I'm hoping to post parts of this story on a weekly basis, but life can be an interfering PITA as we all know.

**********

I woke up this morning feeling slightly weird, my nipples were sore and I felt vaguely nauseous; as far as I know, I hadn't rubbed them or anything, but they were standing at attention and looking bigger than they had been perhaps a few days earlier. I spent a few minutes in the shower, then dressed; once I was presentable, I joined the rest of the crew for breakfast in the hotel dining room. We'll hit the road after we eat.

Oh, hi, I'm Larry Banfield, I turned 15 last October 27th, I'm 4'9" and about 85 pounds. I've seen several doctors over the last year and we still haven't figured out why I'm not growing. The doctor we spoke to two weeks ago thinks I might grow some more, but wouldn't be definite. He actually spent about 30 minutes talking to my parents that day, I don't think they understood one word in ten of what he said. I know I didn't.

Well, other than height and weight, I have brown eyes, shoulder length black hair, a pert nose and a wide mouth over a rounded chin. I can't count how many times I've had people at various fairs walk up to me and talk to me like I'm a girl. It's caused a few problems now and then.

We're heading down to the Levy County Fair near Williston, Florida. I'm part of a small group that has worked at various fairs across the US for many years. There's maybe half a dozen acts that we do, I walk the tightrope fifty feet above the ground, I've been doing it since I was six.

Since we're on the road for half or more of each year, I've been home schooled all of my life; I'm four credits shy of a high school diploma.

Mom, well, she's always had this way with cats of just about any description, she'll walk up near a new lion/ess, and maybe five minutes later, that cat will be rubbing its head all over her, then follow her off to the cage we have for them. At the moment, we only have one adult lioness, with three young kits; there was an older lion last year, but he crossed the Rainbow Bridge in mid-January.

We knew the old lion wasn't interested in frolicking with the lioness, all he wanted to do was laze around in his cage and eat.

We found out that someone from another company had a problem with a cage last September while we were at a fair, and they had to find somewhere fast for their lion to stay. Well, Jack Birchland, the owner of Birchland Carnivals, is our boss, and since darn near everyone there knew that we were one of only a few shows that used lions at all in our acts, we ended up with their male in the same cage as our female.

I guess it isn't too hard to figure out just what happened at that point, is it?

The other company managed to get their cage fixed over that weekend and took their lion with them once that fair had ended.

Yeah, so we have a few games, pretty much the usual sort of thing, bottle knockdowns, basketball toss, balloon games, you get the idea.

Peter Barrett runs the basketball game, Dad has the bottle knockdown booth, Jessie Thames runs the balloon pop game, Evan Black runs a ring toss booth, Billy Watts runs the air rifle shooting game, Val Brown runs a pie throwing booth and Johnnie Bates runs a coin toss booth.

Yep, Dad runs the bottle knockdown booth now, he's had problems with his left leg for the last few years and he can sit in the booth when it gets quiet. He's not alone, there's a seventeen year old boy, Robby Wimble, who does most of the running around for that booth.

We don't set up all the booths for every show, sometimes other companies will have a similar booth/game set up before we get there. If they have a problem with us having the same type of booth, it'll stay packed up; if they're fine with us having a similar game, it goes up.

So, I do the tightrope walking, mom does the lion taming, and Jack has two elephants that we picked up last December. The winter is a time for us to relax, and the zoo closest to our winter residences was going to kill the elephants as no one seemed interested in taking them.

Then Jack heard about the elephants, and he knows Brant Roberts has worked with elephants in the past, so Jack bought the pair. Brant has spent a good part of the winter in a barn on the other side of town training the elephants. He seems to think they'll be okay for the shows.

Jackson Pelt is a young guy, early twenties, who used to race BMX bikes off road; he does bike stunts for us, some of them look way cool!

We have three clowns, they're actually a family, Barry Easton is the father and his kids Mike and Linda have followed in their father's steps.

We have four quarter horses that have been trained to accept riders, and lots of kids love to ride around the paddock or watch the horses.

Then there's the Valbist family, Erik, the father, Maria, the mother, and their kids Kevin, Sherry and Tommy, they're our acrobats. Eric and Maria have been acrobats for close to thirty years now, and they both trained the kids once they knew they really wanted to do it.

Oh, we also have two jugglers, Pat Bevel and Jenny Barton, they just joined us this year; they're novices and it's cool to watch them practice.

Well, I had a nice solid breakfast today, three eggs, ham, bacon, two pancakes, toast, home fries, a muffin and a mug of coffee.

It's time to head over to the vehicles, we need to get moving if we want to reach the fairgrounds Thursday morning.

Well, it's been an interesting week. My nipples are even itchier than they were a week ago, and they look bigger, too. The problem with things like this is it's hard to see a doctor on a one time basis, it would be a lot easier if we had a doctor and/or a nurse as a member(s) in the troupe.

I don't think it's anything too serious, but I could really do without the itchiness, especially when I'm busy working or training.

We arrived at the fairgrounds just after 1 PM on Thursday and spent the rest of the afternoon and part of the evening setting everything up. Jack Birchland makes a habit of wiring money for licenses and such several days before we arrive at an event to avoid trouble with police.

Our big acts, specifically the lion taming and the elephants, are held inside a rather large tent, about 100' by 100', the side walls are 15' high and the peak in the middle of the tent is 70' off the ground. Seats are set up near the walls on a series of wooden tiers so people can watch.

A similar tent a short distance away is the home for Jackson's bike stunts, my tightrope walking, the two jugglers and the acrobats. We take our turns using this tent, so each of us gets a chance to put on a few shows through the day. The seating arrangement is similar to the big tent.

The Valbists approached Jack Birchland, the boss, on Wednesday morning as we were having our breakfast. It seems that Eric Valbist had worked as a juggler for a year or two before he became an acrobat, and he wanted to help Pat and Jenny improve their skills. Eric suggested combining the two acts for a while so he could use some time to give Pat and Jenny some training and yet allow them to perform, too. He also suggested that when Pat and Jenny weren't training or performing, they could wander around the fairgrounds while juggling.

Pat and Jenny were happy to agree; considering that they had been facing the possibility of having to self-train, this would be much better.

Once everything had been set up, Eric collared Pat and Jenny and started their training by having them do flexibility exercises. When they asked him why they were doing the exercises, he explained that being more flexible would help them to expand their juggling skills.

He said, "Let's see, if you can bend back or twist around to either side, and become comfortable enough doing that that you can still juggle..."

Jenny giggled and replied, "So the more flexible we are, the more we can do with the juggling act, which improves crowd response."

Eric laughed, "That's right, and improved crowd response means you can draw people to the shows."

After that, Pat and Jenny followed his instructions avidly for nearly two hours.

When Eric decided that they had had enough, he chuckled and said, "Go relax, kids, a good rubdown will soothe your muscles, too."

**********

I was just chilling near our tents, trucks and RVs with beds around ten PM on Thursday when someone approached me, asking for mom.

"Hiya, I'm Larry Banfield, you want my mom for something?"

"Yeah, hi, Larry. I'm Pete Canton, I work for another show, we've got a young guy with two lions and he can't control them worth shit."

"That doesn't sound good, Pete, I hope they haven't mauled him?"

"Not yet, Larry, but they might, you see, the kid is scared of the cats and they can smell it, so they taunt him with paw slaps and roaring."

"All right, Pete, give me a moment." I walked away, then opened the door of our Winnebago, walked back and knocked on the bedroom door.

Mom opened it and I quickly explained the situation. She nodded and said she'd be outside in a moment.

Mom joined us a few minutes later, wearing heavy work gloves that extend to the elbow and carrying two large pieces of fresh meat.

Pete led us around the fairgrounds until we reached their area, then over to a truck with the lions' cage on a trailer behind it.

Mom watched the kid by the cage for a moment, then asked Pete to fetch a small table so she could put one of the pieces of meat down. "I'm going to approach the cage, offer the chunk of meat to whichever lion comes first, then let him smell me for a bit. The one thing that makes a huge difference with animals like this is confidence, a trainer who has confidence and isn't afraid of them gets them to slow down a bit."

Pete whistled, a kid about twelve or so ran over, Pete told him what was needed and the kid returned a few minutes later carrying a small table. The kid had apparently taken a moment to think it out as he brought back several sheets of paper towel to put under the meat. Smart kid.

Mom dropped one chunk of meat on the paper towels, then approached the cage, talking quietly to the lions. When she reached the cage, at a point roughly midway between the two lions, she held the hand with the piece of meat just inside the bars and waited.

The bigger lion, possibly the older one, stalked over, sniffed at the meat, then snatched it from her hand with his long tongue. The meat was gone in seconds, the lion licked his face once or twice, bent his head to sniff at mom's hand, then head butted her hand several times.

She laughed and slowly reached under the lion's head, scratching at his throat, which soon had the lion purring quite loudly. After a few minutes of this, the other lion moved forward to get in on it, but the first lion turned his head and growled, causing the second to back away.

Another minute or two passed, then the big lion turned and stalked over to his corner, where he laid down and watched all of us.

Mom pulled her arm out, walked back to the table, picked up the other piece of meat and headed over to the second lion.

Over the next five or ten minutes, the process was repeated and the young lion "trainer" was literally stunned by mom's confidence.

When she finished, she walked back to us, then asked Pete to find his boss as she wanted to discuss something with him or her.

We stood around waiting for nearly twenty minutes before Pete returned with an older lady, whom he introduced as Mrs. Alice Underhill.

Mrs. Underhill turned to face my mom and stated, "I hear you were asking for me, would you mind telling me why?"

Mom grinned and replied, "Well, your young man there is scared of the cats, he needs to learn how to be confident around them. I'm Esther Banfield, I do the lion taming for our show, Jack Birchland's. I can take your young man here and turn him into a good lion tamer/trainer."

Mrs. Underhill laughed, replying, "I've heard of you, if half the stories I've been told are true, you're one of the best tamers alive right now."

Mom giggled, "I don't know that I'd say that I'm that good, but I have a lot of experience which will help with training your young man."

Mrs. Underhill laughed even louder, "That's an understatement, Esther! I'm Alice, by the way. So you want to take Terrence here with you? How long would he be staying with you for training purposes and would he have somewhere to sleep while traveling with you?"

Mom replied, "Yes, I want him with us, six months to a year, maybe longer and if he doesn't have a bed, we have several fully equipped tents."

Alice Underhill turned to Terrence, asking, "How do you feel about this, Terrence?"

The young man in question blushed rather visibly, "She's Birchland's tamer? Mrs. Underhill, I've never seen anything like what she just did."

"Well, Terrence," Alice responded, "She's been taming and training lions for nearly twenty-five years, so she's damn good at it."

"Ma'am, she acted like they were nothing more than overgrown house cats. I want to be able to be that confident," Terrence stated.

"Are you willing to go with her and let her teach you, then?" Alice asked.

"Yes, ma'am, the truck and trailer is mine, I've had my driver's license since I was fourteen, so that won't be a problem."

Alice chuckled, "I know that, Terrence, you've worked with me part time or full time for nearly ten years now. Pack up, you're hers for now. Esther, I'd like to get semi-regular reports on his training if that's possible, he's a good kid and a hard worker. Take care of him for me."

Terrence nodded and picked up a few things that had been lying around, then stuffed them into the back of the truck. At some point in time, someone had added a camper style roof to the back of the truck, turning the F1500 long bed into a small but cozy living space.

Mom waited until Terrence was ready, then we got into the truck and Mom gave him directions to our area of the fairgrounds.

**********

Mom decided to keep the two male lions in Terrence's cage on his trailer, she didn't want our lone lioness to end up with another litter right now. The two male lions put up a bit of a fuss at not being able to be in the same cage as our lioness but eventually settled down.

There's a lot of support staff for any carny group, callers, animal tenders, odd jobs folks, etc.

We have Lance Abrams who mostly tends to the horses, but also helps with other animals, along with Kerry Ellis and Vince Tanner.

Brant has a couple of young guys, Carter Thomas and Greg Darcy, who help tend to the elephants and their cage.

Mom usually takes care of our lioness and her kits by herself, but now that we have Terrence with us, he'll likely help out with that work. Mom can also get help from Quentin Lorenz who has been, up till now, the only person other than mom that could clean our lioness' cage.

Then there's Tina Hanson, Lisa Marks, Dave Peters, Elijah Riordan, Ricki Keswick, Albany Johnson, Vicky Sanders and Frank Canning. These folks are our callers, our outside talkers in carny speak, the ones who stand out in front of the tents and pull people in to watch the shows.

Jackson Pelt's younger brother Jeremy helps him to keep his bikes and associated gear in tip top shape.

There's also Ursula Walker, Sam Granger, Tipper Falls and Zoe Shaughnessy, they walk around clearing up litter, we like our area to be clean. These four are all older folks, all but Sam over forty; all four have been injured and couldn't continue doing their former activities or stunts.

**********

I was able to watch Mom early on Friday morning as she demonstrated to Terrence her ability to control the three adult lions.

While she was putting them through their paces, she was also talking to Terrence. "Confidence is the key, Terry, if you show them that you're not afraid of them, over time, they'll begin to think of you as a strong member of their pack, one they can't terrorize into submission."

Terrence thought for a moment, then replied, "So by showing them I'm afraid, I'm letting them control the situation when I should be?"

"That's right. If you want to succeed at this, you need to reach deep inside yourself and learn to control that fear."

Terrence paced back and forth for a few minutes, then stood there, taking slow, deep breaths. When he finally turned back toward her, there was a visible change in his posture and movement, he practically stalked across the space, previously he had shuffle walked.

Mom noticed the change, smiled and tossed him her second whip. "Let's see what you can do, young man."

The next hour was spent with Terrence learning the various motions and calls. The lions were in a fairly good mood, which made it easier for Terrence, but by the time he stepped back and let mom take over again, he was quite obviously sweating and nervous. One of the males had actually stalked up close to Terrence at one point, trying to intimidate the young man, but he had stood his ground and the lion walked away.

Mom chuckled, "Not too bad, young man, but they still know that you're at least a little bit afraid of them. You'll get there, it just takes time."

**********

The Valbists and the two jugglers spent the early morning on Friday practicing as a group. The idea was to get Pat and Jenny used to the way that the acrobats moved and to teach the two young jugglers how to time their throws so they wouldn't actually hit the acrobats.

Pat and Jenny stayed on the ground while the acrobats took to the swing bars, ropes and stationary bars they used.

It was a gruelling session, but by the end of it, the two jugglers felt they could give at least an honest effort. Considering that the balls Pat and Jenny were throwing each weighed about two pounds or so, and they often had four or more in hand, it required a fair amount of energy.

Eric smiled at them, as did Maria; Pat and Jenny might be new to all of this, but they were willing to work hard to learn.

**********

The first show in the big tent was Mom with the three lions, Terrence assisting her as needed.

The show went fairly well for the most part, the big male tried to intimidate Terrence twice, and like that morning, Terrence stood his ground. The lion continued with the act as if the moments with Terrence hadn't happened, and Terrence was relieved that he hadn't been hurt.

He'd still been scared of the lion, to an extent that the lion picked up on it, but Terrence had gained the lion's respect by standing firm. Just before the first show ended, that lion paced over to Terrence, rose up and placed his paws on Terrence's shoulder, then licked him.

Seconds later, the lion had dropped to the ground and rejoined the other lion and the lioness, going through their final paces.

Terrence came very close to filling his underwear at that point, but somehow shook it off and followed Mom and the lions out of the tent.

**********

At about the same time as the lions' first show was taking place, the acrobats and jugglers had their first show.

The five acrobats jumped, spun, flew all over the place, going from one piece of equipment to another with eerie skill and grace. Pat and Jenny wandered around underneath them, tossing their weighted balls in a spinning circle, narrowly missing the acrobats many times.

There were a few points when they didn't miss, just a slip in timing, but the flexibility of the acrobats prevented any serious injury. Eric, Sherry and Tommy would have bruises later, but that wasn't all that unusual; sometimes they would land on an item wrong, bruises were normal.

Even with the accidental hits, the show was a decent success, they had filled more than half of the available seating in the tent.

It might even be said that the accidental hits helped to show the realism of the acrobats act, that even they could be affected by mistakes.

**********

Barry and his elephants were next in the main tent. This was a first for Barry, his previous experience with elephants had been when he spent a summer working for a zoo in his home town, he'd ended up cleaning the elephant compound there on a regular basis.

He'd been working constantly with Sasha and Vandal, the two elephants Jack had picked up a few months before.

He had the two elephants walk around the open space, then up reinforced boards and stepping through huge hoops. Every now and then, he'd give a command and one or both of the elephants would rise up on their back legs while trumpeting, then drop to the ground again.

Elephants aren't as flexible as cats by a long shot, so there was more walking them around, through the hoops and over obstructions like twelve inch by twelve inch ten foot long pieces of lumber, there were a few of those scattered around the tent at various levels.

The show drew a fair crowd, a bit over a third of the tent compared to about three quarters for the lions, but there was genuine applause.

**********

It was my turn next in the smaller tent. My set up wasn't complicated, an eighty foot long rope placed fifty feet up over a flimsy looking net. The net might look flimsy, but it isn't; we've tested it quite a bit, and it will catch someone my dad's size, 6'1" and 215 pounds, quite easily.

