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.

Charlotte and Colette Arrive on the Scene

One may well wonder what our youngest heroine, Colette, had to say about their current lost and penniless state. The truth is, she didn't say much.

Her nature prevented her from being unnecessarily contradictory, especially with people she liked, so when Charlotte would attempt to brighten their outlook with quaint, but rather baseless sayings such as, "We'll be there in no time" and "We've come too far to turn back now", rather than disagree, Colette would most often smile and march on.

And it wasn't all bad. They had made it to a farming community (which happened to be hosting a county fair), and there were plenty of mice. Ordinarily Colette was no great lover of mice, but the mice drew cats, and cats were good to hug on.



To the ever-resourceful Charlotte, the fair seemed like a good place to gather intelligence and make some connections, so she left Colette with her unwilling pet, and struck out on her own. . .

Night at the Fair - Part 2

Nan raised her head. The clown cut her eyes to the side, a mirthless smile frozen on her plaster face.

"Can I help you?" she asked.

"You alright?"

"Excuse me, sir, but you can't just barge to the head of the line," said the woman.

"I go where I want."

"Come on, kid."


A crowd had begun to gather. Normally the hawker liked a crowd, but only if they had come for the right reasons. She tried to smooth things over.


"You know, I think that gun you chose just might have been jammed. I'll be happy to give you another try. For 25 cents."

"Shut up, clown."


Nan was hefted to her feet.



"As for you, Joker, I believe you have something that belongs to this little girl. Hand over the purse."


"SORRY, SIR," she shouted, hoping to drown him out. "YOU HAVE TO BUY A TICKET TO PLAY."


The crowd hushed. He regarded her coolly.


"That's funny," he said. "I thought all you needed was a gun."



"Wait!"

click

"It has to be-"

"-one of our guns!"

"Wrong again."

The crowd dove for cover as projectiles went flying. The stuffed bear watched in horror as his Lady Love stood stone still in the midst of the chaos.

"Now. The purse."

"Not a problem, sir."

"Here, kid. Try to hang onto it."

Nan was astounded. This was the first truly helpful adult she had ever encountered.

And she was not about to let him get away.

"It's a satchel," she said. "Not a purse."

He turned around. "What?"

Success.

"Thank you," she said, in the sweetest tone she could muster. "Oh, there is one more thing. . ."

He shifted on his feet, suddenly aware of the crowd watching the whole scene. "What would that be?"


"I think we won a prize. I'd like that little bear."

"You mean the reindeer?"

Annoyed by the contradiction, Nan started to repeat herself, but, realizing she needed to stay on his good side, quickly changed gears. "The b-reindeer. Yes."

He plucked it off the line.

"Here. One breindeer."

Nan gripped her prize tightly.

"Breindeer," she smiled. She looked up to thank her hero but he had already made his way into the crowd.

Nan stood up and picked her way out of the debris, Breindeer on her shoulder.

"Well, that was fun," she said.

Night at the Fair

Night had fallen at the fair. Nan walked through the midway stalls and watched people get sucked into difficult games of skill or chance. One stall was drawing quite a crowd. She stopped to look and see what kind of game it was.


It was a simple game- for 50 cents you could shoot targets through a small window and get a toy. Nan eyed the prizes hanging above the booth.


One prize in particular caught her eye. It was a stuffed bear with a red Christmas vest and long ears. She looked again. Or was it a reindeer with a badly shaped muzzle?



She wasn't sure, but it was charming. It had character, and she wanted it badly.

The truth was, this Christmas-vested mishap of a stuffed toy did have character. A mind of its own and a heart. A heart which belonged to his Lady Love, a delicate ballerina who could hold a pose for days. Who had held that exact pose for as long as he could remember.

His admiration for her knew no bounds. He knew he was ugly and awkward by comparison, but felt that if she would drop her pose just once and turn around, his chivalrous qualities could win her.


Entranced by the lights and goodies, Nan was easy prey for the hawker. "50 cents is all you need to play the game and win a prize," she said to the crowd in general. Nan glanced sideways at her. The hawker leaned over.

"Why don't you give it a try. I'm sure you'll be good at it."

Nan considered. The little reindeer was looking more and more like it should belong to her by the minute.

"This is the cheapest game at the fair. 50 cents today. 50 cents tomorrow. Always 50 cents. And it's a sure shot at a nice prize."

