Double Trouble (Zodiac Girls) Read online

  ‘Bella bambinos,’ she said. ‘Eve, Lilith, still in black? I despair. Pretty girls like you should be wearing colour, not be dressed like mourners at a funeral. And, Adam, so tall. Every time I see you, you’ve grown.’ She paused and looked at the house. ‘Hmm. So this is it, is it?’

  We nodded, stood back and looked at our new home with her. It was a white four-bedroom detached Victorian house, which was set back from the road behind a small front lawn with shrubs and trees. It had two floors with large bay windows and a sweet porch over the front door, and a large garden at the back.

  ‘What do you think, Nonna?’ I asked.

  She turned and gave me a conspiratorial wink. ‘I think it has potential. These old houses have good square rooms and high ceilings. I think it could be made very nice with a little input from the right people.’

  ‘Lilith and I are going to have our own rooms,’ I said.

  ‘I heard,’ she said, and turned to look at me with her dark brown eyes that never missed a thing. ‘And how do you feel about that?’

  Under her penetrating gaze, I felt myself blush and wondered if she could see how I really felt. ‘OK, I guess. You know, new place, new chapter.’

  She looked up at the sky that had clouded over since we arrived and looked like it might rain. She squeezed my arm. ‘That’s the attitude. Now, let’s go inside before it starts pouring down. I have a surprise early birthday present for you girls and a house-warming gift for you all.’ Then she giggled and winked at me again. ‘Not sure how your mum and dad are going to like it, but I think you will!’

  Adam and I both linked our arms through hers and set off up the path.

  ‘Hello, darlings,’ Nonna called to Mum and Dad who glanced over from the back of the van then exchanged worried glances. A visit from Nonna always involved some kind of interference as far as they were concerned. I couldn’t wait. I loved it when she interfered.

  When we got inside, we gave Nonna a quick tour of the ground floor then went up to the bedrooms. Lilith’s and mine were at the back of the house with the bathroom in between. Both were bare as the furniture hadn’t been brought up yet, but they were light, airy rooms with wooden floors.

  ‘Very nice,’ said Nonna with a nod of approval.

  ‘I know. We have lots of plans,’ said Lilith. ‘I’ve been looking at goth sites on the net and got loads of ideas for both of us.’

  Nonna glanced over at me. ‘But I am sure Eve has plenty of ideas of her own, don’t you, angel?’

  ‘I … ’ I started.

  Lilith waved her hand as if dismissing me. ‘Yes, but we totally have the same taste.’

  ‘Is that right?’ asked Nonna, and she glanced over at me again.

  I looked at the floor. Should I tell the truth? I wondered. Blurt out my secret?

  But Lilith was answering for me. ‘We always do stuff together, Nonna,’ said Lilith. ‘And even though we will have separate rooms it will only be like one big room divided. Like we both have two bedrooms, if you know what I mean. I’ll be in and out of hers, and no doubt she’ll be in and out of mine.’

  I felt it wasn’t the time for secrets so I steered Nonna back to the stairs and took her down to the kitchen. Outside, it was now pouring with rain, so showing her the back garden wasn’t an option. Even the removal men seemed to have taken a break and were sheltering outside on the shed porch at the side of the lawn.

  ‘Sorry we can’t offer you a drink yet, Mama,’ said Dad when he came in carrying a box. ‘Still unpacking, you know.’

  ‘Matteo, you need a haircut,’ said Nonna. Then she pulled a flask out of her bag and held it up. ‘No problem re the drinks. You know me: I always come prepared.’

  ‘In fact, it might be better if you came back at some other time,’ Dad continued. ‘We’ve an awful lot to do today and don’t want you to feel neglected.’

  ‘Oh, I won’t,’ said Nonna. ‘And, don’t worry, I shan’t be in the way nor stay long. No. I came over to bring you a house-warming present.’

  Mum came in behind Dad. ‘You’re too generous. You shouldn’t have gone to the trouble,’ she said.

  ‘Oh, I think I should have,’ she said. ‘I love to get you things. I thought long and hard about what to get you this time, and also for the girls for their birthdays on the twenty-sixth, and I think I’ve come up with the perfect solution. I know what you and my son are like when it comes to decorating – no time, always busy with your heads in your books and your jobs so … ’ She paused for effect and I could see that Mum and Dad were looking worried. ‘So, I’ve got you something to save you time and money.’