The acrobats don't use the net, even though it's available. Dad enforces it with me because I'm a minor and safety of minors is a big issue.

I don't even notice the net any more, I've been doing this long enough that my entire focus is on what I do, not what is below me.

I smile at the crowd as I stand on the board at one end, then bow briefly before I twist sideways spinning into a perfect set of cartwheels. Several seconds later, I stop halfway across the rope, then do a front flip and land on it again before doing a few jumping jacks.

The front flip and the jumping jacks have several people going, "Eek!" as if they think I'm about to fall, then I don't and they sigh in relief. I turn so that I'm facing toward the board at the other end and begin walking along as if I were on the ground, not up here on a very slim rope.

I end up perhaps five feet from the safety of the other board, then turn and do a back flip before twisting and doing several cartwheels.

Once again, I'm in the middle of the rope, and I'm pretty sure I heard several gasps when I did the back flip, then shifted to the cartwheels.

This is where I start having fun, though. I trained with a guy from Europe a few years ago, and now I start dancing on the tightrope. I'm shifting position on the rope as if I were being held in the arms of a lover. The changes in movement cause some watchers to hold their breath.

I'm quite good at this, so I don't know why they seem so scared. All it takes is a lot of practice and knowing where to step all the time.

Finally, after I've danced back and forth along the middle of the rope for a few minutes, I cartwheel to a board, bow and go down the steps.

The applause at the end was quite nice, I like to give a good show, and it's pretty clear that I've thoroughly impressed many of these people.

**********

Jackson Pelt followed my performance, several folks moved in to set up his act, finally getting his approval.

He does some pretty neat stunts, like actually doing a flip while on the bike, twists and spins, riding up curved walls, using them as the launch point for various stunts, there's a few jumps over obstacles and through hoops, but he often does these while spinning or twisting.

He's pretty good at this, most of the time, he's moving at a good thirty to thirty-five miles an hour, so he has to have very good timing.

If I wasn't kept busy by the constant training and doing shows, not to mention keeping up with homework, I'd likely try the stunt biking myself.

**********

The lions and elephants each performed three times on Friday, starting from about mid-afternoon.

In our tent, each of the acts had two performances over the same time period, which gave me lots of time to get my homework done.

At one point after I had finished my homework between shows, I wandered over and watched the horses. Horses are lovely creatures, they're strong and excellent runners, but it is really wonderful to watch them walking around the small space carrying a young child.

Lance, Kerry or Vince will be nearby, sometimes holding the lead rein, sometimes just watching, but always close if something happens.

Watching one of them leading a child around on a horse, especially if the child has never ridden a horse before, can bring me to tears. It takes a lot of trust to let someone put you on a big animal's back and then lead that animal around while you're sitting on it.

I know quite well about that, I was one of those kids eleven years go, and I fell in love with horses, although I never did learn to ride well.

**********

The big tent did four shows each for the lions and elephants on Saturday, and three each for those two acts on Sunday.

The small tent, which is for the jugglers and acrobats, Jackson and myself, did three shows each on Saturday and two each on Sunday.

The horses drew a steady flow of customers, many of them letting their kids have their first ride; most of the kids enjoyed it. There were a few that didn't, and on one occasion, a mother had to come in and take her child off the horse because the child was having a mega freakout.

The games booths did reasonably well; they aren't the major draws for us, just a steady source of income for some of our people.

The big acts, the lions, the elephants, the jugglers and acrobats, Jackson, myself, we pull the crowds; well, our talkers bring the crowds to us.

We made enough between Friday and Sunday to cover our costs and have a bit left over, even the people running the games booths.

Sunday evening was spent pulling everything down and getting it packed.

We'll be hitting the road again in the morning, heading for the Lake County Fair at Eustis, Florida which starts on Thursday.

It won't take us very long to get there from here, so we might have a day or two to just relax and enjoy some early spring days in Florida.

I apologize for the extremely lengthy time between postings for this story. Life, as I mentioned in the prologue, can be an utter PITA. Some of that was due to the muse striking at various times with stories or chapters of stories, some due to the muse apparently being on strike or lost.

We arrived at the site for the Lake County Fair perhaps an hour after we left the Williston area that Monday morning.

As usual, Jack prepaid our fees for the fair, but had to pay for Walburton's rides too, then we had the fun of setting everything up. That took most of the day and part of the evening on the Monday, and half of Tuesday morning before everything was up and checked off as being safe.

Jack told everyone to relax for the rest of the day, and Wednesday too, it's best to get some quiet time before the events start happening.

Since we now had time off, mom and dad used a tablet to go online through a wifi set-up Jack organized and looked up walk-in medical clinics in the area. The closest one they could find was over in Mount Dora, and it would be open for several hours the next day, Wednesday.

While my parents were looking for a medical place we could go to so I could get examined and find out what the heck was going on, they told me that Jack had come in the night before and informed them that Walburton's rides would be with us from now on out. With how busy it gets while we are doing shows at a fair, I don't often get a chance to wander off and go on rides, so having them with us might offer that chance.

It seems that Walburton had accrued a fairly nasty debt load and had had the creditors crawling up and down their backs, then Jack stepped in to help. Birchland Carnivals has been doing reasonably well in all the time I've been part of the show, that's nine years, so I guess there was enough actual cash available to cover the Walburton's Wonderful Whirlds of Whee company's debts and clear their current credit records.

As I said already, the end result was that Walburton's would be part of our show and set-up from now on. What I hadn't known, until my parents informed me of it, was that Walburton's rides and our events used to be a combined show that went separate ways back in the '70s (see the tie-in story here: https://bigclosetr.us/topshelf/fiction/67480/walburtons-wond... ).

So mom and dad figured we could relax today, go in tomorrow and get the examination done, then be ready for the fair on Thursday. That sounded okay to me, so I wandered off to my area in the RV that mom, dad and I share and spent the next few hours doing homework.

Now, I'm not sure if I've told you this before or not, but I've been home schooled since I was five and was old enough to be going to school. If we, as part of Birchland Carnivals, weren't on the roads for a good eight or nine months of the year every year, things would be different. Well, mom usually picks out stuff on various things like history, geography, social studies, math, English (including creative writing), Spanish, gymnastics, and whatever else she thinks might help me to get a well-rounded education, then has me do homework on each of the "classes".

Today, my studying was on history, specifically Washington's part in the Revolutionary War that led to our independence. She also had me studying about the places where Washington and his forces were during that war. Let's just say I learned a lot, mostly from online sources.

To this day, I find it amazing that forces like Washington's and the British troops could live and fight in what had to be appalling physical conditions. Diseases like cholera, dysentery, malaria and smallpox were often rampant in army camps back then, it was not unusual to lose about a tenth or more of an army to diseases. That was often due to the fact that cleanliness was not something that many folks espoused at that time, thus they were open to diseases that spread through the air, the water or from one person to another or from an animal to a person.

Even harder to comprehend with today's medical knowledge and devices is that, if one had a major wound back then such as a leg or arm shattered by a heavy rifle slug or a cannonball, the wounded would most likely have that limb removed, often dying in the process.

After I had been studying for a few hours, I made up a sandwich and poured a glass of milk, then curled up on the bench seat with my food.

I suppose I could have stopped at that point, but I kept looking at sites that described army conditions and how even something as simple as the environment of the area where they camped could have an effect on the overall health and capability of the troops in an army. For instance, camping near a swamp or other wet place could mean being bitten by mosquitos or other bugs, many of them carriers of various diseases.

Mom and dad returned from their wanderings around the fairgrounds, telling me that there were many carny groups already here. I nodded, that would mean that there would be some variety, as some companies are known for specific things, like Birchland's for the lions we have.

I guess they must have had something while they were wandering around as mom said that we wouldn't have supper until 8 PM tonight. I giggled and told mom that was fine, as I had finished my little meal perhaps twenty minutes earlier and had cleaned up after myself already.

I then informed them that I was going to wander around and see what was happening, and added that I would be back in time for the food. Mom laughed, she knows just how I eat, which is more typical of a large athlete than of someone my size, but hey, I'm growing, ya know?

I stepped out of the RV, looked around and walked over to talk to some of the Walburton's folks and look at the rides they have available. It's been at least a few years since I've been on a ferris wheel or a tilt-a-whirl or a scrambler or a gravitron or a roller coaster, for example.

I had no idea that Walburton's had a roller coaster, but they do. It's not a huge one, but it has drops, loops and twists on about 4200 feet of track. Since it needs more space, the roller coaster is on one side of the area Walburton's has available with the other rides across from it.

There was a big guy standing in the open area between the coaster and the other Walburton's rides. He noticed me, walked over and asked me what was up. I replied that I was just taking a look at things and would probably be roaming around a fair bit of the fairgrounds today.

I also told him that I was with Birchland Carnivals and he nodded, then said something about our being allowed free rides if they weren't busy. When I asked about that, he said that Walburton's owed their presence here to Jack Birchland having interceded with their credit problem. That put them in a debt of honour position to Birchland, so they were giving those of us from Birchland who might want it rides for free.

"So, kid," he continued, "My name is Clarke Horton, I run Walburton's Tilt-A-Whirl, just let us know if you want a ride. Have fun wandering!"

I nodded after re-introducing myself, and headed off to see what other companies had come to set up early for the fair. The next few hours were spent roaming from one end of the fairgrounds to the other, looking at the games, big top events and rides that were available. There were companies present that were from as far away as Seattle, Washington and LA, California, and others from various places in Florida.

The "local" companies were ones that mostly stayed in Florida or might go into neighbouring states if there were no Florida events available.

I strolled up to our RV and stepped inside, then stopped dead as the smells of the dinner mom was making flooded my poor brain. I took a good long sniff and grinned as I turned to face the small kitchen area, "Meatloaf, mom, is that great-grandma Beth's recipe that you're using?"

Mom just giggled and nodded as she checked the veggies cooking on the small stove, potatoes in one pot, a mixed vegetables assortment in another pot. I asked her low long it would be until we would be eating, she sniffed and told me, "Maybe fifteen minutes, wash your hands!"

Now it was my turn to giggle as I replied, "Yes, mom! Right now, Herr Kommandant!" She shook her head as I entered the tiny washroom.

It didn't take me long to wash up. As I came out of the washroom, dad was coming into the RV, and he headed for the washroom. Well, he was heading there, but first, he had to stop just like I did and sniff the food that was cooking, then he grinned and entered the washroom.

We sat down to eat at the four person dining table that was part of the front section of the RV. The meal was fantastic, but that's no surprise, really, great-grandma Beth's recipe has been very popular at many family events for as far back as I could remember, perhaps even longer.

After supper, I climbed up into the bed over the driver's area and looked at the small collection of books that were lined up along the front "wall". I finally decided to reread the books in the Hunger Games trilogy. I guess this would be the fourth time I've read them, but I only have a few books available, and most of those are single volumes, which might end up being no more than a few hours worth of reading for me.

I do have a large print set of The Hobbit and The Lord Of The Rings trilogy. I'll reread them soon, I'm sure, as I'm a huge Tolkien fan.

The rest of the evening passed in my little loft as I read and listened to the radio playing country songs while mom and dad talked below me.

Finally, at about 11 PM, mom told me that I needed to get to bed, as we wanted to be at the medical centre as early as possible.

I came down long enough to do a simple cleaning, brushed my teeth again and crawled into my bed. Sleep rolled over me soon after that.

Well, I have to say that I had a decent night's sleep, which is good. Mom and dad were already awake and sitting at the table with their usual cups of coffee. I opened a cupboard, grabbed and opened a mini box of Rice Krispies, added a bit of sugar and milk and threw two slices of whole wheat in the toaster. I like my toast to be browned a fair bit, so I was able to eat about half of the cereal before the toast was done.

Shortly after I was finished eating, I had dressed in a simple pair of boot leg jeans, a t-shirt, flannel long sleeve and a light jacket.

Mom and dad had put on their jackets while I was getting dressed, so we were soon on our way to the medical clinic.

We arrived a bit early, so we relaxed in the RV until someone came to open the place up, then we locked the RV and followed the woman inside. We hadn't been in there for more than a minute or two before she came back out and asked us to fill out a bunch of forms.

Don't you just hate having to fill out all of those forms whenever you go into a new place for a medical visit of some sort? Well, imagine what it's like when you're on the road for two thirds of the year or longer and might need to visit a clinic two or three times in that time period.

I'd hate to think how much hassle it must be for the new places we go to to have to get medical records from the last ones we've visited.

The forms were eventually filled out as other folks came into the clinic, some going in the back, some sitting in the waiting area. Several of the folks that sat down in the waiting area were soon inundated with forms like mom and dad had been just a short while earlier.

Then a new woman came out, called my name and I stood up and followed her around a corner and into an examination room. She asked me to strip down to my underwear, as she would be doing several tests and it would be easier without clothing being in the way.

While I stripped, she introduced herself to me as Dr. Savannah Brandt, then she had me sit on the exam table and the tests began.

Dr. Brandt checked blood pressure, pulse, my eyes, ears and nose, then tapped my knees with a reflex hammer just to check that things worked as they should. A nurse came in to draw some blood from me, saying they would use it to see what was happening inside of me.

Then Dr. Brandt got down to business, asking why I was here. I showed her my chest and she hummed and hawed for a moment. She also took a moment to examine my scrotal sac, which is when she looked slightly surprised, then she touched my penis and I barely felt anything.

She picked up a phone, connected on an internal line and set up several more tests, urine, stools, ultrasound, X-rays, more blood tests.

Someone called her a few minutes later, saying they had an ultrasound ready if she would send me down to them.

A female worker, possibly a nurse or nursing student, led me down another hall and into the ultrasound room. I was told to lie down on the exam table as the male technician pulled out a jar of some kind of gel and spread it on my chest, then started looking using the machine.

I suppose he must have been a bit surprised by whatever he saw there, as he uttered a slightly shocked grunt, then wiped my chest clean before applying more of the gel to my abdomen. This bit of the exam took longer, as he was looking at a larger area, but the results showing up on the screen were clear enough, even to someone like me. I laid there, shocked would be polite, stunned would probably be more accurate.

You see, what was showing on the machine was what looked like a not quite fully formed uterus, with ovaries, fallopian tubes, etc. He guided the sensor down a bit further, right over my pelvis, and the image showed what should have been a vaginal opening, but it was closed. A tiny slit in the center of that bit of skin was visible, as if the pieces to either side were trying to separate and open, but hadn't succeeded yet.

He shut down the machine, wiped my abdomen clean of the gel, then had me put the gown back on. I'm glad the door was closed.

He was shaking his head as he picked up a phone and called someone, I assume it was to tell Dr. Brandt what he had found. I wasn't listening to him at that point, to say that I was still stunned would be an understatement. Well, this would explain the itching and other odd feelings.

Once I had the gown back on, I was sent back to Dr. Brandt's office, where I waited for about twenty minutes before the phone rang again and she was informed that the X-ray tech was available, could she send me down there now? A nurse showed up and led me down the halls again, this time turning into an area a short distance away from the ultrasound room, then asked me to wait there for a moment.

I sat down on a chair and waited for nearly fifteen minutes before she reappeared and led me into the X-ray room. The tech had me stand by the machine, had me put my arms on it in a certain way, then hold my breath until they said otherwise. The machine emitted that odd sound that they seem to make, then the tech said I could breathe again. I repeated the process for a left side chest view, then for two abdominal ones.

Getting good copies of all four pictures took a bit less than ten minutes, then the technician said I was done and I could go back to the doctor's room. I was beginning to get some idea of where the halls in here went, so I found my own way back to her office and knocked on the door.

I had to wait a minute, then Dr. Brandt let me in and led me into a small exam area next to her office, where a nurse drew six more vials of blood from my other arm. Once that was done, I was led to a bathroom and told to produce both a urine sample and a stool sample, STAT.

Darn medical people that expect you to piss and poop on command. I guess I was lucky, last night's supper and the breakfast I had eaten a few hours earlier had worked their way through my stomach and my whole intestinal tract. It wouldn't be too long before I'd be pooping it out.

I sat in the bathroom for a bit over twenty minutes, but after that time period, I had both samples in their respective containers.

I was all too happy to wash my hands quite thoroughly after that, then I returned to the doctor's office, knocking on the door once more.

By the time all the testing was done, the clock in the doctor's office was showing 2:45 PM and I hadn't eaten since 7:30 that morning. To say that I was hungry at that point would have been quite funny, comparable to Niagara Falls being a "small waterfall" if you get my meaning.

Dr. Brandt gave me an odd look when my stomach growled rather loudly, then giggled. "Go get some food and come back here in an hour or two hon. That will give us some time to get all the test info together and see what we need to do." I nodded, quickly dressed and left the office.

Mom and dad were glad to see that I was okay, then were startled, as were several others, when my stomach rumbled quite loudly again.

Mom grinned and suggested we get something to eat, at which point dad's stomach rumbled and mine repeated it back to him.

Mom shook her head and giggled as we walked out of the clinic. Across the parking lot, I spotted a sign for a Chinese food place and pointed it out to my parents. They seemed to agree that it would do for a lunch meal, so we crossed the large parking lot and entered China Eight.

