The Prediction

THE CAST:
Ok, well I can see certain people playing these parts I suppose.
Jo: Lindsay Lohan
Mel: Rachel McAdams
Brad: See, I get stuck at Brad. I cant think of anyone! lol



Jo opened the newspaper and turned straight to the horoscope page. She found the prediction for Libra and read it eagerly. She had been obsessed with horoscopes for as long as her friends could remember. She even kept a scrapbook full of them.

Jo always followed their advice to the letter. If they warned of a bad day to come, she would stay home. Her grades at college had suffered because of it, but Jo was blind to any negative effect they may have had on her life. Her boyfriend, Brad, hated the things, yet still she wouldn’t give them up.

She smiled to herself as she read the prediction for that day. It told her that someone special would play a big part in her day.

‘It must mean Brad!’ she cried out happily. Even though they hadn’t made plans to meet that day, Jo wasn’t surprised when the doorbell chimed and her mother called upstairs to tell her Brad was there. She bounced down the stairs with a big smile on her face.

‘Hi you! I knew you were coming!’ she giggled.

‘Huh? How come?’ Brad walked over to her and planted a kiss on her forehead affectionately, returning her smile.

‘My horoscope told me so!’ she replied. Brad’s face darkened.

‘Honey, I’ve told you before. Those horoscopes are a load of rubbish!’

Jo knew it was pointless arguing with him on the subject. But she also knew she was right.

‘Anyway, I called by because I wanted to see if you fancied going for a milkshake later. I got the night off work.’

‘That would be great! Pick me up at seven?’

Brad nodded in agreement, and gave her a quick hug. ‘Ok, well I gotta run now, but I’ll see you later. Be ready on time, too!’

Jo giggled. Her ability to be fifteen minutes late anywhere she went was notorious.

It was four pm when her phone rang. Jo was sitting on her bed, painting her toenails. She reached for the receiver and said hello.

‘Hi Jo! It’s me, Mel.’ Mel and Jo had been best friends since they were tiny.

‘Hi Mel! How’s things?’

‘Oh, fine. Just wondered if you wanted to maybe do something later? Watch a movie or something?’

Regretfully, Jo told her she had plans. They spoke for a while, before hanging up, and Jo went back to getting ready. Melinda was someone else who couldn’t understand Jo’s obsession with horoscopes. She teased her mercilessly about them.

Seven pm came and went with no sign of Brad. Her parents had gone out, so she was sat alone in the house. She toyed with the charm bracelet Brad had given her, which was fastened on her wrist. Her blue dress was getting creased as she sat on the sofa, paying little attention to the TV which was playing away to itself in the corner.

Thirsty, Jo wandered into the kitchen to get a drink. Sat on the worktop was a pile of un-opened mail. She switched on the coffee machine, and leafed through the envelopes as she waited for it to filter. One envelope carried her name. It was handwritten and had no stamp. Not even an address. It just said ‘JO’ on the front in big, black lettering. Curious, she ripped it open.

The single piece of paper inside made Jo stumble backwards with shock. Each letter had been cut from a newspaper, and glued down. They spelt out a horrible message. ‘ROSES ARE RED, VILOETS ARE BLUE. I PREDICT……. DEATH FOR YOU!’

Terrified and confused, Jo stumbled to the door, grabbing her car keys as she went. ‘who would do this?’ she thought to herself, as she staggered down the path to the garage. She decided to make her way to the café her and Brad always went to. Maybe, just maybe, he had gotten confused and was waiting for her there, instead of coming to pick her up.

The café was only a ten minute drive from her house. She pulled up outside the doors just as her mobile phone started beeping. She had a text message.

SORRY BABE, CANT MAKE IT TONIGHT. GOTTA GO TO WORK AFTER ALL. WILL MAKE IT UP TO U. XX B.

Panic filled her mind as she read the message. She desperately needed to see a friendly face after the note she had received. Her eyes darted around as she thought frantically of some other place to go. A couple, getting up from a table inside the café caught her eye. Brad! With a dark haired, pretty girl! And he had his arm around her shoulders! Without a second thought, Jo pulled away from the curb, tyres squealing as she went.

Inside the café, Brad and the girl laughed as they stood up to get their coats.

‘It’s been so great today! I really enjoyed getting to know you. And thanks for helping me pick out that gift for Jo. She’s gonna love it!’

‘That’s Ok, I had fun too! I hope I get to meet her next time I visit. It’ll be nice to get to know her, too.’

Brad had received a call that afternoon to say that his cousin Pam was in town for the night. They had grown up on opposite ends of the world, so he had jumped at the chance of getting to know her a bit, as she was planning on moving to the town at the end of the summer. He had told Jo he was working because he had taken the opportunity of having a woman to help him pick something out. He had bought Jo a ring. He was going to ask her to marry him. He couldn’t wait to see the look on her face!

They were snapped out of their conversation by a noise from outside. Looking up, Brad was in time to see Jo’s car speeding away from the curb.

‘Oh, Damm!’ He ran from the café, knowing what she must have seen, and what she must be thinking.

Jo sped down the streets as fast as she could. She felt dazed, and scared and alone. She was dimly aware of a car following her, but it wasn’t until she had left the town and was driving down a country lane that she realised it was Brad.

‘I’m not stopping for you, you cheating git!’ she shouted as she drove, not caring if he couldn’t hear her.

Brad kept as close to his girlfriends car as he could. She was getting very erratic, swerving all over the narrow lanes. He saw a signpost that turned his blood to ice.

CLIFF AHEAD

Jo hadn’t bothered to put her headlights on. She could barely see an inch in front of her. The lane was tree-lined, and very bendy.

Brad kept her car in sight. She turned a sharp corner, and his beams illuminated the sheer drop of the cliff in front of her. He slammed his hand down on the horn.

Jo was shocked by the blaring horn behind her. She noticed the edge of the cliff just in time to slam the brakes on. The car stopped inches away from the drop.

Brad squealed to a halt and leapt from his car. Jo had also climbed out of hers, and was stood with her back to the cliff, sobbing.

‘Baby, I can explain! That girl, she…’

‘I know what I saw.’ Jo cut him off.

‘No, Jo, you don’t! You think you do, but you don’t!’ Brad fumbled in his pocket. If he could just find that ring, he could show her, and she would calm down.

‘I know what I saw Brad! Don’t tell me I’m being stupid, because I SAW you!’ Jo was backing away from him now, dangerously near to the cliff.

‘Jo! Watch out!’ Brad flung himself forward, a second too late, as Jo’s foot slipped off the edge. She scrambled for a second, and something fell from her pocket as she disappeared over the side.

‘Now do you believe my horoscopes?’ he heard her call as she fell.

The paper from her pocket lay screwed up on the ground. Lying in shock, he reached for it with shaking hands and read it with mounting horror.

He didn’t realise Jo had loosened the earth at the edge of the cliff.

He didn’t realise until he was falling.

The next morning, and Melinda skipped up Jo’s garden path with a spring in her step. She couldn’t wait to see her friends face when she let on it had been HER who had sent that note the other day! She hoped Jo wouldn’t be too upset with her. She could be a bit forgetful, and Melinda wouldn’t put it past her to have forgotten that it had been April Fools day the day before.

‘No,’ she grinned to herself, ‘it would be just like Jo to have taken the whole thing seriously!’

Laughing, she rang the doorbell.