It was interesting in a way, regarding adjusting to having Allison with us. For the first few days after she found us, Allison was sharing my not very big bed over the driver's and front passenger's seats. That changed a few days later when one of our folks inflated and placed a double size air mattress in the covered back of their large pick-up truck, a Dodge Ram 3500 long bed. That suited Allison just fine.
I suppose I could have gotten back into doing my act while we were still at the Hunt County fairgrounds, but Mom and dad had decided that it would be better for me to take it easy. They did allow me to start practicing again once the three weeks had gone by.
I have to say that Allison was very willing to learn. She made little or no fuss about doing exercises to improve flexibility and balance.
I was happy that I could get back into doing the exercises that I usually use for the tightrope act, I can't afford to let things go for long.
When the Hunt County fair was ending, our folks hustled to take everything down. That was a lot of work, lasting about eighteen hours. The three week recovery period order by Dr. Powell had ended by then, but mom and dad excused me from doing any heavy work. :))
I guess they figured it would be better to give me a little more time before I start trying to do everything like I've always done?
We pulled out of the Hunt County fairgrounds just after dawn on May 1, then headed east to go to Anderson County in South Carolina.
Yep, once again, we're hauling butt halfway across the country. That fair starts on May 3, so we need to get there as soon as possible.
At our night stop on the 1st, the horde pulled into a motel on the outskirts of Atlanta. Perhaps twenty people chose to rent a room there for the night, most of us were just fine with staying in our recreation vehicles, primarily so that someone was always with the vehicles.
Allison had been using the truck bed of a large pick-up belonging to Tina Hanson and Ricki Keswick, a lesbian couple who had been working for Birchland's Carnivals as long as I had been doing my tightrope act. Allison, Tina, Ricki and Kerry Ellis shared a larger unit with two beds.
Lisa Marks and Albany Johnson were sharing a smaller room, but had a fair bit of open space available in their room. The two women headed out to spend some time with mom and dad; Lisa and mom have been friends for a long time, Albany was hired at the start of the season.
Lisa and Albany apparently got along rather well from when they first met, so Lisa has been introducing her to people as we wander around the country from one place to another. We get rather busy at times, so this was a fairly good time for intros with folks Albany hadn't yet met.
I put Allison through her paces after we shoved the bed closer to the side wall to open up the room a bit more.
What made it even more enjoyable was that I was now doing the activities with her, which helped to get me back into reasonable shape. Granted, I hadn't changed much physically in the last few weeks, well, except for the fact that my breasts were semi-visible a lot of the time.
Yep, I have breasts. They aren't very big right now, but according to Dr. Brandt, I could end up with breasts as big as my mom's. If that does happen, it could make doing my act a bit more difficult. You see, my mom is a 44 DD; that's a fairly big size, a bit bigger than average.
Allison's coming along rather well, actually, but that might be because she was in fairly decent shape when we first met, which is good.
I guess it was about ninety minutes later, perhaps a bit longer, when Lisa and Albany returned to "claim" the room for the night.
The two women grumbled briefly about having to move the bed back to its original position, then waved to us as we exited the room.
A quick look at my cell phone, which mom and dad had bought a few years ago so I could keep in touch, showed it was 10:42 PM.
Allison came back to our RV with me. We spent about 45 minutes or so just chatting before mom ordered me to go to bed. Evil mom!
Allison left at that point, and I grumbled as I clambered up into my little nest over the front seats of the vehicle.
The next morning, we found a diner that looked like it could have been around in the '50s; it was quite quaint, but the food was fantastic.
I splurged on a full breakfast, four buckwheat pancakes, three eggs over hard, ham, home fries, toast and coffee, all for less than $10.
It's not often you see a big breakfast like that for under $10 these days, so I was quite happy to demolish it in what seemed like record time!
Allison looked at what I had on my plate and bluntly asked me where I was putting it all, did I have a hollow leg or something? I laughed.