The place catered to simple meals, so we each ordered bowls of hot and sour soup, some won tons and a plate of noodles and chicken bites.

The food wasn't the best Chinese I've eaten, but it sure satisfied my poor starving stomach. We had also ordered drinks with our food, mom and dad going for their usual coffee, while I chose to get some Coke. I sighed in contentment as I cleaned the last bit of food from my plate.

Mom and dad were still eating, I guess they hadn't been quite as hungry as I was, but then, they aren't teenagers any more, right? The place wasn't busy, so we decided to stay there and relax before going back to the clinic, which led to our getting refills of our drinks.

Finally, when my watch showed that it was almost 4:30 PM, we paid the bill and walked back across the asphalt to the clinic.

We didn't have to wait for more than a few minutes before we were led down to the doctor's office, mom and dad were right next to me.

We were showed into her office and the three of us sat down in the chairs that had been provided, then waited for the doctor to appear.

She came in about ten minutes later, sat down by her small desk and faced the three of us. "Well, this has been an interesting day. After I had examined Larry's chest this morning, I ordered several tests to be done, and each one validated what I thought to be the case.

"Larry isn't a male at all, but a fully functioning female, or she will be once her reproductive system matures. The ultrasound technician found what is clearly identifiable as a uterus with fallopian tubes, ovaries, the whole kit and caboodle, but none of it is fully formed yet.

"This was corroborated by the films that the X-ray technician took, which clearly show a female bone structure developing.

"We were able to get the blood samples we'd taken checked quite fast, as there are labs that do business with several clinics in the area. Those tests showed that Larry is producing almost no testosterone, along with slightly higher than normal levels of estrogen for a teenage girl. Those estrogen levels are many times higher than would be normal for a teenage male, and Larry is showing initial stages of breast growth.

"The urine and stool samples also brought back results that are more in line with a young female. By that point, we were expecting it."

"Wow!" was mom's enigmatic reply. "So what happens now?"

"Well, one of the things that we discovered is that Larry has what should be a vaginal opening, but it needs to be snipped a bit to allow it to open. If we don't do this soon, we're afraid that there will be serious issues as menstruation occurs. Better to fix it now, oh, and snip the bit of flesh that has been of little use to the child except as a way to urinate. It's easy enough to redirect things like that to where they should be.

'So, with that in mind, I'm going to contact some hospitals and see if one can fit Larry in within the next day or two to deal with that."

Dad spoke up, saying, looking at mom and I as he said, "I'd better call Jack and let him know, he'll be covering the medical costs."

Mom nodded and dad walked over to a corner of the office, pulled out a fairly old cell phone and called Jack. We could hear that he was talking at some points and listening at others, but he was speaking in a low enough voice that we couldn't actually hear what was being said.

Mom looked at the doctor, then sighed and nodded to her, saying, "Do what you need to do to help our child, Doctor Brandt."

That was all it took, Mom, dad and I left the office, dad still talking with Jake and we sat down to wait in the waiting area.

This wait lasted about an hour, then Dr. Brandt called us back in, at which point she informed us that a bed would be available in the children's ward and a nurse would be coming soon to take me up to that floor so they could do all the necessary preparations for the operation.

Dad informed Dr. Brandt that Jack had agreed to cover the medical costs and to have the bills sent to him in care of his lawyer. Now Jack's lawyer, Fargo Thomas, is an older black gentleman who grew up in the south, then came up north to go to university and stayed there. Jack had employed him for more than twenty years as the lawyer for Birchland Carnivals and left many matters in his quite capable hands.

Dad then assured Dr. Brandt that Jack was most likely talking to the lawyer right now, to get the ball rolling, so to speak.

About twenty minutes passed before a very young nurse entered Dr. Brandt's office, then informed me that I was to go with her. I just about jumped into mom's lap, wrapping her in a big hug, before I stepped down, hugged dad and followed the young woman out of the office.

"We'll be giving you a small meal in an hour or so, then no food until after the procedure is finished."

"But... but..." I spluttered, "How will I survive? I eat four or five times a day, you know, growing kid and all that?" as I giggled at her.

"You poor thing," she laughed, "You'll just have to suffer until afterward, then we'll make sure you get a nice meal, okay?"

"Oh, all right," I grumbled as she led me into a small room on the female side of the children's ward and pointed at an empty bed.

"I'll bring you a gown, then you will need to strip and relax until your dinner arrives. Don't give me a hard time, little missy!" she chastised me.

I sighed and nodded, then waited as she left and returned a few minutes later with a couple of those hospital gowns and a towel. "There is a small shower down the hall where you can wash yourself either tonight or early tomorrow morning, that's why I brought the towel."

I thanked her, sighed again, then stripped and quietly put on the flimsy gown that covers all too little before I sat down on the bed.

I had been sitting there moping for maybe thirty minutes when a young girl, perhaps twelve or so, entered the room with people that I assumed to be her parents. "Look, mommy, daddy, I have a roommate again!" she shrilled. She asked what my name was, Larry didn't fit, so I said Lara.

She settled onto the other bed, then her mother and father talked with her for a few minutes before they had to leave for the night. The young girl told me her name was Shelly DeAngelo, and she was here for cancer treatments due to her being diagnosed with children's leukaemia.

She started to cry, and that had me almost crying, so I hopped off of my bed, walked over and hugged her for several minutes.

I explained why I was here and she thought it was hilarious, then giggled and said, "Being a girl is good, and thanks for that hug!"

We sat and chatted until my food arrived. It was time for Shelly to go to sleep, so the nurse tucked her in and I quietly sang a lullaby. The soft words of the song soon had Shelly in the depths of slumber and I continued to eat my meal of now cold roast beef, a potato and peas.

Once I had finished eating, I lay back down on the bed, then thought about everything that I had heard earlier. I guess the biggest surprise was finding out that I had never been male at all, but that some doctor in the hospital where I was born had assumed I was male because of my supposed penis. Then today I find out that it wasn't anything more than a way for me to urinate, it would never be functional in any other way.

Well, if that meant that I would have to live as a girl from now on, I could handle that. If I couldn't, mom and dad would get help for me.

I'm not sure exactly when I fell asleep, but I'm quite sure that it was much sooner than I had slept the night before.

Two different nurses came in, waking me up both times to do quick checks on my current status, then left me to sleep again.

I woke up for the last time just after 6 AM. A nurse popped in a few minutes later, checked everything, then left like the others had last night.

It was just after 8:30 AM when a nurse came in and unlocked the wheels of the bed, then started hauling me down the corridors of the hospital. I was taken into a prep room where a guy came in and checked blood pressure and pulse, then said I was ready for the anaesthetist.

That worthy added something to my IV line and asked me to count down from one hundred. "100, 99, 98, 97, 96, 95, 94" and that was it.

When I woke up what seemed like several hours later, mom and dad were in my room, and a nurse popped in to say the food would be there soon. The nurse was actually correct for once, a plate of what turned out to be the lunch meal showed up less than five minutes later.

I had just finished eating when a doctor entered the room, then Dr. Brandt followed him into the room, as well as the floor's head nurse.

The male doctor lifted my gown for a moment to take a look as Dr. Brandt explained that he, Dr. Powell, had done the operation earlier.

He straightened up soon enough and stated that everything looked to be fine, then added, "No strenuous activity for at least three weeks."

Oh, dear, that might cause problems, as my tightrope act is fairly popular. Perhaps dad or Jack could find someone to do that for a while. If whoever that was hired turned out to be any good, perhaps we could become a team once I was well again, a two person tightrope act.

I find it odd that, even though I grew up as a male for nearly 15.5 years, I'm actually a female, well technically intersex.

Because of the procedure that was done the other day to open what was actually my outer and inner labia, I have to take it easy for about three weeks. That sure as heck isn't going to be easy, but if I want to prevent any problems, I'm going to have to suck it up and be tough.

Haha! That is sooo funny, I'm now or soon will be legally female, and I'm talking about being tough like a guy would do. Oh, yeah, I got a surprise, it seems that Jack Birchland said he would have his lawyer Fargo sort out my ID and correct everything to show me as being female.

Mom and dad came in and spent some time with me after I returned from the operating room, but eventually had to leave for the night. Shelly was still in the room with me. She was such a sweet young girl, I made sure that she could bother me whenever she needed to do so.

I haven't had to deal with undergoing cancer treatments, but I've heard of family, friends or acquaintances of some of our folks with Birchland who have gone through that sort of shit, so I have a slight idea of just how traumatic and physically draining such treatments can be.

For some people, it can be even worse, as chemo treatments often cause the loss of one's hair, which is many girls' crowning glory.

It seems that little Shelly was facing such a possibility, but I overheard her mom that afternoon talking about making a wig from her hair if they can manage to save it when it falls out. If they can't, there are places that make very nice human hair wigs that will help little Shelly.

I'm amazed at how bright and happy Shelly is, even though she is facing a full regimen of chemotherapy treatments for her leukaemia.

They released me from the hospital late this Sunday morning. I was only able to be there after Shelly's first chemo session late Friday afternoon. I spent the next several hours holding the small child who was pale, shaking and very nauseous, she'd actually vomited a few times.

I held her close and gave her all the love I could. She finally fell asleep around 9:30 PM and I gently laid her on her own bed.

A nurse came in a few minutes later, saw that she was sleeping and covered her with a light blanket, then left again.

Shelly woke up twice, each time crying and feeling sick. Both times, I helped her, held her close and got her to relax until she slept again.

She wasn't much better through most of Saturday, being periodically nauseous, sometimes vomiting, but that settled down by late afternoon.

I had to go and see Dr. Powell early Sunday morning. He checked me out, then repeated his order about no strenuous exercise. Old fart!

Mom brought the RV to pick me up. I hugged little Shelly one last time, and held close to me the contact info I had been given for her.

I hate to see a child suffer so, I honestly wish I could be there for her. I guess I'll have to send her messages by phone or text or email.

I wasn't happy about being told I had to be in a wheelchair as we left there, but it wasn't worth the hassle of arguing about it, ya know?

Thanks to the medical stuff, I missed the last three days of the Lake County Fair. I'd have been happy to wait a couple more days, but what are you going to say to a doctor who jumps through hoops to get you medical treatment as soon as possible without being pushed into it?

We spent the rest of that Sunday just relaxing in the RV, watching old movies on the small TV dad had installed over the kitchen area.

Dad decided we would get moving early on Monday, so we were on the road, heading north and then west, not long after 8 AM.

Ah well, at least I won't have to do any of the takedown or packing of equipment as they get ready to move on to the next event.

Speaking of which, mom said that Jack had decided to go to the Hunt County fair in Texas which starts next Friday. I guess that means we can take our time getting there, as we have over four days to get there. That should be plenty of time, but who knows what might happen?

Dad was happy to see me. So was Jack, in fact, most of our folks and quite a few people we know from other carnies came over to wish me well and a speedy recovery. I'm not sure if any of them know what was done, but I'm definitely glad that so many folks seem to care!

I ended up going to bed pretty early, around 9:30 PM. I'm not sure why I was so tired so early, but I didn't feel like fighting it, so... bedtime.

I do know that dad decided to stop in Mobile, Alabama, tonight. I guess it's good that mom and dad can switch driving when needed.

I'm feeling a little bit better today, we were on the road around 7 AM after a quick breakfast at a diner near the motel we had used.

I spent most of the day just chilling in my little bed area over the driver's seat, either reading or checking my phone for messages. Yeah, I've already sent a few off to Shelly and her parents, hoping she's doing okay. Damn, she had another chemo session some time yesterday!

We had a fairly easy time on the roads, there was only one major accident, which blocked a lane on the highway, but vehicles could get by it.

We switched from I10 to I12 at Slidell, Louisiana, then back to I10 at Baton Rouge. That was about four hours after that accident we passed.

We stopped for the night at a Motel 6 in Crowley, Louisiana. We were lucky, the place was pretty much empty. Not for long.

Let's just say I've been in better places than that motel. The beds were awful, bent or busted springs, smelling like old piss or beer. Gross!

I couldn't handle it. After a couple of hours of tossing and turning, both mom and I went back out to the RV and were soon asleep.

I have to wonder how we ended up with a room that hasn't been repaired or kept up to standards. Everyone else seemed okay with the place. Mom and I made our way out of the RV around 7:30 AM to find the other folks discussing where to go to get some breakfast.

Someone pointed off to one side past the motel, where a sign advertising Waffle House could just be seen. "That looks good."

So we ended up over there. I think we came close to filling the place just with our group, but the food was pretty good. I had a nice stack of blueberry waffles, mom decided on vanilla, dad and Jack joined me in having blueberry. I'm not sure what everyone else chose.

We were on the road shortly after 8:30 AM. Like I had been doing recently, I climbed up into my bed area and pretty much took it easy.

There were no complications such as accidents today. We reached Houston around 11:30 AM, then headed north toward Dallas, which we didn't actually enter. Instead, we exited I45, taking I20 for a bit before that connected with I635, then headed up I30 until we hit Greenville.

We had decent directions, it only took us a short while then to find the right turn-off, and within another twenty minutes, we reached the site.

Hey, thanks to my recent medical adventure, I don't have to help with unloading or set-up of things here. Damn, that feels weird! I can't actually count how times I've helped out with takedown, set-up, loading, unloading, getting animals to their correct locations, all that stuff. I do know that I've been doing it for as long as I have been walking the tightropes, one of our events, so that means nine years. Wow!

I can tell you that I spent a fair bit of time pacing around as I watched folks setting everything up. I'm not used to not being involved.

Well, it looks like we can relax tomorrow, maybe have some fun checking out things here in Greenville. There must be something to do here!

The fair doesn't start until late afternoon on Friday, at least, not according to the events listing, so we can have fun for a while on Friday, too!

Some of the set-up hadn't been finished by the late evening of Wednesday after we arrived at the site, so some folks stayed on site on Thursday morning to finish it, the rest of us would find some way to relax while we wandered around Greenville to see what we could discover.

We were up by about 7 AM, even without using an alarm. I guess we're used to being on the go early, even when we aren't doing anything.

One of the lots not too far from our spot on the site had a big home style grill set up beside a huge RV, and there were two older guys standing over that grill, cooking a variety of items from your basic sausages and ham slices to what looked like hash brown patties?

Let me just say that the smell coming from that grill had me over there pretty fast, even though I was still supposed to be taking it easy.

I had to wait in a line behind a bunch of other people hungry for a breakfast they didn't have to cook themselves. When I finally reached the grill, I asked for two big sausages, a slice of ham and two hash brown patties. There was a woman about my mom's age or so, I think, standing over a large eight slice toaster plugged into a cord that was running to a generator near the back of that monster RV.

I received two slices of multi-grain toast, then wandered over to a long table, found some butter and fresh strawberry jam, prepped my two slices of toast, and looked around for somewhere to sit. Another woman pointed to a bunch of lawn chairs scattered across the grass.

I found a seat there, next to a woman who looked to be in her 70s, perhaps even older, and smiled and said hello as I sat down to eat.

She replied, thanking me for being polite, and we talked as we ate our meals on that nice late April spring morning.

Once I had finished my meal, I took her paper plate and my own and deposited them in a nearby garbage can.

I hadn't been watching mom or dad, but they joined me just after I dumped the plates, and we headed back to our area of the site.

After finding out who all wanted to go into town, we spread ourselves out through three of our RVs and were off to see Greenville.

We stopped in at the Town South shopping center and looked around for a while. We found the Hallmark store and I picked up a few postcards, I intended to fill them out later and send them back to friends I had at our winter home, folks who lived there year round.

Once we were finished in there, we crossed the lot and headed over to the store called Factory Connection. Someone had looked it up online and had discovered it was a discount store for brand name fashions. That was when my mom stuck her nose in and said that I was going to need a whole lot of new clothes, including bras and comfortable underwear. I think I turned red enough to rival Rudolph's nose!

We wandered around the Factory Connection store, Mom giggled while grabbing half a dozen training bras plus a few in AAA and AA sizes for when I started growing a bit more. The underwear sure was different, a lot softer than the boys styles I was used to wearing.

Of course, Mom grabbed four or five packs of basic but nice cotton briefs and added them to the bras in the cart. That darned blush again!

After that, we looked at a variety of jeans, picking out some that would be fairly comfortable and stretchy. That led to us looking over the leggings they had available. Again, mom had her bit of fun by holding up various pairs and deciding if they would suit me or not.

We'd been in there for over an hour by that point and made our way over to look at the t-shirts and sweaters that were available.

I pawed through a bin of t-shirts that were on sale, finding lots that I wanted, including half a dozen or so that were classic band t-shirts. You know, bands like the Eagles showing their early tours, the Rolling Stones, the Beatles just to name a few. I love classic bands!

Haha, I can just see you giving me that look, wondering why I like the old bands better than the new stuff that you hear today. Well, the simple answer is that I grew up listening to those bands. Mom and dad said they also grew up listening to them when they were still kids.

So, it's something that's been in the family, I guess, at least since my grandparents' time. A lot of what they call music nowadays is just ick!

We found a bunch of sweaters, some girly, some just basic sweatshirts and added them to the pile in the cart.

I suspect dad had been texting with other folks that brought their families, as we all ended up by the cashiers at about the same time.

