title: Tea Leaves, Herbs, and Flowers: Fortune Telling the Gypsy Way! (Elements of the Extraordinary)
author:  Gillian Kemp 
description: Grade 5-9-The proper techniques for brewing tea and preparing the cup (not mug) begin the section on tea-leaf reading. An extensive list of shapes likely to be formed by residual tea leaves is accompanied by possible interpretations that are most applicable to young people. They offer possible insight into one's future career or predict changes in school or classroom, for instance. In this list, British terms like "queue" and "parcel" are frequently used. The second half of the volume is devoted to the "language of flowers," their meaning when given to another, and how some blooms can be used to represent months of the year or hours of the day to deliver a secret message. Bits of Romany superstitions and customs appear throughout. One chapter is devoted to ways to attract a lover, keep one, and even to repel unwanted attention using folk methods. Similar tea-leaf pattern meanings are given in Alvin Schwartz's Telling Fortunes (Lippincott, 1987; o.p.), but flower and color symbolism is hard to find. Sure to please teenage girls, this book should also prove irresistible to fortune-telling fans.<br /><i>Ann G. Brouse, Big Flats Branch Library, </i><br />Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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  _For my sister, Emma_
  
  ‘What greater gift than the love of a cat?’
  
   _Charles Dickens_
  
  Contents
  
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  1
  
  ![](Images/image00121.jpeg)
  
  The honey-coloured buildings that bordered the market square glowed in the
  dazzling autumn sunshine. I sat in the dappled shade of an elm tree, watching
  as tourists and shoppers meandered back and forth along the cobbled streets,
  soaking up the town’s atmosphere of prosperous gentility.
  
  A cool breeze ruffled my fur and I inhaled deeply, savouring the scent of
  fallen leaves mingled with the aroma of meats and cheeses from the
  delicatessen behind me. The clock in a nearby church tower had just struck
  five and I knew that the bustling square would soon give way to a slower pace,
  as the shops closed for the day and the visitors made their way home. I yawned
  and jumped down from the wooden bench, taking my time to stretch languo