Allison had a much lighter breakfast, eggs like mine, but with sausages and home fries and toast. She passed on the pancakes.
We finished our meals around 10:00 AM and hit the road again. We would be at the Anderson County fairgrounds in a couple of hours or so.
After we had been shown to our area in the fairgrounds, the various tents, rides and booths needed to be set up. Most of it was done by the time the sun went down, but that didn't stop the folks from finishing the work that night. Once again, I was told not to do any heavy work.
That didn't stop me from getting Allison up on the tightrope, which had been set up so that we could put in some practice time.
I have to say, I was quite surprised at Allison's skill on the rope. She obviously has no fear of heights, that's very good to know.
I took a turn up there myself. It was a little odd at times, thanks to my baby breasts, but I wasn't having any difficulty doing what was needed.
The really fun part, which apparently most of the Birchland's and Whirld of Whee's folks decided to watch, was when Allison and I were both up on the rope at the same time. It took several tries, but it wasn't very long before the two of us were showing off our skills up there.
I actually giggled both times that Allison slipped and fell. She wasn't injured, thanks to the safety net underneath us.
Other than those two falls, though, Allison proved to be more than capable of joining me in the act once things were underway.
When the fair opened on Thursday, we were ready, just like many other groups that wander around to fairs such as this one.
I hadn't been on the rope while were at the Hunt County fair, except for the last day or two, but that was after stuff shut down at night.
I hadn't done a lot at that point because I was still being told to take it easy, as I've already mentioned here a few times.
This, then, marked my full return to the tightrope. I guess we shocked a lot of people when Allison joined me up there on the rope.
We each would clamber up the ladder at one end, then wait for a moment before doing cartwheels toward the center of the rope. We'd stand there as if talking for a very brief time, then return about halfway to our end before doing the splits on the rope.
Now, that's something you really don't want to try to do unless you are very good at maintaining your balance. Believe me, it's not a good experience, male or female, to suddenly slip and land crotch first on a rope before tumbling forty feet or so down to the safety net.
Well, Allison and I made it look easy, then using just our arm strength alone, levered ourselves up and twisted into back flips, then cartwheels. The last cartwheel put us a few feet from the ladder at each end of the rope, we then turned, looked at each other, and continued.
This was where it got to be a bit fun. You see, we were going from front flips to handstands to back flips, then cartwheels again.
At one point, since I had more experience, I did a high front flip over her while she bent down for a brief moment, allowing us to switch sides.
The last major part of our little act, and one of the more difficult parts, was the "dance" in the middle of the rope. As in many forms of dance, we were balancing and moving around as if we were partners on a dance floor, at one point each of us leaning back a bit to move past the other as we shifted to another position in the dance. The dance routine only lasted about a minute, but it required perfect balance throughout.
We continued to do various bits of gymnastics exercises while up there for several more minutes before climbing down the ladders.
The applause was most definitely worth all of the work and effort we had put into it over the last several days. We waved back at the crowd.
Allison and I spent much of the time between our acts wandering around the fair and having fun on the Whirlds of Whee's rides.
Some of that time was spent introducing her to people from Wonderful Whirlds of Whee and other carnie groups that I knew from our travels.
We also relaxed now and then, taking time to watch our other acts so Allison could see the various things that we do as a carnie group.
She was a bit scared of the big cats, but managed to not make a big fuss over them while watching them go through their paces.
She was awed by the elephants. I guess that's not surprising; like the big cats, elephants are a rare part of carnival groups activities.
She thought that Jackson Pelt's bike act was cool. Like me, if she wasn't so interested in the tightrope as to hardly have time for anything else, she mused that it might be fun to fool around on the bikes. Hmmm... perhaps we could look into expanding the bike stunt act?
Granted, that would be a very different thing for us to do on top of our act, but it doesn't hurt to have more than one skill set, ya know?