The whole lot of us went through the lines, I'd bet this store got a good chunk of business from us was we made our way out.

We decided to stop somewhere for lunch, then go over to Splash Kingdom just off the I30 Frontage Road to while away the afternoon.

We didn't return to the fair site until just after 7 PM. We had had quite a bit of fun relaxing at the water park.

We had munched on snack foods here and there just to tide us over. We had originally been thinking about getting something to eat there at the water park, but the sheer cost to get us all into the place pretty much took that idea out of circulation rather fast.

Anyway, once we were back at the fair site, we found the folks from early that morning manning their big grill again.

That had us parking our vehicles as quickly as we could, then we all scurried over to see what was being grilled.

I hadn't realized it, but I found out Dad had wandered off in the late afternoon. We learned that he had gone to a supermarket in Greenville and had picked up a bunch of items that would be perfect for grilling, hamburgers, sausages, hot dogs, buns of both types, condiments.

Dad grabbed two bags of the stuff he'd bought, mom picked up a third and we followed several others to the grill to give them the food stuff. That got a nod and a handshake from the two guys running the big grill and a hug from the woman nearby, one of the guys' wives, I guess?

Even with the various snacks that I had eaten through the afternoon, I was still rather hungry and worked my way through two hamburgers and a sausage on a hot dog bun, then a rather large baked potato slathered with butter and sour cream and a 25 oz. bottle of Dr. Pepper.

I headed back to the RV at about 10:30 PM, having informed my parents that I would likely be in my bed fairly soon, I was quite tired.

Yeah, I have to a admit I hadn't done anything more than walk around all day, but whatever I have going on, it's using lots of energy. That might also explain why I was eating so much, my body was telling me to give it food in amounts that would let it do what was needed.

I was up early again on Friday. Once I was dressed, I wandered out, spotting the two guys standing over that big grill already.

I waved at them, I'm not sure if they saw it or not, then walked over to them and said hello.

There was almost no one there at that point, I suppose because it was just past 7 AM and most folks likely weren't awake yet.

That meant that I didn't have to wait very long to get my food, I ended up having pretty much the same as I had had the previous morning.

I settled down in one of the lawn chairs and demolished my breakfast at the speed of growing teenager, then sat there for a little while.

I think I had been relaxing, having finished my food, for about twenty minutes when I spotted that older woman heading toward the chairs. I hadn't really noticed the day before, but she was using one of those walkers to get around, and I smiled and helped her to settle into a chair.

I then asked her what she wanted for her own breakfast before heading to the grill and informing the guys, then moved over to the woman running the toaster and had her make one slice of white toast. Once that was ready, I collected the food and brought it to the old woman.

She smiled, showing teeth that were in remarkable condition for her age, took the plate and thanked me for getting the food for her.

I shrugged, quietly told her that it was only polite to help someone her age, then said I needed to run and headed back to our RV.

I'm not happy that I can't do my tightrope work for a while, I love being up on that rope doing the various moves. It's a lot of fun for me.

You can say it's a lot of work, too, and it is, but when one enjoys something enough, it becomes more fun than work, you know?

Anyway, here I was, sitting at the little kitchen area in our RV, grumbling to myself, when mom came in and grinned at me.

I had no idea why she was grinning, so it came as a surprise to me that several folks had asked if I could help with doing the calling.

It only took me a moment to think it over, the callers rarely did any strenuous activity, so it would give me something to do.

A quick nod from me, then me breaking into a grin, was the only sign mom needed to know that I would be okay now.

Being a caller turned out to be fairly fun. Sure, it meant spending a lot of time yelling to get people to notice you, but it was enjoyable. See, I got to learn a bit more about the various activities we do as a carnie act, and the various calls used for each of our individual acts.

That was how I spent a large part of my days over the next week and a bit, sometimes calling for one act, sometimes for a different one.

It was Wednesday afternoon, I think, when I noticed a young teen looking at one of the small billboards we have on display in our area. It took me a moment to realize that billboard was the one showing me on my tightrope. The teen was pretty much staring at the board in awe.

At the moment, I was working with Tina and Dave, doing the calling for the lion act. I told them I needed to do something for a bit. They, and the other callers, all knew that I needed breaks now and then during the day, so there was no problem with my taking a quick time out.

I wandered over to the teen, which was when I realized it was a young female, perhaps my own age, maybe even slightly younger.

I quietly said hello to her, then introduced myself and politely asked her why she was staring at my billboard.

I guess she wasn't expecting to have anyone notice her, so my approaching her and speaking to her had her turning rather red for a moment.

I apologized and led her to one of the food areas, where we sat down at a small table. I wandered off and returned shortly with soft drinks.

She recovered soon afterward and quietly explained that she was on her own, her parents having recently died in a multiple vehicle accident a few days earlier. What made it worse was that she said they were just moving here, they didn't even have a house to call home yet.

They had been staying in a motel for a few days while her parents looked for work they could do, they had come down here from somewhere up past Abilene in the northwest corner of the state. Her parents hadn't had any luck with finding work before the fatal car crash last Tuesday.

There were no relatives to take her, her grandparents on both sides were all deceased, the most recent about three years ago. Both of her parents had been single children, her dad because his mom had a bad bout of cancer that eventually required the removal of all of her reproductive organs, her mother's mother had been due to a really bad miscarriage that caused her doctor to tie off her tubes.

It may have been possible that this girl's grandmother could have had more children, but she never took the chance, so that was that.

Social services in the area had no idea that Allison even existed, so it was rather doubtful that they would be looking for her at all.

She had been telling me all of this while we each sipped at our drinks. Then she whispered that she wished she could be a tightrope walker.

Yeah, I remembered that she had been staring at my billboard earlier, but it was still a surprise when she said that as we sat there.

I asked her to get up for a moment, then had her turn around before I asked her to step away from the table and do some simple flexibility exercises such as touching her toes, doing a bridge, seeing how far she could twist to each side, cartwheels, flips, you get the idea.

As far as I could see, she seemed to be pretty flexible. With some training, she could get up on the tightrope, but it would be a while.

We still had some of our drinks, so I asked her to come with me and headed back to our part of the grounds.

Once there, I led her over to Tina and Dave, then quickly informed those two that I wouldn't be available, as I would be training Allison. Let's just say their eyes almost bugged out. I had to spend a few minutes explaining that Allison had no one to take care of her at all.

They caught on fast, Dave gave me a rough slap on the shoulder, so I shot him a punch just under the collar bone.

I may not be big, but I'm very wiry and very strong for my size. Dave actually stood there, rubbing his shoulder, saying it hurt.

That had me laughing, telling him that he shouldn't be running around slapping girls on the shoulder. He blanched, I guess he forgot?

Anyway, after talking with them, I led Allison over to the booth my dad runs, waved at him while mouthing "We need to talk".

He nodded, finished the game that was currently running, then had his junior guy, Robby Wimble, take over the booth.

I sat on a bench behind the booth as Dad, also sitting there, listened to Allison who was standing in front of us as she repeated her story.

Dad asked her very carefully about the no living relatives bit, at which point Allison pulled several faded pictures from an old wallet.

She passed them over to dad, telling him "That picture shows my gramps and grams Johnson. Gramps came down with a bad flu about six years ago, it messed him up pretty badly, badly enough that a cold he caught that winter killed him. Grams Johnson took to the bottle when he died, she just couldn't handle being on her own and mom and dad didn't have the time to be up there and help her a lot.

"Well, Grams got rather drunk one night, we think she got ahold of some moonshine somehow, and walked out in front of a speeding car. That damn car was doing close to eighty miles an hour in a twenty-five mile an hour zone, the bastards didn't even stop after they hit her."

Allison was crying a bit now as she handed another picture to my dad. "That picture is of my Grampa and Granma Jones, they were nice folks, my daddy's parents, but they preferred to live rough, using things like electricity and modern technologies as rarely as possible.

"About three years ago, on a cold night in February, they as usual set a candle on the night table on Grampa's side of the bed. At about three or so in the morning, Grampa had a seizure of some sort, perhaps the result of a stroke and knocked the candle onto the floor, still lit.

"There was an old rug on the floor in front of that night table, it caught on fire, then spread to the quilt hanging off the side of the bed.

"Within fifteen minutes, the entire bedroom was ablaze. No one knows why Granma Jones never woke up that night.

"The house burned to the ground by the time dawn broke through the grey skies that day. Even with three volunteer fire companies having been on the scene since shortly after four AM, they could only keep the fire contained, they were unable to stop it from consuming the house.

"That was when mom and dad started becoming unhappy with where we had been living. Not quite two weeks ago, we came here.

"There was no way to know that they would be in a major accident on a highway not far from here a few days later. Now, I'm alone."

The one thing that Allison refused to tell us was how she had survived for just over a week after the death of her parents without any help.

Allison wasn't the only one crying at that point. Tears were rolling down my own cheeks, a quick look showed dad was crying, too.

After a few minutes of explanation and my saying that she seemed to be in good shape, dad nodded and said he'd inform Jack Birchland.

Well, it looks like I have someone to train now. Once she is able to get up on the rope, and I am cleared to return to it, we may be partners.

For the rest of the duration of the fair, except for breaks to watch one of the acts occasionally, I was rather busy with training Allison.

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?

Wow! What a change it has been, having Allison with me up there on the rope in front of the crowds!

I swear we're bringing in about half again as many people as I used to get on my own, and most are dropping tips in a small pottery jar.

We don't have to take cash, but when we leave a jar sitting around like that with "Tips" written on it, well, people do sometimes give.

Any source of extra cash in a business enterprise like Birchland Carnivals is always appreciated. In my case, and Allison's, and that of a few others, most of the tips and a fair bit of what we get from entry fees to the tents goes toward our possibly getting a college education.

It's the last day of the fair here, and we've been pulling stuff down for a while now, as the place hasn't been very busy.

We'll be rolling out of here in a few hours. We have to go right across the country, to Victorville, California, by next Friday afternoon or evening. The fair we're heading to opens at noon on Saturday, so we will have to do all of the set-up of whatever rides we use before then.

I guess it's good that we actually have a few days to get there, I hate when we have to race across the country in a day or two. Being able to take our time means we can make stops to have a bit of fun here and there, see sights we're interested in and just slow down and breathe.

We rolled out around mid-morning on Monday, heading west on I85 for about an hour before we circled around Atlanta to reach the I20.

From there, we planned to follow I20 westbound until it merged into I10, then take that the rest of the way to San Bernardino, where we would bypass the city again, catching the I215 north until it meets I15, then follow the I15 into Victorville itself and the fairgrounds.

As I said already, there was no need to rush to get there, but I can't help it that the miles just seem to roll by as we go along.We weren't driving as fast as most folks, so we didn't get to Shreveport, Louisiana until late afternoon due to taking pit stops every so often.

We split the group between the Travelodge and Motel 6 motels in Bossier City, a suburb of Shreveport. People headed off in various directions to get meals for now and snacks for overnight. Mom, dad, Allison, myself, Tina, Ricki, Lisa, Kerry and Albany dined at Joe Cobb's Bar-BQ.

When we were satisfied and happy from the good food there, we stopped at a food store and picked up some snack items.

Mom, dad, Allison and I shared a unit with two beds and spent a fair part of the evening watching shows on the TV until we started yawning.

We may not have been doing a heck of a lot, I know mom and dad switched the driving each time we stopped, but when you are usually winding down by mid-evening, or late evening while working at a fair like we do, you tend to get used to going to bed at certain times.

We weren't really active today, so the simple fact of that, plus the good meal earlier and it being after ten PM had us all ready to sleep.

Mom made sure that we folded the chip bags to prevent any from falling out, then placed the five half-empty bags into one reusable cotton bag. There were still a few cans of the pop we had bought in the small fridge in the unit, we'd take them with us in the morning.

Once everything had been cleaned up to her satisfaction, we all changed into our nightwear and wandered off to dreamland.

We were out of the motel by just after 9 AM, having all had decent showers, although dad's was half-cold, the hot water ran out while he was in there. He laughed, looked at us and said, "I guess that's what I have to expect when I share space with three women."

We all giggled as we headed out to the RV, then met up with the others, where everyone decided to head to Denny's for breakfast.

We were back on the road perhaps an hour later, once again sated and happy.

Tuesday evening, after skimming through Dallas early that afternoon, we stopped at El Paso, doing much the same as the previous night.

We split up the group again, this time between a Days Inn on the north side of I10 and a Quality Inn on the south side of the interstate.

The decision of the whole group was to stay close to the motels, so we ended up eating at the Texas Roadhouse nearby.

The next morning, that would be Wednesday, we hit an IHOP just off the I10 for breakfast, then were off again just after 9:30 AM.

Even with the occasional pit stop and switching drivers , we reached the Deluxe Inn in the city of Indio by 6:30 PM.

Perhaps we were in luck, I'm not sure, but the motel had enough units available for all of us.

We wanted something different that evening, so we piled into the El Mexicali cafe. There wasn't enough seating available, so we ended up eating in two shifts. Mom, dad, Allison and I ended up going in with the second half of our folks and enjoyed a variety of decent Mexican food.

We hit Denny's again the next morning, yep, Thursday. After another good breakfast, we were off and running once again.

We had already crossed the country, the last bit of the trip from Indio to Victorville took two hours as we ended up stuck in rush hour traffic.

What a laugh, calling it rush hour when the cars are pretty much stalled on the highways and other roads for the whole time.

We finally reached the fairgrounds just after noon, talked to the guy at the entry area and were slotted into one of the rear sections.

He sent someone with us to show us where we would be setting up our tents and stuff, then returned to watching the entrance.

We were leading the pack, so we let the guy ride with us, and a few minutes later, he directed us to a spot and said, "There."

I don't think he said anything the whole time he was in the RV with us; not a talkative guy, I guess. Hmmm... it takes all kinds, right?

Anyway, we had everyone gather around and discussed the set-up of the tents and other items. By what the guy at the entrance had said, there would already be booths with games like the ones we have, so we left those in the truck, no sense pulling them out if they won't be used.

Several people said they'd be happy to stay and begin setting everything up if the rest of us wanted to wander off and have some fun.

Dad was one of the ones who decided to stay and help. He may not be able to handle heavy stuff, but an extra set of hands is always useful.

Mom had been on her cell phone while we were stuck in the rush hour traffic earlier, talking to someone. I had no idea what that was about until Mom called me back into the RV for a moment and stated that I would be seeing a doctor next Tuesday to make sure everything is fine.

Wow! I really wasn't expecting that, I hadn't been feeling any pain, even when exercising or performing, so I hadn't worried about it.

I wasn't ready for the next thing mom said, though. "Honey, the doctors back east said that you might start menstruating soon, remember?"

"Ahhh, mom, did you really have to mention that? Nooo, I haven't been having cramps or anything like that, I'm fine, mom!" I yelped.

Mom just grinned at me, saying, "The boy scout motto fits this quite well, sweetie. 'Be prepared' is the brief form of it."

"Do we have to do this now? Can't it wait until we have some other bit of free time?" I whined like a five year old who just lost their puppy.

Mom stood there, shaking her head and laughing, "Better to have what you need now than have to race around to get it when you start!"

I sighed, shoulders slumping a bit. She had a point, they had said I might menstruate soon, and that had been over five weeks ago.

I grumbled and agreed to go to the appointment, then mom added that I wouldn't be able to eat anything after 6 AM that day.

I started whining again about not being fed enough, and she just grinned at me. Sometimes moms are just plain evil!

We headed into San Bernardino proper and just wandered around, we didn't have anything that we needed to do. Ahhh, time to relax.

Mom decided that we should wander through a couple of malls, just to see what they had available.

Uh huh, that's girl speak for we're going to see if there's anything worth buying, then strip the stores bare of those items like locusts.

Yep, that is probably a good description of what happened. We didn't see anything in the first mall that appealed to us and was inexpensive, so we only ended up with a few items. It was the second mall, a big discount place we found, that we tried to strip of most of their goods.

Holy cheese! We actually filled two shopping carts with more clothes, most of the items were for me. Where am I going to put it all?

We made it back to the fairgrounds just after 8 PM, we'd stopped on the way back at an In-N-Out Burger to stuff ourselves.

Well, we did make sure to get food for dad and several others who had stayed and worked on setting everything up today.

They had made some progress, the tents were up and the smaller rides were mostly done, the big items would be finished tomorrow.

I was up and moving before 7 AM Friday morning. Two slices of whole wheat toast, orange juice and a bowl of Shreddies™ was my breakfast.

Once I had finished eating, I left our RV and wandered around, looking at the various rides that were being set up in our area.

The next two or three hours passed fairly quickly after I became involved in helping some of the guys put the ferris wheel together.

We finished that somewhere around 11 AM, I think, and moved on to helping other folks with setting up the 4,200+ foot long roller coaster.

We were about halfway through the remainder of the set-up of that item when I sniffed the air, smelling grilled meats somewhere nearby.

Of course a smell like that draws people like moths are drawn to a flame. Within minutes, the two big grills were surrounded by hungry people.

Remember that huge RV I mentioned that was near our rides and stuff while we were at the Hunt County fair a while back?

Yep, it was the same guys, they had come out here and arrived late last night before setting up their two small rides plus the grills.