  Dad was still looking edgy. ‘Really, Mama, you shouldn’t have. And –’ he glanced outside at the rain that was lashing down as if it was trying to win the best rain competition ever held – ‘we have to get on.’

  ‘Always so impatient! I won’t take a sec,’ said Nonna, and she looked at her watch. ‘In fact, he’ll be here any second.’

  ‘He? Who?’ said Mum.

  Nonna gave us all a big grin. ‘Your present. The Transformer,’ she said.

  Lilith looked like she was going to faint with delight. ‘Not the Transformer from the telly programme?’

  ‘What telly programme?’ asked Mum. Neither she nor Dad ever watched telly apart from the odd documentary about history that bored the pants off Lilith and me.

  ‘He’s guest-presenting a TV makeover show,’ said Lilith.

  ‘The very same,’ said Nonna. ‘We’ve used him for all the hotels in Italy and no one has an eye for decor like he does. Of course this was long before his time on TV.’

  Dad was looking completely perplexed. ‘Used him to do what in the hotels? What eye?’

  ‘Interior design,’ Lilith replied. ‘He’s the best.’

  ‘Best. But who is he exactly?’ asked Dad. ‘Transformer sounds like an odd name to me. Like some sort of electric appliance.’

  ‘The Transformer is only his name while he’s doing this TV thing. His real name is PJ Vlasaova.’

  And now it was my turn to feel faint, but not with joy, with surprise. ‘Did you say PJ?’ My question was drowned out by the loud ring of the front door bell.

  ‘That should be him now,’ said Nonna. ‘He likes to see the empty shell of a property before people fill it up with their bad taste, I mean furniture.’

  Dad’s face had turned red and Mum looked like she was going to have a fit.

  ‘So go and let him in,’ Nonna instructed. ‘I’ve booked him for a month. He’ll do whatever you want and I’ll pay for it and at last the girls will have their fantasy bedrooms rather than living in some drab excuse for a room like in that last place.’

  Lilith and I raced to the front door. At the exact moment that we opened it, there was a flash of lightning that lit up the porch and there he was: the Transformer. Tall, dark, wearing a black cloak, looking every inch a goth prince as the sound of thunder rumbled overhead.

  ‘Wow! Totally impressive,’ said Lilith.

  The Transformer gave us a low bow. ‘PJ Vlasaova at your service,’ he said.

  Two seconds later, two other dark figures stepped out of the shadows and stood behind PJ. His strange-looking assistants, the blonde with heavy black glasses and the stocky-looking man with the shaved head, looked more like bodyguards than interior designers.

  ‘My assistants, Natalka and Oleksander,’ said PJ.

  The two assistants bowed in exactly the same way that PJ had moments earlier. I could hardly breathe. PJ had the same voice and the same name as the man who I’d talked to on the phone only a short time ago. He was also the same man that I’d seen last night watching us in the cemetery. I was sure he was. Fear gripped my heart as he looked down at me and smiled.

  Chapter Seven

  Guardian

  ‘He’s PJ,’ I whispered to Lilith as the Transformer went into the kitchen to be introduced to Mum and Dad while Natalka and Oleksander got busy in the hall with notepads and tape measures.

  Li
lith had gone all dreamy-eyed. ‘I can’t believe he’s here in our house. I can’t wait to tell everyone at school after the half term is over. Can you?’

  ‘Ergh … ’ was all I could say. I felt frozen. Terrified even. ‘But … he’s the one I saw in the cemetery. I swear. And he’s the one who left the phone. PJ. That was the name on the gift tag, remember?’

  ‘Awesome,’ said Lilith. ‘So maybe I can ask him if I can have one as well.’

  ‘No. You can have mine, you really can. Please.’

  ‘Why? Don’t you want it?’

  ‘I … I … ’ I didn’t want to tell her just yet that I was scared and then suddenly I had a brainwave. A way to get out of it and everyone would be happy. I tugged her into the front room. ‘Listen, how about you pretend to be me and I pretend to be you? You can be Zodiac Girl. I don’t want to. It’s not my thing and you love the Transformer more than I do.’

  I could see that Lilith was hooked. We’d swapped identities a million times when it suited us as most people had a hard time telling us apart. We had decided when we were little that it was one of the perks of being a twin. ‘You sure?’