Nan knew in her heart of hearts that she should not play- these games were risky, designed to make the player lose. But she couldn't resist. Getting a shot at that bear, or reindeer, or whatever it was, was definitely worth 50 cents in her mind.

"Sure, I'll try," she said.

"Fantastic!" said the hawker. "Leave your bag there and choose a weapon. And be thinking about which prize you want!"

Nan already knew. She shook out the last bit of change from her satchel and handed it over, even the wheatback penny she'd saved for two years.

She chose a gun with a long barrel. "Going for precision, eh?" said the hawker, as she moved towards the edge of the tent. "That's smart. You have 3 shots. 5 points wins a prize. Light green soldiers are worth one and a half points each. The dark green guy is worth 5 but he moves so he's harder to hit."

Nan felt a little jittery. She swung the gun around and aimed through the window. Slow and steady was the way to go about this game.

She lined up the first soldier, made sure it was right, and took the shot. Much to her disappointment, she found that it was an air-powered gun. Instead of a loud bang it gave only a small pop, and the beanbag "bullet" fell short of the window.

"Hey!" she exclaimed. "This isn't working."

"Maybe your aim was off," the hawker shrugged. "Try again."

Nan scooted the box forward with her knee, but the hawker snapped, "Now leave that be. Moving my setup isn't going to help you if your aim is bad."

"My aim is not bad," she said slowly. She entertained brief thoughts of setting her sights on the clown and then seeing what she had to say about her aim, but there was only one bullet left, and she would rather have the stuffed toy than exact revenge on a peevish clown.

Nan put it out of her mind and took aim at the dark green soldier. She took her time. She counted the number of seconds it took him to move from one side of the window to the other, and then the number of seconds she would have a clear shot at him, and then tried to guess how many seconds it would take to fire the gun. Her finger twitched on the trigger. 3, 2,-

"Don't take all day, kid, we've got other people waiting," the hawker interrupted. Nan jumped and fired by accident. The pellet skittered around on the ground in front of her.

The bear reindeer- lost! Her wheatback penny- gone! Nan put her head down and cried.

"Stop it!" the hawker hissed. "Get out of here."

"That was not fair!" Nan yelled.

"Shut up and get out of here! I've got a business to-"

A shadow fell across Nan. The hawker herself shut up.

"That still was not fair," Nan said sullenly.

"Sure it was," said a voice behind her. "You look like a smart kid. Don't you know you get what you pay for at these things?"

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve

Nan and Breindeer waiting up for Santa. Complete with night vision goggles.

Don't stay up too late!

Merry Christmas from the 4th Story!

Fashion Shoots

Little knowing that her younger sister and her fair-haired companion were wandering the countryside, penniless and directionless, Gavin was quite enjoying herself. After gaining a great amount of attention for her success in the Fall Fashion Festival, several major names in the industry had contacted her, asking her to appear in their ads.

one for Toblerone Chocolate. . .(she received a year's supply of chocolates as payment.)


and a new line of millinery. . .(they let her keep the hat.)


and finally one for a new company that specialized in black pearls. (She had to negotiate with them to be able to keep the necklace. They eventually agreed, but only on the condition that it was not to appear in any of her creations.)

Yes, things were going quite well for Gavin and company. She congratulated herself on a job well done, and retired for the evening with a latte and a box of hard-earned Toblerone.

Enter Nan

While Charlotte and Colette were finishing their gloomy picnic lunch, a few miles away, a country fair was in full swing.

A small figure with blazing red hair surveyed the scene from afar, and then decided that it was worth her time to check it out.

Enter Nan

Nan has been living as a street urchin for a long time now, and has seen several fairs come and go, but they still hold a certain appeal. If she had any extra change, she would probably have spent it on a candy apple, but as it was. . .

Besides being expensive, the rides were too risky. She passed"The Spider", a green, 8-legged spinning machine. The last time it had come through town she'd ridden it, but being so small, she'd almost slipped under the lap bar, a terrifying experience she didn't wish to repeat.

Not that she was afraid.

No- what was scarier was the grafitti left by gangs. Gangs that would stay in town long after the fair had left.

At least there were still a few role models to look up to.

And a wall of anime! Standing beside it, Nan didn't feel like she was dressed so strangely.