Their rides? Oh, a small carousel and a rather intriguing double merry-go-round that both parts could go either the same direction or opposite.

You know, I don't recall ever seeing these guys before we were at the Hunt County fair? I guess, with all of the fairs and other events taking place all over the country, the odds are that you could run into people only a few times in a year unless you regularly travel together.

Yup, I stuffed myself again, two big sausages plus a half pound venison burger, a heap of fries and someone had an ice cream maker.

Oh, damn, I don't know where they got the strawberries, but when I knew they had them, I just had to have some fresh strawberry ice cream!

I'm pretty sure that I waddled back to our RV later on when I realized I was ready to sleep, after having a second strawberry ice cream cone.

The fair opened at noon on Saturday, and it didn't take very long before people reached our area, even with us being at the back of the place.

As we had done before, the big animals had their acts in one of the large tents, with the acrobatic folks sharing the second large tent.

We weren't doing quite as many performances as we had at the Anderson County fair, but the cats and the elephants were doing at least three shows a day each, sometimes with an extra show if there was enough interest. The acrobats in the second tent, that would be including myself and Allison, along with Eric, his family, Pat, Jenny, the clowns and Jackson on his bikes, each had two performances in our tent.

Well, it was quite fun to hear the people in the seats below us squeaking in awe as we tumbled, jumped, bounced and danced on the rope.

I actually heard a woman scream when I did the front flip over Allison in our second performance, then again as we "danced" on the rope.

I didn't find out until after we had finished that a medical team had been called in to help the distressed woman.

As had become the usual after our act, we received thunderous applause. I think the seats were pretty much filled, which is very good, as we usually only fill about half to two-thirds during a performance. Well, this is fairly close to a major urban area, maybe that's the reason.

While we were standing outside our big tent relaxing after our second time up on the rope, we learned that the woman would be okay. She had panicked when I did that flip, and had actually passed out after the second scream, which was what made the medical team necessary.

Allison and I were chatting quietly, looking in occasionally to glance at Jackson doing his stunts, when someone said "Hello" to us.

We turned to look in front of us and saw the woman who had panicked earlier. She then told us that she was sorry for the disturbance.

I smiled at her, stepped forward and wrapped her in a hug for a moment, saying, "You didn't disturb us at all, ma'am. One of the things we do is to train ourselves to ignore many sounds around us, which helps us to focus more on what we are doing up on the rope."

The woman nodded, returned the hug and whispered, "You two take care of yourselves, you are simply amazing up there!"

Sunday and Monday were much the same as Saturday, the lions and cats performed three times at a minimum, the rest of us at least twice.

We were becoming used to the roaring sound of the applause as we concluded our act each time. Damn! What a rush it can give you!

We had found out while we were coming here that the fair wouldn't be open Tuesday or Wednesday, which explained why mom had called and set up an appointment at the Loma Linda University Medical Center to have me examined again. I wasn't looking forward to it at all.

We arrived there a bit early and ended up filling out lots of paperwork again, including having Dr. Brandt fax them the info from my tests that had been taken and had led to my learning that I was intersex. Today, they wanted to do an ultrasound plus an MRI. Just what I don't need!

I met the doctor here that was doing the new tests, a Dr. Anita Sandridge. She was pretty young, maybe mid to late twenties?

The order of the day was that I would do the ultrasound first, then come back to her office for a bit while the techs prepped the MRI machine.

I suppose we had been waiting in her office for about twenty minutes when I was called to go for the ultrasound.

The ultrasound itself was okay. Huh, it looks a bit different than it did with the one I had back then. Everything in there is more developed?

Oh, boy. If it's developed that much in less than six weeks, it won't take a lot longer before it's all functional. I'm sooo not ready for this.

The MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) was NOT fun. I don't like the machine, it's too narrow, too cramped, and way too noisy.

I guess it's a good thing that they let me put in some soft ear plugs. That helped enough that I could tune the rest of it out, thank goodness.

Huh, they actually had to wake me up when the MRI was finished. I had tuned everything out so well that I had actually fallen asleep in there!

We were told they would let us know the results in about ninety minutes or so. I told mom quite firmly, "I need to eat something, and SOON!"

We didn't even leave the medical centre, choosing to get a light meal from the cafeteria there, then returned to Dr. Sandridge's office.

You know what it's like in doctors offices, you get there on time and wait for them to come out and get you thirty minutes later?

Yep, she'd said ninety minutes, but it turned out to be almost two hours after she'd said that before we re-entered her office.

That was when she dropped a bombshell that I would dearly have loved to avoid.

"Lara here is developing much faster than Dr. Brandt anticipated. If things progress as they are, Lara could be fully functional as a female within the next three months, maybe sooner. I can't say for certain, but I would be very surprised if she wasn't menstruating within 60 days."

To this day, I can't even tell you why, but after she said that, I twisted to face mom for a very brief moment, then fainted.

I wasn't out of it for more than a minute or two, as far as I know. Someone put some smelling salts under my nose, and... I came out of it.

It still took a few minutes for me to really be aware of what was going on around me, I guess that shocked me more than I had expected.

I leaned against mom, listening to Dr. Sandridge as she explained in more detail while a nurse lurked nearby watching me. Maybe the doctor just wanted to play it safe and prevent any repeats. Either that, or have a nurse immediately available if something did happen again.

Dr. Sandridge actually showed us Dr. Brandt's notes about my projected development of my reproductive organs, etc. The notes were pretty clear, she had expected the development to take anywhere from nine to twelve months, perhaps longer, not finish in less than five!

I know I had eaten some food just a little while earlier, but now, I was rather queasy, queasy enough that I had to get up suddenly, asking where to find a washroom. Rather than give me directions, the nurse led me out of the room and down a couple of halls, then pointed at a door.

I ran into the washroom, barely taking the time to close and lock the door behind me before I was over the toilet, spewing up my meal.

Gak! That taste is soooo not nice. I had to use a paper cup from a dispenser to rinse out my mouth several times. Ick!

A quick wash of my hands and lower face, and a brief run under one of those automatic dryers places have instead of paper towel were needed before I felt able to open the door and step out into the hallway. Of course, that same nurse was standing there waiting for me.

They must be worried about me if they want me to have a nurse stay that close. The visit will be over soon, then I will be free of this weird stuff.

Well, maybe not free of ALL the weird stuff. Like what's happening to my body, that is weird to me, I'm just glad it wasn't cancer.

Speaking of cancer, I've been keeping in contact with little Shelly DeAngelo. She had another chemo treatment last Friday afternoon. As usual after one of those treatments, she was sick off and on for the next thirty-six hours or so. Her mom keeps me up to date on her.

After returning to the doctor's office and a few more minutes of chat, we were finally on out way out of the medical center building. As we settled into the RV, buckling ourselves in for the ride back to the fairgrounds, I sent little Shelly a text with lots of love and huggles.

We were halfway back to the fairgrounds when her mom sent a text back, thanking me for brightening her little girl's day.

The rest of that Tuesday while the fair was closed, we spent relaxing in lawn chairs as the two guys fired up the grills again.

Yep, as usual when they get going, I stuff myself. Hey, what can you expect a growing and very active girl to do when there's good food!

Three big sausages, plus a venison steak on a bun, four cobs of corn, two potatoes with sour cream and a 20 oz. paper cup of orange juice. They still had some of the kit needed for the ice cream, so I couldn't resist two bowls of strawberry ice cream once it was being served.

To say that I was stuffed would be rather polite. I lazed in the lawn chairs for nearly two hours before waddling back to our RV for the night.

Wednesday morning, after a quick meal of breakfast sausages, eggs over hard and hash browns, we headed into San Bernardino. We had decided while chatting with other folks from our site that we would go to the San Bernardino County Museum, take a break at some point for lunch and to relax, then spend a fair bit of the afternoon in a public swimming pool before returning to the fairgrounds.

We reached the county museum just after 9:30 AM, then spent nearly three hours wandering around in there, checking out all the exhibits, looking at the animals, including almost an hour spent looking at all the birds on the upper level of the building. It was quite fun.

We exited the museum just before 12:15 PM, then headed for Alfredo's Pizza and Pasta, a recommendation from one of the fairgrounds' guys.

The restaurant was nice, we nearly filled the place as we filed in just after 12:30 PM. A few folks had to wait for seating to become available. Mom, dad, Allison and I split an extra large pizza with deluxe on one side, the other side deluxe plus anchovies and hot peppers.

Mom and dad shared the basic deluxe half while Allison and I scarfed down the deluxe plus half of the big pizza.

A quick run to the washroom afterward turned into a twenty minute wait as everyone decided they needed to take care of that right then.

We ended up wandering into a nice park not far away, then found a spot with a few picnic tables and just relaxed for about an hour.

Dad had set a little alarm on his cell, so we were warned that we needed to get up and moving if we wanted to get to the pool on time. We had been thinking about going to the CSUSB facility, but decided instead to go to the Jerry Lewis Family Swim Center.

We arrived a few minutes early, which gave us time to get what we needed from the vehicles, then we joined the line-up and waited. The wait wasn't too long, perhaps five or ten minutes. I noticed several of our folks fiddling around with cell phones, games, who knows?

Then we were allowed to enter, and the people swarmed into the facility like bees defending a hive. Ow! I grimaced as a girl a bit older than me, in her rush to get in to change, bumped me into the wall about ten feet from the changing room doors, while also knocking another girl down.

Several people gave the girl who did the bumping and knocking down a brief tongue lashing, not that I think it made any difference. That bitch had managed to be one of the first into the changing rooms and was openly staring at herself in a fairly big hand mirror.

We all piled into the showers, it's fairly standard practice nowadays to shower before you enter a pool and again after you leave it.

Once we were all ready, we padded out to the pool side, then several of us found a spot near one end and slipped into the pool.

I swear, I have no idea how the time flew by so fast, but we all heard the main lifeguard's order to clear the pool when the session ended.

As I said, we had quick showers again, this time to rinse out the chlorine and other chemicals, then towelled off and headed outside.

A nice quiet evening relaxing by the big grills and stuffing ourselves was the perfect complement to our wandering around the city that day. In the distance, we could hear the monster trucks doing a round or two on their track, they're one of the popular attractions here.

Thursday morning, it was back to the grind of putting on the shows. I guess the two day break was good, we were all raring to go!

As I've said before, the lions and elephants were doing three shows a day each, those of us sharing the second big tent two shows a day.

Allison and I usually had our first show in the late morning, shortly before what would be many people's normal lunch hour.

We had the acrobats plus the jugglers doing their act before us, with Jackson Pelt's bike stunts usually following us.

The thrill of being up on the top, doing the various stunts, was always high, but never more so than when we heard the applause. Oh, yeah, the act has changed a fair bit since Allison came along, but being able to do the jump-overs and the dancing is worth all the extra effort.

Things proceeded quite well for us for the next few days, but that changed in a heartbeat during our Sunday afternoon performance.

Everything about that particular performance was perfect until just after I did the jump over Allison and turned to face her again. She did a cartwheel, then twisted into a back flip and that is where everything turned hairier than a mountain gorilla's body! Oh, geez, was I scared!

Allison seemed to land normally, then slipped and for the briefest of moments, as I stretched my hand out to grasp hers, I thought she would fall. She latched onto my hand like a life preserver appearing in a major gale out of nowhere, and wobbled for a few seconds before stabilizing.

Both of us heard the gasps as she wobbled back and forth on that narrow rope, then the sighs of relief as she regained her balance.

We continued with the act as if things like that were everyday events, and in some ways, they are to those of us up on the tightropes. Falls are a common enough occurrence that the safety net was always in place whenever we were up there, just in case we DID fall off the rope.

Even more so when you consider that Allison and I are both minors, our parents would prefer that we be injured as little as possible.

We smiled out at the audience as we accepted the applause at the end of the performance, then briefly curtseyed and descended the ladders.

The fair ended on Monday evening with no further incidents, and the task of dismantling everything that belongs to us started.

We would be going most of the way across the country again, this time to the Carroll County Fair in Kentucky, which starts on Friday.

I helped out with some of the dismantling of the rides and other items for about two hours before Dad told me to go to bed. Allison and I both grumbled about wanting to continue in helping them take everything down, but Dad said we needed to be on the road fairly early.

We argued about it for a few minutes, but the end result was more grumbling as Allison and I wandered off to our separate beds.

I'm not sure what was causing it, but that night turned into a whole lot of tossing and turning, and very little actual sleep. By the time mom and dad woke up at seven AM to start the process of getting us moving, I had already given up on sleeping and was sipping at a coffee.

Dad took one look at me sitting there in the small table seating with the cup of coffee and asked me what the heck was happening. It didn't take me very long to inform him that I hadn't slept much at all, and had been awake for a good two hours or more already that morning.

Dad was even more ticked off when I told him this was the third cup of coffee I'd started drinking today. I guess I can understand him being ticked off, I'd never been one for having more than a single coffee in a day, so admitting that I was on the third one was extremely unusual.

I guess dad was also slightly worried, I'm not sure if it is because of all the stuff I'm going through now after learning I've always been a girl. I was really surprised when he led me to the tiny locked box where we keep some medications and allowed me to take a dose of a sleeping aid.

I sat at the little table, semi-watching mom as she rustled up some breakfast, bacon, eggs and some toast, then we sat down to eat it.

By the time that I finished my serving, I was yawning fairly often. The medication had apparently kicked in, perhaps I could sleep now?

I managed to get up to my little nest without falling, which was a major feat considering that I was having trouble concentrating at all.

I peeled out of the PJs I had put on when I woke up for propriety's sake, slipped under my thin blanket and was asleep within a few minutes.

Wow! I must have really needed the sleep. Mom and dad left me alone, figuring I was getting what I needed most at the moment, I guess.

When I finally woke up, my rustling around up above the front seats made it clear to my parents that I was awake. Mom asked me how I was feeling now, and I replied with the simple remark that I felt rested this time. She laughed and told me that it was now 2.07 PM.

I managed to put on a pair of simple jeans and a t-shirt featuring the rock band Def Leppard and their Downstage Thrust Tour in 2007. Once I was dressed, including a pair of running shoes (what UK folks call trainers), I slithered down the little ladder behind the front seats.

Mom had made her way over to the modestly sized refrigerator and pulled out a container. When she opened the container, I was able to see one of my favourite meals in there, sausages and fries, especially since those guys with their big grill showed up a while back.

She slipped the food onto a plate and popped it into the small built-in microwave oven for a minute or two to heat it up again.

I swear, I must have been drooling or something as the food heated up, as my mom was giving me some weird looks while we waited. Once the food was heated sufficiently, I carried the plate to the small table, took a seat and proceeded to devour the food in a very short time.

At one point, I could see my mom shaking her head. I think she was muttering something about "teaching that girl some manners".

I shrugged it off and kept eating, until there was not a single scrap of food left on the plate, no, not even a crumb.

I found out from mom that we had been on the road since about 7:45 AM, heading toward Carroll County in Kentucky. Dad had decided to take I40 eastbound from Barstow, California, and I learned that we were already somewhere between Gallup and Albuquerque, New Mexico.

They hadn't been pushing it a lot, having covered not quite four hundred miles in a bit over 6.5 hours, but they weren't going slow, either.

I watched out the side window by the table as we continued heading eastward. About thirty minutes later, we reached Albuquerque.

Dad decided that it was a good time for a brief break and pulled off the interstate, then followed Highway 45 to Krispy Kreme doughnuts. We weren't in there for very long, mom and dad both wanted to get fresh coffee they didn't have to make themselves, and of course, they couldn't leave without getting some doughnuts. Mom likes the strawberries and creme donuts. To be honest, I like them, too, but I couldn't resist getting some glazed raspberry filled ones or a few glazed chocolate cake donuts. Dad's a simple guy, cinnamon sugar or cinnamon twists.

We walked back out to the RV, only to find some kid trying to get into it using what looked like a pen knife. The kid, who looked like he might be about my age, maybe a bit older, apparently didn't hear us, as Dad grabbing him by the arm and pulling him away caught him by surprise.

Mom was already on her phone, calling for a police officer, reporting an attempted robbery and possible attempted vehicle theft. I guess she mentioned that our RV is still fairly new, only three years old and still running just fine even with all the mileage we put on it.

Anyway, we were astonished when the police showed up just a bit over five minutes later, even more so that there were three cars. A pair of big, burly guys listened to us for a moment as Dad continued to hold onto the boy. What surprised me the most, and perhaps mom and dad as well, although I can't be sure, is that the kid only took one swing earlier at dad, which resulted in dad squeezing his other arm quite hard.

That, I guess, told the kid that trying to fight my dad was a losing proposition, and he had remained in Dad's grip, visibly sulking.

One of the five officers on the scene apparently recognized the boy and sighed in exasperation. "Dammit, James McCoy, this is the third time in two months that you've been caught trying to break into people's vehicles. What the hell is up, why are you on our radar so much?"

I was a bit surprised about her using the on our radar expression, until I realized that she meant about him being caught so often.

What surprised everyone there was the boy's response, which had all five officers tensing, almost reaching for their guns. "I can't stay home no more, Missus Barnett, my dad got laid off seven weeks ago and he's been turning to the drink, which just makes him really vicious." At this point, James pulled up one sleeve of his three-quarter sleeve football shirt to reveal several dark and obviously recent bruises.