  I nodded. ‘Absolutely. We can do swopsies on something else later for me. Something you don’t want. Yeah?’

  Lilith looked delighted. ‘Yeah. Cool.’

  Back in the kitchen, Nonna had introduced PJ to Mum, Dad and Adam, and I could see that although they were initially resistant they were slowly being won over. PJ was clever and he appeared to be charming them by talking about decoration through the ages and what it said about each civilization. He was totally talking their language and it was like he was putting them under some kind of spell.

  After half an hour, even Dad was talking soft furnishings. I’d never seen anything like it! Dad doesn’t do cushion covers. And then they trooped around after PJ and his assistants like a bunch of besotted fans and listened as he waxed lyrical about paints with names like Voltic Red and Urban Blue. And Dad and Adam didn’t snigger, not even once. Every now and then, PJ glanced over at me, but I quickly looked away. He wasn’t getting me under his hypnotic spell. One of us had to stay normal in case he turned my whole family into zombies and then came back to drink our blood.

  When we got upstairs, Natalka and Oleksander continued measuring all the rooms and PJ, Lilith and I went into Lilith’s room where she told him of all her plans to make both her and my room into manifestations of goth fantasies. I noticed PJ look my way a few times, but I looked out of the window. Don’t make eye contact, I told myself as we carried on into the other upstairs rooms. Don’t make eye contact.

  ‘Cat got your tongue?’ asked Adam when we went back downstairs after we’d finished giving PJ the tour and I hadn’t said a word.

  ‘No, the cat hasn’t got my tongue because, in case you haven’t noticed, we haven’t got a cat,’ I said, and I know that I sounded petulant and cross and was probably going to get a telling off because Mum and Dad didn’t like us being like that. But I didn’t. They both laughed as if I’d said something funny. It was really weird.

  PJ had words with his assistants then sent them off to source materials. When they’d gone, he turned back to me. ‘OK, let’s go back and look at your and Lilith’s rooms again,’ he said, ‘because I don’t zink I am quite clear on vot you both want.’ He looked pointedly at me when he said ‘both’.

  Lilith had already set off along the corridor and was looking back to see if we were following her.

  ‘After you,’ said PJ.

  ‘Thanks,’ I said, and trudged up the stairs. As soon as we got up to the rooms again, Lilith started off once more with her plans for the ultimate goth room and PJ appeared to be going along with them. In fact, he had some good ideas of his own.

  After a while, he turned to me. ‘But you, Eve, vot do you vont?’

  ‘I … I’m not … er, I … ’ I started.

  PJ turned to Lilith. ‘Er, Lilith,’ he said. ‘I’d love a glass of vater. Do you vink you could get me von?’

  Lilith glanced at me and raised an eyebrow. ‘I’m Eve, not Lilith,’ she said.

  ‘I’m Lilith,’ I said, and pointed at my sister. ‘Yes. She’s Eve.’

  PJ nodded. ‘OK, zen, Eve, pleasing you get me a glass of vater?’

  I stared over at Lilith and telepathically sent her a message to say, Please don’t leave me alone with him.

  ‘You don’t need to be afraid of being alone viz me,’ said PJ as if he’d read my thoughts. ‘I don’t bite,’ he said, then he chuckled. ‘Only lying peoples I bite. But you not be lyings, are you?’

  Lilith was about to leave the room so I had to think of something. ‘Um. No. Course not. Um. My sister got your nice phone and pendant, didn’t you, Eve?’

  Lilith nodded.

  ‘And she’s delighted to be Zodiac Girl, aren’t you, Eve?’ I asked.

  Lilith nodded again.

  ‘Iz she now?’ asked PJ. ‘OK, and she von’t mind getting me zat vater to drink eizer zen, vill she?’ He flashed Lilith a smile and she set off immediately.

  ‘Won’t be a minute, Mr Vlasaova,’ she said, and grinned back at him.

  ‘Take as much timings as you vish,’ said PJ.

  As soon as she’d gone, he looked over at me. ‘So, Zodiac Girl, ven you going to say vot you vont.’

  ‘No. No. I’m Lilith. I told you. I’m not Zodiac Girl.’

  PJ raised an eyebrow. ‘You zinking zat I iz being born yesterday. I don’t zinking so.’

