friends tease you.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI thought what you\u2019d say was that you learned about the coming of the gypsy, Madam LaRue.\u201d\u00a0 Albert smiled when he said it.<\/p>\n<p>Nancy said, \u201cWe saw the poster outside school.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDo you want to see her?\u201d\u00a0 Albert asked.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYes!\u201d\u00a0 All three of them said together.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou can go.\u00a0 However, just remember that all gypsies are fakes.\u00a0 They put on a good show.\u00a0 They\u2019re very entertaining.\u00a0 But what they do best is make stupid and unsuspecting people believe what they say.\u00a0 They\u2019re very convincing.\u00a0 They\u2019ll talk the shirt right off your back.\u00a0 But in the end, everything they say and do is only to get people to give them their hard earned money.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Albert paused.\u00a0 \u201cDo you understand?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYes,\u201d they all said together.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou can go,\u201d Albert repeated.\u00a0 \u201cBut stay together at all times.\u00a0 They\u2019ve been known to snatch a lone child.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe will, Father,\u201d they all said at once.\u00a0 \u201cWe will.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI guarantee it,\u201d Kathy added.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">[toggle title_open=&#8221;Close Excerpt 2&#8243; title_closed=&#8221;Excerpt 2&#8243; hide=&#8221;yes&#8221; border=&#8221;yes&#8221; style=&#8221;default&#8221; excerpt_length=&#8221;0&#8243; read_more_text=&#8221;Read More&#8221; read_less_text=&#8221;Read Less&#8221; include_excerpt_html=&#8221;no&#8221;]<\/p>\n<p>The next afternoon Kathy, Eddie, and Nancy went straight from school to the base of the Santa Christina pier.\u00a0 Once there, they found yellow caution tape wrapped around a line of orange cones marking the area where Madam Larue\u2019s show would take place.\u00a0 A small crowd already sat or stood behind the tape.\u00a0 Kathy led her brother and sister to a spot in the front row to one side of center.\u00a0 There they sat on the ground and waited.<\/p>\n<p>A few minutes before four o\u2019clock a crane lifted a large white wagon with gold filigree from the bed of a flatbed trailer and set it on the pier.\u00a0 A minute later four coal black horses appeared from the back of a horse trailer.\u00a0 A man hitched the horses to the wagon, and parked it at a spot by the rope.\u00a0 The Keenan\u2019s found themselves sitting next to the wagon\u2019s left front wheel.<\/p>\n<p>After a short wait, a gypsy man dressed in a white shirt with billowing sleeves, purple pants, polished high boots, and a red bandana on his head, emerged from the front door of the wagon.\u00a0 He carried a gold cane in his right hand.\u00a0 After carefully surveying the crowd twice, he pointed at Nancy with his gold cane.\u00a0 \u201cYou there,\u201d he said.\u00a0 \u201cMove back away from the tape.\u00a0 The machine goes there.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Nancy inched back.\u00a0 Her brother, sister, and all the others nearby moved back a foot or two.<\/p>\n<p>The gypsy then reached into the wagon and brought out a piece of furniture that Eddie thought looked like a small science lab table.\u00a0 On top of it sat an odd shaped candle, several scientific looking clamps, and what looked like the eye piece from a microscope.<\/p>\n<p>The gypsy and an assistant then descended to the ground carrying the table.\u00a0 They set it on the ground next Nancy, and then he busied themselves attaching polished pieces of glass to the clamps.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cLook there, aren\u2019t those pieces of glass lenses and prisms?\u201d\u00a0 Kathy asked.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYes,\u201d said Eddie.\u00a0 \u201cThey\u2019re just like the ones our science teacher, Mister Caverretta, showed us.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHush,\u201d Nancy hissed.\u00a0 \u201cI can\u2019t hear what the man is saying.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Once attached, the gypsy carefully checked each lens and prism.\u00a0 While he did, he recited over and over and over again:<\/p>\n<p>Blue in the eye,<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Red on the forehead,<\/li>\n<li>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Your mind is mine.<\/li>\n<li>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Red in the eye,<\/li>\n<li>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Blue on the forehead,<\/li>\n<li>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Your mind is yours.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Nancy asked, \u201cI wonder what it means?\u201d<br \/>\nKathy shook her head and said, \u201cI\u2019m sure we\u2019ll find out soon enough.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>A short time later the man lit the candle.\u00a0 Its orange-white glow made it nearly invisible in the afternoon sunlight.\u00a0 The gypsy then set a white sheet of paper by the eye piece, and made a few small adjustments to the lenses and prisms.\u00a0 When he saw a blue spot and a red spot appear on the paper he smiled and said, \u201cGood.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He then turned a lever.\u00a0 The blue and red spots moved over the surface of the paper.\u00a0 \u201cVery good,\u201d he said with a chuckle.<\/p>\n<p>The man then climbed up on the wagon. \u00a0With a great show of his puffy sleeves, swept the gold cane slowly from side to side, and waited for the crowd to fall silent.\u00a0 When it finally did, he roared in a deep voice, \u201cLadies and gentlemen, boys and girls, I present to you the great Madame LaRue!\u201d[\/toggle]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When gypsy queen Madam LaRue arrives in Santa Christina, she wields a strange power to daze, then capture Nancy, and whisk her away to the secret gypsy camp.\u00a0 Eddie and Kathy must act quickly to try and find her, and save their sister from Madam Larue and her son Gaston.\u00a0 But first, they need to 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