Officer Barnett growled, a sound that was heard by everyone present, then used her radio to order an arrest warrant, giving current name and address. While she was doing that, one of the big guys was talking with mom and dad, asking what they wanted to do about James.

Mom's response was very clear, "If he's being mauled like that, and I doubt that's all that's happened, he needs to be kept safe from his father. He didn't do any actual harm here, our biggest concern is that he have somewhere to go. Does he have any other local relatives?"

The other big, hefty guy nodded, "An aunt that lives in one of the smaller communities on the eastern edge of the city."

Dad nodded, adding, "Get the boy to her, then do whatever you folks need to do to ensure that James can be free of any further harm."

The first big officer, whose nametag read Albertson, asked, "So you folks won't be pressing any charges about this?"

Dad sighed, replying, "Not much point to it, officer. As my wife said, no actual harm was done. Plus we're with Birchland Carnivals." While dad was saying that, mom passed them a card with Jack Birchland's cell number on it, and everything was quickly verified to their satisfaction.

A few minutes later, we were going back to the interstate, having seen young James wrapped tight in Officer Barnett's arms as we passed by.

The rest of the trip to Carroll County was rather quiet. It sure made a nice counterpoint to the incident with James in Albuquerque.

We stopped at the Pilot Travel Center not far from the border going from Oklahoma to Arkansas for the night. Dad had decided that, since we had an RV with places for each of us to sleep fairly comfortably, we would save the cost of renting a motel room for one night.

We parked the RV in a back corner of the truck stop's lot, then headed in to see what they had available for food. If you've never traveled much, one thing you need to know, and this is rarely ever proved wrong, truck stops have some of the best food you can find anywhere.

I have to agree, plus the prices were actually fairly reasonable. Dad nodded when I asked if I could have a decent sized steak. Mom looked at me for a moment, then shook her head and ordered a Caesar salad with chicken in it. We all enjoyed our meals as we relaxed there.

You know, it was actually a wee bit odd, sleeping in the RV that night while not moving. I guess it doesn't happen very often, well, except for when we are at a fair somewhere. It took me an hour or so to get to sleep that night, but once I did, I slept fairly well, waking up rested.

We were on the road again shortly after 8:30 AM, after a rather good breakfast that had me patting my stomach and moaning happily. Heck, yeah, it was good. Four buckwheat pancakes along with a nice big chunk of ham, three eggs, lots of home fries and four slices of toast.

We made a quick stop in Memphis, Tennessee, around 1:15 PM to grab a few items that mom wanted to have food wise.

From there, we continued along I40 until we were near Nashville, then switched over to I65 to head north into Kentucky.

We reached Carrollton, Kentucky, that evening and were soon parked in the space we were allowed for the fair's duration. Dad decided that we could stay in the RV again that night, which meant that it would be fairly quiet, at least until folks started arriving at the site.

Several other folks from Birchland Carnivals pulled into our area within an hour or two of our having arrived. One of those vehicles was the big pick-up owned by Tina Hanson and Ricki Keswick, and within minutes of their arrival, Allison and I were quite busily jabbering away.

Yeah, I missed being with Allison a fair bit, even if it was only for a couple of days. When you're doing stuff together on a thin rope fifty feet off the ground, you tend to get to know the other person fairly well, as your life may well depend on them, much like my helping Allison recently.

The gear hadn't arrived yet, although someone said the guys driving the rigs would likely pull in tomorrow morning. With all the rides that we have now, on top of our much smaller amount of gear such as the big tents and the assorted items used in our acts, it can easily take the whole team a good ten to twelve hours to get everything either set up or dismantled, then they have to haul it around between the various fairs.

That just meant that Allison and I ended up doing several types of exercises, including a variety of stretches before and after the exercises.

My sleep was shattered early the next morning by the very loud sound of a big rig's air horn as they approached our location.

I pulled myself out of my bed, barely remembering to put on some basic clothes before going down the ladder and out of the RV.

One of the big rigs pulled to a stop a short distance away and a door to the cab opened, then Lane Johnson stepped out of the truck. Lane is a fairly big guy, about 6'2" tall and somewhere around 190 pounds or so. Why his parents named him that, I haven't the faintest idea.

Anyway, Lane and his driver, Billy Riggs, were soon down and heading to the back of the truck to open the access doors. That led to Allison, myself and three other young folks whose parents work for the carnival, Petey, Simon and Alvin, following the two men.

We were soon busy helping them to unload some of the items they were carrying. Several bigger items near the front of the trailer required a forklift to move them around, which Billy and Lane didn't have in their truck, so those items would have to wait to be unloaded.

We'd been working for maybe an hour when four more of the big rigs pulled in, including two 53' flatbed trailers loaded with ride parts.

By the time we stopped for lunch, the last of the eleven semis had arrived and everyone pitched in to get everything up and ready for the fair.

I wasn't able to help out much with the set-up of the rides, although I did act as a sort of spotter while some of the guys were placing various pieces where they belonged on some of the rides. Having someone watching from a different angle prevented at least two accidents that day as the work progressed in our area of the fairgrounds that very well could have happened if someone weren't there to watch them work.

Most of the rides were set up by the time night fell over the fairgrounds, but that didn't stop them at all. I know that at least one crew was damn glad to have me watching as they worked, as we narrowly avoided another accident before Jack called it quits just after 10:30 PM.

We had had one of mom's "quick mix stews" that she makes in a huge crock pot on our little stove in the RV when she's in the mood. I guess she was feeling that way earlier today, as she had thrown together a rather tasty meal based on some venison, onions, carrot and potatoes.

That whole pot was emptied in a matter of maybe twenty minutes by a large number of our folks around mid-afternoon.

What I didn't know was that those guys with the big grill were apparently following us around, as we had helped them become known. Jack had just ordered everyone to stop when someone muttered something about there being someone nearby using a barbecue grill.

It didn't take long for the smells coming from that equipment to draw most of our folks to where they had set up all of their gear.

As usual when they were around, I demolished a fair chunk of food before I wandered back to our RV to climb into my bed.

There wasn't a lot of work that needed to be done on the Friday morning, so we had everything in place just before 11 AM.

We hadn't realized, until we received a brochure listing the events for the various days, that the only daytime shows were on Saturday. That left us with little to do during the days, as the crowds wouldn't be there until shortly before each evening's shows and events started.

Most of the weekday events here seemed to start around eight PM, Saturdays ran from mid-morning to late evening, Sunday it was closed.

We were able to wander around the grounds and check the various buildings and look at the wide assortment of animals here for the shows.

The evening events set-up didn't stop us from doing our shows during the day. What it did mean was that we had much smaller audiences at those times. I was surprised on the Monday afternoon to overhear Jack Birchland saying to my dad that he didn't like the evening only system they had for the fair here. He added that he thought they were missing out on getting folks to come during the day after working night shifts.

I didn't hear what dad said in reply to Jack as I was already past the two of them, heading over to the tents for another show.

We almost had a major incident as Allison and I did our act on the tightrope in the early afternoon on Wednesday. I have no clue as to how the two guys managed to get into the fair with the handguns, but they did, and the bastards actually fired them INSIDE the tent.

I've trained myself to be able to ignore most noises, but it's damn hard to ignore a .45 slug whizzing by your ear fifty feet off the ground.

The hardest part of the whole thing is that one of the bastards, while firing in random directions, killed a girl across the tent from him.

In less than a minute's time, the tent was swarmed by more than a dozen police officers; some were town, some county, some state. The two guys soon found themselves lying facedown on the floor of the tent, then being cuffed and Mirandized before being rudely hauled away.

The idiots had even gone so far as to shoot at some of the officers, not a smart move with that many officers on the scene already.

Allison and I had, as soon as the bullets started flying, jumped down to the safety net, then scurried into whatever cover we could find.

Allison and I were quite shaken up by the killing of the girl and the fact that we could all too easily have died from the randomly aimed shots. I'm not sure how Jack found out about it, but we were near him for most of the rest of that day, as we were too stressed out to do another show.

We spent a good hour or two that evening talking with mom, dad, Tina and Ricki, our family members, about what had happened.

For the rest of the week, we continued to do the daytime shows in both tents, plus our rides and some booths were getting limited use.

Except for the early evenings, when we usually did our last shows of the day before the fair's events started, we were lucky to see perhaps a dozen or so people in our tent while Allison and I were up on the tightrope performing as if the crowd were much larger.

On the Thursday evening, just after we had finished our last performance of the day, I ran into mom coming out of the other big tent. Terrence was walking next to her, both of them carrying the whips they used in the act involving Terrence's two lions and our lioness.

I noticed from a quick glance that mom was frowning, something that was rather unusual for her. That prompted me to speak. "Hey, mom. What's up? Why are you upset? What's happening?" Another glance showed that Terrence was just as upset as my mom, this was not good.

"Hello, Lara, Allison," mom growled. "We just finished another show with barely two dozen people in the tent to see it! Where the hell is everyone? The fair's main events for each day don't get going until 8 PM or later, we should be seeing more people, but we aren't. Why?"

I sighed, shrugging my shoulders as I replied to her, "I have no idea, mom. We finished our last show up on the rope a little while ago, it was a high tension act at one point as I overbalanced for a moment and almost fell off of the rope. We had about the same number of people."

I was just able to hear Terrence as he mumbled, "We aren't getting anywhere near the crowds we would see at other fairs."

Allison pitched in at that point, "I'm fairly new to all of this, but even I'm noticing that there are very few people at our shows here."

That was when we all were surprised, as another voice joined the discussion that we had started, it was Jack Birchland's voice.

"If I thought it would do us any good to break a commitment, I'd pack us all up now and go," he stated. "But I gave my promise to the folks that run this fair that Birchland and Whirlds of Whee would be here until the fair ends on Saturday, and I won't break that promise."

Mom turned to face Jack and smiled briefly as she looked at him, "We'll keep working, then, but I'll be glad when we can get out of here."

Jack nodded, "That will be late Saturday night, probably some time on Sunday for a lot of our folks, but no later than that."

Jack watched as we nodded our agreement to what he had said, then we wandered off to catch the shows taking place that evening.

The fair wound down on the following Saturday night, with the final visitors to the fair leaving just after midnight.

Dad had firmly but politely told off both Allison and I for not having gone to bed already, then said we had better get there rather quickly. As the simple thought of one of dad's 'punishments' is not something I look forward to experiencing, I was soon in our RV and in my bed.

The crowds had been no bigger over the last two days of the fair than they had been before. In fact, they might have been smaller.

By the time I woke up on the Sunday morning, a large part of the rides and equipment had already been dismantled by our folks. I noticed that four of the eleven tractor trailers were gone, which likely meant that they were already on their way to our next location in Indiana.

We had until the next Friday to get there, which was good, as it meant we could relax. Well, most of us could relax, but with all the physical stuff I've been going through over the last couple of months, mom and dad want me to be checked whenever we have time to spare to do so.

That meant we wouldn't be leaving the Carroll County area until the next day, possibly even Tuesday morning. I guess it would all depend on just how much time I would have to spend being examined tomorrow, as that is when the appointment mom arranged would take place.

I spent a fair part of the day that Sunday helping folks to dismantle the other rides and equipment, then load them into the trailers.

The last big rig pulled out of the Carroll County fairgrounds at 9:17 on that Sunday evening.

I would have loved to have some grilled sausages or venison burgers, but that pair of guys, their van and grill had already left the site.

I'd been feeling slightly 'under the weather' for the last two days or so, with no idea as to why. It never occurred to me to consider the fact that my body is developing as a girl, not as a boy, so I just continued with whatever I was doing until the final truck had gone on its way.

I'd headed back to the RV at that point. Mom had made some chili earlier in the day, and I warmed up a large bowl and a hamburger bun, then split the bun, put the two parts on a plate and spooned some of the chili onto the bun halves, thereby making some instant sloppy joes.

It didn't take me long to finish the chili a la sloppy joe meal and clean out the bowl. I finished it by drinking a large glass of fresh milk.

I was feeling fairly tired at that point, which was just about ten PM. I crawled up into my bed space and was soon asleep.

I woke up during the night, shortly after two AM, needing to use the washroom.

I padded to the bathroom, sat down to use the toilet to pee and saw some blood down there. I guess I freaked out and screamed really loudly.

Mom came running from the big bedroom at the back of the RV and yanked open the bathroom door, dad right behind her, only to see me staring down at my genital area, still screaming at the top of my lungs. Mom stepped in, knelt in front of me and grabbed me in a tight hug.

It took a few minutes before I realized she was holding me, then the screams shifted to nervous hiccups before I could finally speak.

"Mom... I'm... I'm bleeding down there," I managed to squeak out, pointing at my genital area just to make it quite clear what I meant.

Mom nodded, continuing to hug me tightly, then said, "You were told not quite two weeks ago that you might start some time soon, love."

Mom released me at that point, then stood and reached into the small cupboard under the washroom sink and pulled out a box. She reached into the box, grabbed an item that looked like a fake firecracker with a bit of string on it, then told me it was a tampon and how to use it.

She also pulled out one of two pads that were in the box, handing it to me. "Tampon first, then the pad just in case, okay?"

It obviously wasn't one of my better moments, it took me almost five minutes to get that darn tampon in properly, then put the pad in my underwear. After I had cleaned myself appropriately, I exited the bathroom, getting another hug from mom, then one from dad.

That was unusual, dad doesn't often hug me, I guess it was one of those guy things because I was thought to be a male until recently.

I made my way back to my bed over the front seats as mom and dad waited in the short hallway leading to their bedroom.

I woke up just after 7 AM that Monday morning to the smell of mom's homemade omelettes being cooked on the small stove.

Normally, that smell would have me nearly drooling. Not this morning, though, my body had other things to deal with at the moment.

As I passed by mom, I asked her if there were any other tampons in that box. I already knew there was one last pad in there.

She said there were two or three tampons left and smiled briefly as I continued on my way to the washroom.

Well, I'd like to say that I did better the second time around, but the truth would be otherwise. It took almost ten minutes before I was done, that included the fact that I had needed to pee first as I usually did when I woke up for the day, then I headed out to the small kitchen area.

Mom grinned at me and handed me a plate with a huge omelette on it, packed with my favourite ingredients, including hot peppers. On the side of the plate I could see three slices of bacon as mom handed me a smaller plate with two slices of toast slathered in peach marmalade.

I have no idea where she managed to get the marmalade, but it was the perfect finishing touch to that breakfast meal.

After I had finished eating, including a large glass of orange juice, I went back into the bathroom to have a quick shower. I put my hair into a cap to keep it dry as I showered, then when I was done, I dried myself, quickly realizing that rubbing as I used to do could be rather painful.

Mom was in the bathroom after me for her shower. Dad had apparently had one the night before and was already dressed for the day in a pair of stonewashed jeans with some worn patches over both knees and a t-shirt showing one of my favourite bands, Led Zeppelin.

I followed dad's example, dressing in a pair of jeans and a matching t-shirt, although my jeans didn't have extra holes in them.

Mom came out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped around her, and a few minutes later, appeared in a similar outfit.

We were on our way to the Carroll County Memorial Hospital to meet with a Dr. Peter Cantrell, who had been assigned to my case after I had met with Dr. Sandridge at the previous appointment. Dr. Sandridge had recommended Dr. Cantrell fairly strongly to my parents.

The appointment with Dr. Cantrell had been set for 10 AM, but we were there shortly after 9:30 that morning.

Mom and dad were soon busy filling out various bits of paperwork while I sat there and fretted over everything, especially last night's events. I had soooo not been prepared for the sight of menstrual blood when I'd entered that bathroom, as I've already mentioned here.

We weren't actually called in to see Dr. Cantrell until just after 10:20 AM, apparently he'd been delayed on the way in to the hospital.

Once we were in the office and settled down on some chairs, mom and dad filled him in on everything. That took a few minutes, even more when they produced several documents detailing the medical tests, exams and other things that had been done since it was all discovered.

They then informed him that he had initially been intended to only be a check-up on an ongoing basis, but that things had changed very recently, last night, in fact. Mom then went on to tell him rather explicitly about my reaction to seeing myself menstruating for the first time.

Let's just say that I turned as red as a beet when mom mentioned that, and of course, Dr. Cantrell noticed my reaction and chuckled.

He then went on to say that he wanted to do a few tests, primarily another ultrasound and blood tests, just to verify that everything was fine. He then stated that he also wanted to have my breasts looked at, a simple physical check of them is what he actually said.

A short while later, I was being led into a small room, told to strip and put on one of those silly hospital smocks that don't fully close and wait. The wait lasted a bit more than ten minutes, then a young woman led me to another room where they extracted seven vials of my blood.

Now, I don't normally make much of a fuss at having blood taken, but I'd been feeling a bit off recently, and so I whined at her. I didn't actually say anything, just made one of those ick faces you see in pictures of people seeing something distasteful and vocalized it all in a whine.

Once she had finished in her attempt to drain me dry, she put a bit of cotton on it, then taped it down and led me back to that other little room.

I sat in there, thinking about everything that I was experiencing and wishing that it could all be over with as soon as possible.

I'd been in there for not quite half an hour after I returned before another young woman showed up, saying the ultrasound was ready.

