Karli Knows Things (Part 1)

Karli Knows Things – Part 1

©March 2021 Robert W. F. Taylor

By any standards, Karli was a typical teenager, struggling to find herself and discover who she really was amid a hoard of other teens trying to sort out their lives as well. She dealt with the pressures of her age group in a positive way, determined not to let them get her down. “I try not to spend too much time in my head,” she said one day. “It can get to depressing and I hate being depressed. I just let things happen and deal with them as they happen.”

She was doing reasonably well in school – except the math subjects. Algebra sucked. What use was it anyway? Karli had no idea. It was obviously not her favorite subject. Geometry was a little better...angles and things could be somewhat interesting occasionally.

What was interesting to her was the fact that her favorite boy band, the Apple Gangers, were coming to town. These four boys had stolen hearts across Europe with their songs and stage antics. Now, they were now poised to make their debut in a tour in major cities across North America. Karli knew it would happen. She had actually been aware of it for some time. It was just something she knew. How she knew it was a mystery to her. Because she had a premonition, she had been jumped at the chance to get hold of 4 tickets before they even went on sale.

How did she do that? Aha! Good question. One of the girls in her class, Lindsay, had an older brother who worked in the ticket office at the Grenston Arena. Normally she wouldn’t be caught dead at the Arena. It was mainly for sports jocks and indoor events such as track meets, lacrosse, and hockey in the winter. Karli was not a sports fan except for the odd cute tennis player.

She had asked her classmate, Lindsay, if her brother, Max, had heard anything about the Apple Gangers coming to town. Lindsay told her he hadn’t mentioned anything to her so Karli asked her if she would tell her brother that she had heard rumors that they might be doing a concert in the city and could he please, pretty please, put 4 good seats aside for her before they actually went on sale. From experience, she was aware that the moment they went on sale officially, they would be snapped up by scalpers and locals fans quick enough to hit the BUY button on their computers.

Events such as this usually sold out in minutes. Having an ‘in’ was the only way to really have a shot at getting tickets. She had tried several times before without any luck. It was only by chance that she happened to hear Lindsay telling someone about her brother getting a job at the ticket office. When her mind told her about the upcoming concert, as yet unannounced, she knew what she had to do.

It had cost a small fortune and she would be without an allowance for about six months but she would survive somehow. Her dad was a soft touch when it came to doling out a little extra cash now and then. He would have to be or Karli would be without her precious cosmetics, fashion and celebrity mags and her other daily necessities.

Not long afterwards, there was a buzz in school one day that the Apple Gangers were actually coming to town at the end of next month. The upcoming event had been announced on TV and radio that morning and tickets were sold out within a few minutes. When another classmate Cheryl mentioned it, Karli casually said, “I know. I have 4 tickets.”

“You what? No way. You can’t have. They sold out in, like, ten minutes. Nobody in school got any.”

“I did.”

Some of the girls knew that Karli had some kind of special intuition or power or whatever so that she knew things before they actually happened.

“I should have known that you would know about it. You always know things like that. I wish I knew things like you do.”

“Yeah, sometimes it is good. But there are also things that I wish I didn’t know about. It is not always good to be able to see things.”

That was enough to stop Cheryl who soon went off with a couple of the other girls.

After school that day, Karli was about to get on the bus when something told her not to. She grabbed her brother Billy’s arm and pulled him off the bus.

“Hey! What the heck are you doing? I need to get home, change and go out to soccer practice. Let go.”

“Billy, you know me and that I know things, right? Something is telling me not to get on the bus and I always listen to what my mind tells me. Understand?”

Billy had seen what happened when he did not follow Karli’s warnings. Once he had fallen off his bike and broken his arm. He should have listened that time and so now he was more inclined to believe her. He looked in one of the windows of the bus and said to one of the other boys, “Hey. Mike, grab Josh and get off the bus. Now. It’s important!”

The other two boys reluctantly got off. And all four of them watched as the bus left. Karli had already called her mum and asked if she could pick them up. Her mother and father also knew about their daughter’s gift. They had no idea how she knew these things but they knew not to question her uncanny predictions.

Sometimes Karli did not actually know what would happen but seemed to receive warnings if something dire or otherwise bad was going to happen. On the other hand, her mind also alerted her to good things. Unfortunately, it couldn’t predict lottery results or anything like that.

When Karli’s mother arrived a while later, she said to her, “I saw a broken down school bus on Ferguson St. Was that your bus?”

“Yup. That is the route it takes.” Turning to her brother and his friends, she smiled at them and added, “See guys. Always listen to your big sister!”

Karli spent a lot of time wondering why she had been singled out to receive the gift of foresight or precognition if that is what it was called. Was there a special purpose? She did not consider herself to be special? It sure wasn’t helping her with Algebra or Geometry, was it? Nor to find a boyfriend...not that she was looking for one, that is.

She tried not to spend much mental time thinking about the things she seemed to know in advance. Like the times when...

They were out for a Sunday drive in the country and about to pass a gas station. Karli just had a feeling they should stop there so she told her dad.

“Gee, Karli, we just got going a little while ago. Why should we stop here in the middle of nowhere?”

All she said was, “D-a-a-a-d...” and they stopped. When they did, her father walked around the car and noticed a patch of wet oil under the car. He had the attendant check it and, sure enough, it was leaking. If they had continued, the engine quite likely would have seized on one of the long, lonely country roads and someone would have had a long walk to get help.

...Or the time in school when she was walking behind a boy and sensed that he was in trouble. They happened to be close to the school nurse’s station. Without thinking about it, she reached out, grabbed the boy by the arm and turned him towards the nurse who chanced to be coming out of the office.

“This boy needs medical attention, Nurse. I think he is about to...” at which point the boy collapsed at her feet. The nurse immediately called 9-1-1 and the boy was rushed to the hospital. He had had a seizure and it was lucky Karli had been there or it could have been life-threatening.

Or, at the county fair that time last summer when someone near her was about to bite into a cheese sandwich. She had yelled, “Don’t eat that! It is moldy!” The man stopped. He gave her a strange look. Then his gaze dropped to the sandwich. He looked at her again then lifted the top slice of bread and saw a big green patch of mold on top of the cheese.” He stared at the sandwich then turned to Karli.

“How did you know that, young lady?” he said, scratching his head as he flung the sandwich into a trash bin. “But, thank you. I probably would have been sick as a dog.”

Her dad had piped in, “She does that all the time. We don’t know how she does it. Just thank your stars she was nearby.”

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Originally self-published on Amazon in my book '24 Twistful Tales'. Amazon ASIN # 1076405754