She liked the juggling and the acrobats. She was rather wary around our clowns, which had me wondering about that for a while.
When we stopped at our horse paddock, she grinned and clapped her hands. Apparently, she has always loved horses.
She isn't a lot bigger than I am, five or six inches taller, I guess, maybe 105 or so weight wise? That's about right for her build.
Well, as I said, we were by the horses. She asked if she could have a ride, and Larry had no problem with it, so up she went. She's not particularly good at it; she had a bit of a hard time maintaining her balance on the horse, but she managed fairly well on her own, actually.
We checked on the games booths from time to time, just to see how they were doing, and to check up on dad, his leg can be a problem.
We did our tightrope act three or four times a day through most of the ten days of the fair.
The jugglers and acrobats, as before, shared our tent, as did Jackson with his bikes, each of them doing about three or four shows a day.
In the other big tent, the lions and the elephants were cycling in and out, doing up to five shows a day each, they are the "big acts" we have.
I guess you could say the tightrope act will be a bigger draw than it may have been in the past.
Why would you expect otherwise, though, when you put two pretty girls up on a rope doing stunts, wearing only skimpy outfits?
Comments
I am going to go back and reread the previous chapter
as my poor damaged brain has forgotten what I read. Loving this chapter though.
Allison
So, Allison ran off and jointed the circus. It sure beats ending up in the system.
She hardly has time to mourn, though she's going to have to do so or it'll catch up with her at a bad time, like when she's on the wire.
I hope the lawyers are taking care of custody issues, ID, and her parents' property.
Re: Allison
For a while, Allison was too busy just trying to survive to worry about mourning her parents or worry about what might happen to her. I agree that she needs to find time to mourn and remember them, the difficulty is finding time when you often only have maybe forty minutes or so between shows, perhaps an hour if lucky. Yeah, having a PTSD moment or a flashback on the wire would be really bad.
I suppose she could just go somewhere while at one of these fairs and find a quiet spot to think/meditate/mourn, etc. As I said, though, forty minutes or so between shows doesn't really give much time to find somewhere to do something like that, though.
Perhaps that is why Lara has been taking her round, showing her things like other carnie groups, their own acts/events/rides?
I'm thinking about having a doctor join the carnival group at some point, perhaps after becoming increasingly frustrated at trying to cope with the crap inherent in the current medical system and possibly looking for a way to still work but in a more personal way?
Fargo, i.e., the carnival's lawyer, wasn't explicitly mentioned here, but he will be looking into sorting out Allison's issues. As for property that the parents had, it wasn't much, mostly a couple of suitcases of clothes and mementos from their younger days. Allison might hold on to the mementos as a way to remember her parents, but there wasn't much of anything that might be considered valuable.
As for custody, Fargo is or will be putting paperwork into the system to have Lara's parents initially foster Allison. If, as seems somewhat likely, Allison gets along well with Lara and her parents, they may consider going further, i.e., adopting her.
At the moment, Allison has somewhere to live, people to work with and grow closer to, and a fairly stable if mobile life.
Hey 2 pretty girls
On a tight road in cute although skimpy outfits it will ALWAYS be a bigger draw then just 1 or a male doing it.
Love Samantha Renée Heart.
Now if the elephants are okay
Now if the elephants are okay, no government do-gooders tossing in a monkey wrench, this is a neat circus/carny
Re: Now if the elephants are okay
Considering the zoo that had the elephants was going to kill them, Birchland's taking them means gov't doesn't have to pay to kill them. The two elephants, Sasha and Vandal, are fed when needed, have a large cage to travel in and are treated well by the carnie folks.
I didn't go into a lot of detail about the training that Brant did, as I know squat about it. LOL
The elephants should be fine unless some officious busybody decides to raise a ruckus over them. I won't say it isn't possible, but I would think that, as long as the i's are dotted and the t's crossed, they'll let the elephants enjoy their new lives with a travelling carnival.