That wasn't any different really from the last time I'd had one, although things looked a little more fully formed this time.

The tech, a fortyish woman with slightly graying rather long hair, smiled at me as she wiped me cleaning, saying, "Everything looks fine."

I had just entered that little room where I had been told to wait each time when a mature woman called my name. When I answered, she led me to a small exam room, had me sit on the examination bed as she checked my breast growth, then lie down to get a different view.

She was soon done, mentioning that I looked to be a fairly full A cup at the moment, which was very significant growth for a month or two.

Then it was back to that little room, getting out of that silly smock and back into my clothes, at which point I returned to the doctor's office.

Apparently, the test results had already reached him, as he was nodding while looking intently at two sheets in particular.

It turned out that the two sheets were both ultrasound images, one from the hospital in San Bernardino, one from here.

"Well, Lara, there isn't a large amount of change from the ultrasound you had at Loma Linda about two weeks ago, but your internal organs are still maturing. If things keep going as they seem to be doing, you'll be fully functional within the next six to eight weeks, ten at the most."

I gasped, then curled up on the seat, leaning sideways over the edge of it to try to hug mom as I lost it. I started bawling, life had definitely taken a rather serious left turn along the way. As things stood now, knowing I could menstruate meant I knew that I could face pregnancy, too.

Hopefully, that will be delayed for quite some time. Besides, I think I'm attracted to girls, so that might be out of the question, which is a relief.

I managed to pull myself together after a good cry on mom's shoulder. I guess it's a good thing she wasn't wearing a high-end blouse.

After several more minutes of discussion with the doctor, he stated that it would be good to continue having assessments of the actual physical development on a fairly frequent basis, perhaps every two weeks or so if we could find the time. Mom and dad agreed.

When we walked out of the hospital, a clock on a wall in the entry area showed the time to be not quite 1:30 PM.

We headed back to the fairgrounds, where we met up with Tina, Ricki and Allison, then gathered in our RV to prepare and have lunch.

Having those three girls there when we returned from the hospital that afternoon was a good thing, a very good thing, indeed.

We decided to make some hot dogs and a macaroni salad, and the kitchen area was soon filled with busily working people.

The actual lunch turned out to be fairly good, although the mac could have been cooked a wee bit longer before being turned into a salad.

After the meal and the clean-up had been done, we prepared to leave Carroll County behind us, our next destination the Marion County Fair.

The actual trip to Marion County wasn't particularly long, we headed over to I65, then followed that north until we reached the southern outskirts of Indianapolis. From there, it was a quick run up I465 to where the cloverleaf by I74 was located before we could turn off and work our way around to be able to use Old US 421, then along S. Hunter Rd., Southeastern Ave. and E. Troy Ave. to reach the fairgrounds.

We were obviously there quite early, but considering that we hadn't had to go very far, that was expected.

I still felt a bit off, having had to switch tampons twice since this morning. There were times I wished things were different, specifically along the lines of my being female rather than male. Life as a male had been so much simpler in so many ways, it was bloody frustrating!

Mom decided to hit a pizza place a bit further down Southeastern Ave. One of the girls had said they'd had pizza there in the past and it had been pretty decent. Tina went with mom after taking down info on the various toppings we all wanted on our pizzas.

It turned out that the six of us all wanted different toppings, so they decided to split three pizzas, half a pizza for each person.

Mom and Tina returned not quite an hour later, loaded down with three pizza boxes. Mom was also carrying a plastic shopping bag like you can get at most convenience stores, grocery stores or supermarkets. Everyone dived into the pizzas, claiming their halves as fast as possible.

I'm glad the food had arrived, as that distracted me from remembering what I had seen in the plastic bag mom had been carrying. I was one of the first to finish eating my half pizza, so I made my way to the washroom and peed, then had to come out because I needed a tampon.

That was when I noticed the bag, which had been left near the door so it wouldn't be under everyone's feet as they ate. A quick look in the bag showed that mom had picked up a large pack of Kotex® maxi pads and a pack of Kotex® tampons. Well, that solved that problem.

I ripped open the pack of tampons, then pulled one out, stopped for a moment and grabbed two more for later. I rushed into the bathroom and spent the next several minutes getting the tampon properly situated. I might actually get the hang of that some time soon. Maybe.

After another quick wash once I was done, I exited the bathroom again and sat down, noticing that everyone else seemed to be finished eating. Well, one of the good things about pizza is that leftovers can be stored fairly easily, and there were maybe nine or ten slices left total.

Mom found one of those snap tight containers and placed the leftover slices in there, layering them as needed, then closed it and placed the now almost full container on the lower shelf of the fridge. Those slices would most likely be gone by the middle of the following day.

The next few days passed by in what seemed to be rather high speed. My period finished on Thursday afternoon. At least, that was when I knew it was done, as there was no new blood down there when I removed the old tampon and placed it where it belonged.

Allison and I were often seen doing our usual training exercises, including spending time up on the rope once it had been erected in our tent.

All of our rides had been set up by that point, plus several booths including dad's bottle one and the pony ride paddock.

I had the luck to be able to introduce a cute five year old girl named Melanie to her first pony ride ever. She apparently loved it, as I couldn't get her off of Maybelle, the pony she had been riding, until more than two hours had passed and little Melanie started to become tired.

Her mom noticed that, and soon had carefully pulled Melanie from Maybelle's back as I stood there and held on to Maybelle's reins.

Well, I'm sure that at some point soon, Melanie will likely ask her mom about riding lessons. Those lessons can be pretty expensive.

The fair opened late afternoon on Friday, and it didn't take long before people were scattered all over the place having fun.

Allison and I were doing two shows each weekday evening, drawing fairly decent crowds at those times. We had also done two shows during the day, but like our recent time at Carroll County's fair, the number of people wasn't very high, so the audiences were rather small.

Saturday turned out to be quite good for us. We put on four shows once the fair opened, getting good crowds and lots of applause.

When we weren't up on the rope, we sometimes watched some of our other shows. We had a great time on Saturday afternoon, between two of our performances, watching the acrobats do their thing on their equipment, with Peter and Jenny below them juggling bowling pins.

It was actually quite amazing just how much progress Peter and Jenny have made in the last two months or so since we started our wanderings around the country. Back then, they were often hitting the acrobats unintentionally. Now, they were barely missing them intentionally.

It sure was something to see, as Eric and his family deftly avoided the flying projectiles while tumbling this way and that way up there.

Sunday was a repeat of Saturday, with us doing four shows through the day, all to fairly large audiences and plenty of applause.

We managed to catch the clowns doing their bit between our second and third performances that day, which is when I learned about Allison's fear of clowns. She held on to me rather tightly as she told me about a boy in her home town who had played a clown and scared her very badly. She hadn't learned until some time later that the boy had been egged on by a few of his friends, but by then, Allison had moved away.

I held her close, letting her know that I understood what it was like to be afraid of something, then asked if she would let me introduce her to our clowns. She looked at me for a moment, perhaps to see if I meant to harm her somehow, then nodded and followed me over to them.

It didn't take her long to realize that our clowns were only friendly ones, and she seemed to be fascinated by young Michael. Michael happens to be Barry's son, he and his sister Linda had loved to watch their father doing his clown acts and had had him teach them to be clowns.

What made it even more interesting was the fact that Allison seemed to be attracted to Michael notwithstanding his being in costume.

Well, I guess it's pretty clear where Allison's heart is leaning. I took a moment to talk with Barry, letting him know what was developing. Barry nodded, muttering that he had seen Michael's reaction to Allison being there, and that he would tell Michael to go slowly with Allison.

Allison and I were soon doing another performance, drawing what looked to be a larger crowd and even more applause this time.

From Monday through Friday of the following week, the daytime shows had sparse attendance, with the evening shows being quite good. I overheard a conversation between dad and Jack Birchland on Tuesday evening, where Jack said we seemed to be ahead a bit already.

I didn't catch dad's reply, but I did hear Jack say that we might end up getting about $700 or so more than our costs, plus the various tip jars.

Doing the day shows was darn near boring, it's hard to really put your all into it when there's maybe ten people watching you. That didn't stop Allison and I from working our butts off, doing everything we could to make each show as good as possible for the audience.

When we weren't performing on weekdays, we wandered around the various exhibit buildings to see what they were showing. We weren't really noticing what the buildings contained, except for the ones with the animals, it's hard not to notice animals living close together, hmm?

On the second weekend of the fair, we were kept busy with our performances and training, although we did take time to relax now and then. Allison and I watched Eric and his family doing their acrobatic stunts with Peter and Jenny adding their bit of flair to the show.

Eric must be working both of them pretty hard, they were even better this time than they were just a week before.

I'm pretty sure we were all glad when the fair closed for the last time on that second Sunday night.

Brockton Fair in Massachusetts is our next stop. That doesn't open until Friday afternoon, so we have four days to get there and prepare.

Please note: Grooming, as I use the term here, does not refer to keeping oneself clean, but to someone picking up young folks, telling them that they can have a good life if they come along with them, then the kids end up being coerced into becoming either thieves or prostitutes.

I'm not sure why, but I was pretty wiped out after the fair had shut down on Sunday evening, and soon wandered off to my bed.

Allison mumbled something about wanting to stay up late, but Tina told Allison to move, and Allison being wise beyond her years, did so. I actually overheard that little bit of conversation just before I went back to the RV to sleep, and it had me giggling for a moment.

I'm glad that Allison is with us, even though she lost her whole family in the process. I hope she remains happy here with us.

I slept like a proverbial log, dead to the world, until early the next morning. My little clock radio in my bed area showed it was 7:15 AM.

Dad was already up, sitting at the kitchen table staring at his laptop, with a cup of almost steaming coffee sitting on the table in front of him. I asked him what was going on that he needed to use a computer to do it, and he said something about getting more courses for Allison.

That had me grumbling and whining that I already did quite enough schoolwork, especially as I almost had enough credits on hand to satisfy the state board back home regarding my being able to get my high school diploma. Heck, I may not be super smart or anything, but when you have a teacher like mom drilling you on a wide variety of subjects for a few hours almost every day, you'd better be learning something, hmm?

Dad laughed and repeated himself, making sure to speak clearly this time when he said he was looking into courses for Allison.

It's actually been a bit more fun lately, as Allison is now studying with me, although she's largely covering stuff I did last year or two years ago? She's about a year younger than I am, so not quite fifteen, but she didn't do very well in her old school due to having several bullies there.

I guess she's glad that she can actually stay out of the school system and learn for once. That must make a rather big difference to her.

I just realized that Allison didn't mention anything about that when she told dad and I about how she ended up on the streets.

Well, I guess it's her business as to what and when she decides to tell us about anything in her past, and to whom she might choose to tell it.

I had a quick breakfast of a bowl of Special K™ cereal with milk and a bit of sugar, plus a blueberry muffin mom had been hiding in the fridge. Mom can be slightly sneaky when it comes to some foods, she'll tuck an item in behind something else so it isn't immediately visible.

Well, I had half finished that blueberry muffin when mom came into the kitchen area and saw me eating it. Oops! I'm in trouble!

She growled at me for a moment for taking her last muffin, then grumbled under her breath that at least I was eating something sensible.

I giggled as I finished eating, then stopped in the bathroom just long enough to brush my teeth before heading out of the RV.

One of the rigs was pulling out of our area, turning to head for the exit and the long trip to our next stop.

I didn't manage to see who was in the cab of the truck, or get much of a look at it, so I have no idea if it's the one Lane or Billy handle.

I wandered around the area, helping guys to gather parts together and to load bits and pieces when it didn't require the forklifts.

The last of the rides was stripped and loaded just before noon, and the truck with the 53' trailer headed off for the eastbound highways.

We only stayed around long enough to have a light meal, then we were also leaving, making our own way to Brockton, Massachusetts.

It took us a short while to figure out how best to reach the I70 to go eastbound.

Once we were on the interstate, we soon left Indiana behind, entered Ohio and continued eastbound on I70.

We kept going until we reached Wheeling, where we stopped for a meal at a Chinese food restaurant before we hit the road again. The food wasn't the best Chinese I've ever had, but it was decent enough, plus they served enough that we would have leftovers for a while.

We returned to the eastbound I70, which we followed as we crossed into Pennsylvania, then switched to the I76 at New Stanton.

I'm not sure why we stayed on the road as long as we did, but we finally pulled into a motel 6 on the outskirts of Harrisburg just before midnight. Allison had spent the evening with us, as mom had decided that it was the perfect time to have us doing lessons yet again.

I'm pretty sure I heard Allison swearing about having to study, but she wisely kept that language to herself once we were around mom.

Allison and I ended up sharing a room with Tina and Ricki, mom and dad had decided to stay in the RV overnight.

I'm not sure who else was in the motel with us, I just remember seeing several vehicles pulling in behind ours when we stopped for the night.

A quick raid of the limited supplies available in the motel office ensued, and soon afterward, Allison and I were nose deep in chip bags.

We munched and chatted for about half an hour with Tina and Ricki, I suppose we were all winding down after a day on the road.

All four of us were in bed by 12:30 AM, and soon asleep. I woke up once, needing the bathroom but otherwise slept just fine.

We were all awake and ready to go around 8:30 AM, and a group decision had us stopping at Bob Evans for breakfast.

That proved to be a good way to start the day, each of us enjoyed a nice meal. For me, it was the Everything. For dad, it was the Double Meat Farmer's Choice, Mom, Tina and Ricki all chose the Fruitful Farmer breakfast, and Allison finally settled for the Buckeye Farmer's Choice.

After breakfast, we resumed our journey, still following I76 for the moment.

That changed when we reached King of Prussia, where it became the I276 and we bypassed Philadelphia, eventually reaching Highway 1, which we used to reach I95. Most of the rest of our journey would be on I95, as it heads east, then northeast before it reaches the Boston area.

Brockton is just a short distance south of Boston itself, so I don't doubt we'll see a fair amount of people from the city at the fair.

We also bypassed New York, although we could see some of it off in the distance as we rolled along the interstate just across the Hudson. Correct that, we actually got to see various parts of the Bronx borough as we turned east on I95 to head into Connecticut.

Well, we saw glimpses of a lot of buildings as we went through there; I think I spotted the Botanical Garden and the Zoo, but I'm not sure.

About half an hour after we left the Bronx, we rolled into western Connecticut. It sure is a lot more open there, some darn beautiful country.

We stopped in New Haven for lunch at Anastasio's Boathouse Cafe. The food was good, well worth the price and the stop.

Then it was back to the I95 as we continued to travel across Connecticut, then cut through Rhode Island before we entered Massachusetts.

We reached Brockton, Massachusetts, just after 4:30 PM, and met with security at the fairgrounds just after 5 PM.

We were led back to our location, where we found two of the rigs already there, unloading and preparing to put everything together.

I've never shirked a bit of honest work, so I headed over to the trucks, at which point I nearly ran headlong into Lane.

Let's just say I was mighty embarrassed, I backstopped rather fast, then lifted my arms up hoping I could cover up my red face.

Nope, my luck was good enough, he noticed, and after a good chuckle which I eventually joined him in, we got down to business.

When we finally stopped just after 9 PM on that Tuesday evening, I was pretty bushed, but not enough to resist the smell of a freshly fired grill!

Hot darn, those two guys have crossed paths with us again! What can I say, I ate well, as I always seem to do when they're around!

Even better, I finally learned their names! The younger guy, I think he's late 20's, maybe? That's Jeremy, the older guy is his brother Barrett.

Once I had finished eating, Allison not far from me throughout the wonderful meal, I sat around for about two hours before going to bed.

When I woke up the next morning, dad said Allison and I wouldn't be needed for the setting up and that mom wanted to go shopping.

I giggled, I'll bet dad is going to be wanting to scream once he finds out how much we can spend while out having fun shopping.

Anyway, after a breakfast of Special K™ and toast, I joined mom, Allison, Tina, Ricki, Kerry, Lisa, Albany and a few others as we piled into three or four vehicles and headed into Boston to look at some good quality boutique shops shops initially, then hit a couple malls later.

We spent most of the morning wandering from one boutique shop to another along Newbury Street in Boston.

I didn't see anything that said "buy me!", but I think I saw mom putting a couple of items into a carry bin that seemed oriented to teen girls at one store. I didn't actually see if she bought the items or not, as Tina distracted me at one point by having me look at some lovely halter tops.

Oh, man, they looked really nice, but it hit me like a ton of bricks at that point that I was just starting to develop, I wasn't done growing yet. Well, according to the tests done by various doctors this year starting back with Dr. Brandt, they all stated I might be lucky to add a few inches to my height over the next year or two, and that most of my growth will be in the usual ways of female development, primarily breasts and hips.

I didn't realize just how fast time can pass when you're busy like that. Before I knew it, it was after 1 PM and my stomach started growling!

Mom suggested we go over to this place called James Hook & Co. for lunch, she said the lobster there was quite good but not too expensive. That sounded pretty good to me, even though we spend our winters not too far away from several decent lobster fishing sites.

Well, just because we live not far away from them doesn't mean we could afford to eat it often, but it did make for a nice occasional treat!

Anyway, we spent an enjoyable hour or so in the restaurant, then headed back to the shops, this time at the Corner Mall.