  ‘No, really. A lot of people get us mixed up. It’s quite understandable.’

  ‘I not getting you mixed up. You iz second tvin born twenty minutes after first tvin. You being Zodiac Girl. You iz Eve.’

  I looked at the floor and wondered if I could keep up the charade. I glanced at him. He still had an eyebrow raised and by his expression I realized that it wasn’t a good idea to keep up the hoax. He clearly wasn’t falling for it.

  ‘OK, so I am Eve. But … I don’t mind giving her the Zodiac Girl thing. Honest. We like to share everything.’

  ‘Iz not possible to ’and it over. And iz great honour. Many girls vould love to beings Zodiac Girl.’

  ‘I know. Lilith’s one of them. She really admires you. I really don’t mind letting her be Zodiac Girl. As I said, I like to share.’

  ‘You iz not sharing her likings for ze room, I am zinking?’

  ‘What, the black walls? Well –’

  ‘You iz feeling frightened, eesn’t you, Eve?’ said PJ in a soft voice.

  ‘No. No. Course not. I don’t get frightened.’

  ‘Eve. I iz PJ. I am also Pluto.’

  I burst out laughing.

  PJ looked put out. ‘You iz knowing about Pluto?’

  ‘Yes, I do know about Pluto. It’s a planet. And I do know that you can’t be a planet. You mean that you come from Pluto? What am I saying? That’s even madder.’

  ‘I am sayings that I am Pluto.’

  ‘Then you’re probably crazy,’ I said, and began to back away, ‘so I have every reason to be frightened.’

  ‘Iz scarings you?’

  ‘Duh? Was Dracula a vampire? Yeah, that scares me. I mean, you’re saying being the Transformer is your day job, but that really you’re Pluto. Excuse me, but I wasn’t born yesterday either.’

  PJ nodded. ‘I know. You vere being born almost zirteen years ago on October twenty-six. OK. Iz understandable. Iz a lot to take in, but zere iz no needings to be frightened. I am not going to do nozing spooky wooky. I am here to be helping. So, OK, let’s be startings viz somezing not spooky wooky. Just zink of me as PJ. Ve is changing subject. No more crazy talk. Now. How about your room? How are you vonting it?’

  I shrugged. ‘Lilith has already said, hasn’t she?’

  ‘She has said vot she vonts but not vot you do. So, vot you vont?’

  I didn’t dare say anything.

  ‘Come on, let’s go and look at your room,’ he said, and wandered out of Lilith’s room and into mine. After a few moments,
I followed him.

  ‘Hmm,’ he said as he looked around. ‘So, iz good room, ja?’

  ‘Ja. I mean, yeah.’

  ‘And I am zinking zat seeing as you have Taurus rising and your sister, she iz having Aries, zat you are vonting different zings?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Taurus iz ruled by ze planet Venus and so iz Libra, you iz knowing zis?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘Planet Venus iz planet of love and beauty. People viz strong Taurus or Libra in zeir charts, zey iz likings ze beautifuls zings. Zey have great sense of beauty so I am zinking zat you are not really vonting black valls in your room.’

  ‘I … ’ I didn’t dare tell him how I really wanted my room. I hadn’t admitted it to anyone.

  ‘I am seeing ze papers in your box, in ze place vere I am leaving your phone and pendant. You are liking ze phone, ja?’

  ‘Ja. But … how did you know to leave them there?’

  ‘I am PJ. I am sayings to you zat I am beings your guardian, ja? Von month as Zodiac Girl, ja?’

  ‘Yeah, but seems like you’re going to be everyone’s guardian for a month. Nonna’s hired you.’

  PJ laughed. ‘Ja, but zat iz for doings ze house. Iz no problems. I am having assistants too. Zey help. Ja. But for you iz different. Ve have different zings to do.’

  ‘OK, then tell me how you knew where my secret tin box was.’

  PJ tapped the side of his nose. ‘I am PJ and, okeee dokeee, here comes more crazy stuff, but don’t be scared, please. Iz not scary wary. I am also Pluto and alzough zis iz freakings you at ze moment, let me explain little bit. As Pluto, I iz ruler of ze Underworld, ruler of all things hidden and secret vich is vy I know vot is in your heart, Eve Palumbo. I know your secrets and I know your fears. Togezzer ve vill vork on zese fears. Make you stronger.’