Happy Independence Day

Charlotte's search for information was harder to conduct than she had first imagined. After all, you really couldn't walk up to perfect strangers and ask if they knew where your sister was living.

She decided to take a different approach. She knew a little about her sister, that she had a job making clothes and that she lived in a loft apartment.

"So I have the end," she thought to herself. "But what is the beginning? Where is the beginning? Where am I, anyway? And what day is it?"

Again, she couldn't come up with a way to pose this question to a total stranger, so she looked around the fair for clues. Perhaps she could ask the hot dog vendor? No. Maybe the House of Curiosities would have some useful information? Definitely not. Newspaper stand! Of course!

She made a bee-line through the crowd to the newspaper stand, picked up a copy and started taking in information. Sunday. July 4th. "Elm Spring Times", read the header.

"I am in Elm Spring," she said to herself. She felt a little better. Then she felt much, much worse. . .

"Oh, boy," she said.