We had a good time there, roaming through Bath & Body Works, Discovery Imports, E. B. Horn, Rainbow, The Jewelry Store and Wet Seal.

I picked up a nice little sundress in Rainbow for under $10, plus a pair of three inch pumps that not only looked good but were comfortable.

I was mostly just browsing as we wandered through the other stores, except when mom had me pick out some bath supplies for myself while we were in Bath & Body Works. I noticed Tina and Ricki nudging Allison over my way, so the two of us had fun deciding what we wanted.

We eventually made up our minds, after changing them half a dozen times or so while looking at the choices available.

I settled on some rather pleasant smelling strawberry scented items, while Allison opted for a similar set in vanilla scents.

We arrived back at the Brockton fairgrounds just before 7 PM after spending the day wandering around downtown Boston.

Most of the rides and other pieces already seemed to be in place, with just a bit of work still to be done before everything was ready.

Allison and I spent the next few hours being grilled by mom on a variety of subjects. She's a tough but fair schoolmistress.

Well, the next thing on the agenda was me going into Boston again on Thursday afternoon for yet another medical assessment.

I'd been sitting in the waiting area of the doctor for nearly an hour already, after having arrived here just before 1:30 PM.

I hadn't known it until the night before when mom told me, but I wouldn't be eating in the morning as they want fasting bloodwork this time.

I sat there griping and grumbling while my stomach complained at being treated so unfairly, and almost missed my name being called.

Mom got up and led me into the office, where we took seats on the front side of the small desk and waited for Dr. Hillman to appear.

He came in perhaps a few minutes later, we talked for a short while, then he had a nurse take me out to get several vials of blood.

Once I had been drained nearly dry, or so it seemed, the nurse led me back to the office where the doctor was still talking to mom.

He had me get up on an exam table for a few minutes, where he took my blood pressure, temperature, then checked my ears, eyes, and throat. I wasn't expecting all of that, honestly, but he stated as he was doing the tests that it was a good idea to cover all the bases regularly.

He also spent a moment examining me for physical changes, after waiting to have a nurse present while doing that at mom's behest.

When he had finished, I returned and sat beside mom, waiting to see what he had to say.

What surprised both mom and myself was that my blood tests came back a lot faster than we expected. "Lab on site," Dr. Hillman stated.

He spent a few minutes looking over all of the info on the sheets he'd been handed a few minutes earlier, then smiled.

"Well, Mrs. Banfield, Lara, as far as I can see, seems to be doing quite well, no major changes from the last doctor's visit. Lara, you do seem to be slightly more developed in the bust and hips, but that isn't too significant a change, so I'm going to leave things as they are.

"The blood work is fine. Unless you have something major happen, you shouldn't need to have an MRI or ultrasound for a few months.

"For now, it might be a good idea to keep doing these assessments on a fairly regular basis. I hope you have a good day."

With that, he buried himself in a file and mom and I exited the office, then paid for the appointment and headed back to the fairgrounds.

The fair wouldn't be opening until late afternoon on Friday. What made this one odd was the staggered opening times. Weekends were open from 2 PM until midnight, most weekdays from 5 PM until midnight, except for the Tuesday and Wednesday, which were 2 PM until midnight.

The fair would end on Sunday, July 8th at 10 PM. That was the only time that the fairgrounds would close before midnight.

Allison and I split most of Friday between lessons in the RV with mom and doing training to keep ourselves in tip top shape for our act. No matter what some folks might say about our act being "for little girls", it takes a lot of very precise and careful movements to do it all well.

I muttered at one point on that Friday afternoon about not enjoying having to deal with itchy breasts. Both mom and Allison heard me say it.

I turned quite red at that point, but they only giggled for a moment, then mom went into the bathroom and returned a moment later carrying a tube of cream. "Use this when you get that itchy feeling, hon," mom stated. "That's your breasts telling you that they're growing, it's not bad."

I looked up at mom. Even though she's only a couple of years short of 40 now, she still looks really good and quite beautiful.

"Mom, am I going to end up with breasts like yours?" I asked. "It does seem to be fairly common among the women in your family."

That last remark was muttered with me trying to hide my face in my shirt, even with my one hand pointing toward her chest.

Mom shrugged, then grinned at me, saying, "Maybe, but there are a few women in the family that aren't as well developed breast wise."

I blushed again, then walked into the washroom where I spent the next few minutes applying that cream all around my breasts.

Since the fairgrounds would be kept closed until opening each day, Jack decided not to bother with day shows except for on the weekends, and on Tuesday and Wednesday of next week, when they open at 2 PM. Mom said we could spend the extra time doing school work.

Dad laughed and agreed with mom, adding in that it was better for us to be doing that than wandering around alone somewhere.

Allison and I had no idea, after that little discussion, just how close we would come to losing everything we had.

When the fair opened on Friday evening, we were all ready, and we kicked it off with a blast!

Mom and Terrance opened up in the one big tent we have with the three lions, while Allison and I started things off in the second big tent.

We had a great performance, one of our best since Allison started performing with me, and the applause was definitely worth the effort!

On the days where the fair would open at 5 PM, the lions and elephants would do three shows each, those of us in the second tent two each.

We would speed things up a bit on the days when they opened at 2 PM. Mom and Terrence would do four shows, as would Brant with the elephants. Allison and I, the acrobats, and Jackson would all squeeze in three shows each in the second big tent.

When we weren't busy doing our act or being grilled by Sgt. Mom over our school work, Allison and I would wander around the fairgrounds, checking out some of the animal shows and the various exhibits. We were able to catch the magic show on July 1st, which was quite amazing.

In the evenings, as we wandered around, we could hear music coming from either the grandstand or the pavilion. The bands for both locations changed each night, but we often found ourselves happily standing somewhere listening, clapping and singing along to the music.

It was while were listening to one of those bands, this one being a high energy R&B group from New England called KG Express, that we had a rather big scare. We were both swaying to the music when a big man, who appeared to be around 30 or so, started talking to the two of us.

At first, we weren't actually listening to the guy, but he kept close to us, talking whenever he thought he might be heard. "Hey, girls, you two should come with me, I can show how people really live around here, lots of good times..." and more of that same sort of thing.

Now, as I said, we were more focused on the music than the guy, which was a mistake. After several minutes of us only occasionally glancing his way, the guy went so far as to grab each of us by an arm and started to drag us away from there. He stopped after about fifty feet, though, and Allison and I stumbled to a halt on either side of him just in time to see my mom standing there, holding a cocked .45 Colt in her hands.

We were just far enough away from the music to hear her, "Mister, if you have even a lick of sense, you'll let my two girls go NOW!"

That last word came out in a semi-shout, which drew the attention of a fair number of folks around us, including three nearby policemen.

The guy soon found himself surrounded by a rapidly gathering crowd as my mother explained to the officers what she had seen him doing.

He then found himself roughly frisked and his name transmitted over a handheld radio, with a response coming back just a moment later: "Hold Mr. Dawtrim on two counts of attempted kidnapping, he's wanted regarding several cases of teens being groomed for a theft ring."

That resulted in Mr. Dawtrim trying to break free, which failed quite spectacularly, with him being dropped to the ground hard by an officer.

Several minutes later, a police vehicle slowly made its way through the lanes of the fairgrounds, then he was stuffed into the back seat. One of the officers that had arrived in the car could be heard as she leaned through one of the open car doors to Mirandize Mr. Antoine Dawtrim.

Another fifteen minutes passed before mom was cleared to go, although she was warned to get up to date on a concealed carry permit.

From what we could learn, this guy was in a lot of trouble; several kids were missing after meeting him, two of whom were known to be dead.

How did we learn all of this? Well, we were standing about ten feet from the open window of the police car and could just barely hear the radio.

Actually, it was Allison that could hear it. I have to say, she has really good hearing because that radio wasn't on loud at all.

A quick discussion with the police told us we likely wouldn't be needed in court, other than the statement that mom had given them.

When we were finally free to leave, both Allison and I held onto one of mom's hands as we returned to our area of the fairgrounds.

Dad was not happy that we had that happen, but he didn't give us a lot of grief over it; instead, he wrapped us both in a fierce hug.

Things went back to as close to normal as they can after something like that. I do know we were being constantly watched by a lot of our folks.

I'm just glad we were able to work off the stress through doing our daily exercises and the actual times up on the rope itself during our acts.

You can't afford to lose yourself in your feelings up there, focus is a very necessary part of the act and it felt damn good to get back to it.

We finished to a standing ovation after our final appearance at this fair on the second Sunday evening.

Dad said we could just chill for the rest of the evening, as we'd be heading out in the morning to the Lycoming County Fair in Pennsylvania.

That Sunday night was a quiet one for all of us. I surprised mom and dad by making no protest when dad said I needed to be in bed. I'm not sure, but that may be due to the feelings Allison and I have been going through since that jerk Dawtrim tried to kidnap us Thursday night.

Anyhow I was in bed a few minutes later and soon asleep, that sleep broken by dreams several times. Most of the dreams, well, the ones that I could remember when I woke up, were about Dawtrim and had him successfully kidnapping and abusing us. Scary shit, oh, yeah!

By abusing us, I mean feeding us the barest minimum to keep us alive, beating us whenever he felt like it, and worst of all, raping us both.

I'm really, really glad that I only remembered very brief bits of those dreams and not explicit details. What I remembered was bad enough.

I was really surprised that those dreams didn't have me screaming as I woke up each time. I was scared and rather upset, yep, but perhaps I knew somehow that I was safe from any harm from that jerk? I couldn't tell you, but I was very glad I didn't wake mom and dad up all night.

When I finally woke up on Monday morning, it was just after 8:30 AM. Holy geez, I wondered why mom and dad let me sleep in that late?

Well, it didn't take me long to get into a simple outfit, jeans, a t-shirt, of course one with an oldies band on it, this one showing the Grateful Dead. It was just a picture of them, not a band tour t-shirt, but it was the first one that I found that morning that I actually felt like wearing.

Slipping on my runners after I had dressed myself, I slithered down the ladder to the main area of the RV and started getting some breakfast. I was hungry, but limited myself to putting two slices of whole wheat bread into a four slice toaster and prepped a bowl of Special K™.

While I waited for the toaster to finish, I also poured a glass of orange juice from the big jug in the fridge. That was interesting, I couldn't recall us getting jugs that size for juice before, we usually grabbed a one or two quart carton. Oh, well, that just means there will be more for later.

I had finished my toast and half of the cereal when the outer door of the RV opened and mom entered the vehicle.

"Heya, kid, we've been wondering when you would get up today. You okay?" she asked me.

"Sort of, mom, sort of not." That led to my telling her about the dreams and my waking up every hour or so through the night.

Mom shook her head, then walked closer and hugged me, planting a kiss on my forehead. I squirmed in her grasp until she let me go.

"Honestly, mom, I didn't bother you guys because when I woke up each time, I barely remembered what I had been dreaming," I told her. "If I couldn't remember anything clearly, what sense would it have made to wake you both up about it? Plus I wasn't awake for long at those times."

"Even if you don't think you need to bother us, remember, hon, we just want to make sure you are okay. That means all the time, hmm?"

I sighed and nodded, saying, "Yeah, mom. I'll try to remember that. What's been happening, how much stuff is still here?"

"Not a lot, kiddo, the only big thing left at the moment is the ferris wheel and they've almost finished tearing it down," she replied.

I nodded and returned to my breakfast, drinking about a quarter of the glass of orange juice as I continued eating.

"We were just coming in to check on you and let you know we'll be leaving soon. At least this won't be a long trip," mom laughed.

I nodded again and watched as mom opened the RV's door, looked out and yelled, "Bernard, we need to get going, move it!"

I swear, at times mom sounds like a drill instructor. I guess it's no surprise that dad came running to the RV just a brief moment later, hmm?

A bit less than ten minutes after that, we were exiting from the fairgrounds, heading back along I95 toward Pennsylvania.

I hadn't noticed it earlier, but apparently Tina, Ricki and Allison had stayed there with us, as I saw Tina's truck as we passed by Pawtucket.

Dad continued driving until we reached New Haven. We had enjoyed the meal at Anastasio's Boat House so much on our eastbound trip through there that we decided to have an early lunch there, and hopefully beat the lunch hour rush. It was another fantastic meal, of course.

We were back on the road just before 12:30 PM, with mom driving this time, then switching with Dad at a parking lot in Hope, Pennsylvania.

Once we had stopped, Mom muttered something about the glare from the sun starting to be a problem, and she'd misplaced her sunglasses. The rest of the drive to the Lycoming fairgrounds took roughly two more hours, with us arriving there just before 4:45 PM.

After we had met with the fairground's officials, we were allowed entry and wandered around for a bit before mom spotted one of our big tractor trailers unloading a bunch of ride pieces from the trailer, using a forklift. Dad found somewhere to park the RV and we were there.

I had no sooner put my feet on the ground than I was tearing off to help the guys with putting rides and booths together. Just as I reached the back end of that same rig that we'd seen a few minutes before, I was overtaken by Allison who had arrived on the site just behind us.

Allison and I spent a good part of that evening helping out, mostly by carrying lighter weight items or by directing the guys doing the unloading. By the time that Jack called a halt to the work, it was almost 10 PM and we had been working steadily for more than five hours.

Jack announced that he had called a local pizza place and had put in an order, then said the pizzas would get here in about thirty minutes. That gave Allison and I enough time to head to the RV and do a quick clean-up, not that we needed much more than a brief face and hand wash.

We were out of the RV and waiting for the pizzas barely ten minutes after Jack had announced it. What was amusing, honestly, was the fact that just about all of our folks that were already there were all standing around, waiting. I guess that says where our priorities were, heh?

The pizzas finally arrived, and everyone dug in, spending the next thirty minutes in the process of demolishing ten extra large pizzas.

One of the things we do, largely because we often don't know where we'll be eating, is that most of us carry a supply of paper plates. We had used those to parcel out portions of the ten pizzas we'd eaten, so it was a fairly easy task to dispose of the boxes and the used plates.

I'd managed to eat five slices from three different deluxe pizzas, so I was full and rather content as I wandered off to my bed in the RV.

I was up fairly early the next morning. I was soon joined by Allison, then we had a quick breakfast of toast, Shreddies™ and juice.

Once we had finished eating, we took turns in the RV's shower, Allison having brought some clothes along with her.

We were clean and ready to go out to continue helping put everything up for the fair by 8:15 AM.

As we exited the RV, we noticed a few of the guys, including Lane and his rig partner Billy, already starting to work.

We joined in, helping where we could, much like the day before, stopping only to have lunch, another of mom's "quick mix stews". This one had what looked like chunked sausages (about 1/2" slices), sweet potatoes, an onion or two, sweet peppers, all tossed into her big crock pot.

Let's just say that when mom makes one of those stews, the pot will be completely empty by the time everyone finishes eating. It seems mom has a bit of a reputation within Birchland's folks for her stews, and they'll come running to have some as soon as they can smell it.

You might want to give us grief for using paper plates and bowls, or plastic knives, forks, and spoons, but when you live a roving life like we do, not everyone can afford to carry a collection of cutlery, plates, bowls and other items along the way, so they make do with disposable stuff.

Besides, it's a damn sight easier to clean up after fifty people or even more at times like that by using the paper and plastic items. Would you want to have to stand around and hand wash fifty to a hundred sets of dishes after a big communal meal like that? I didn't think so.

After the meal, it was back to the work of setting up booths and rides. The last ride was finished just after 5:30 PM, the last booth by 7 PM.

I wandered back to our RV and entered, where I noticed mom sitting in the kitchen area looking at a site on dad's laptop computer. A quick glance showed the site was one about recipes for meals, the section mom was checking was about fish stews and chowders.

I scratched my head and wandered into the bathroom for a moment, taking care of business, then sat down across from mom.

She smiled and said that she was looking through items like that because she and dad know folks that run a commercial fishing business, and thus we would very likely be able to get the fish and other items for quite a bit less than it would cost to buy them at a grocery store.

"Pietro Costillo and his cousin Felipe run a fishing company out of a small inlet just north of Keyport. They tend to get decent hauls of tuna and cod, as well as flounder, haddock, halibut, bluefish, bonito, bass and mackerel. They also bring in lots of clams, crabs and shrimp.

"I'm looking at sites like this to see what I might want to order, this seafood chowder looks interesting. Hmm... not sure about monkfish, maybe we could change that to another type, maybe black sea bass or cod or halibut which are common in that area of the coast," she added.

Mom was pointing at this recipe: https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ina-garten/seafood-chowd...

"It might take a couple of hours to make it from start to finish, but I bet there will be nothing left with all the folks we have here," mom stated.

"Mom, you should know by know, you cook one of your stews, or something like this, heck, yeah, we'll scrape the pot clean!" I giggled.

She nodded, picked up her cell which had been lying on the table, scanned through her contacts, then hit call when she found it.

It took a moment for the call to be answered, which happened just as it was about to ring for the fourth time.

"Ciao, Costillo Fishing, how I help you?" We heard the voice of a slightly distraught female answering her call.

"Hi, Annabella, it's Esther Banfield. I'm wondering if we could get some fish from you, plus about two pounds each of shrimp and crabs?"

"Ohhh, hello, Esther, it has been long time since you or Bernard call us? Let me see what I can find, yes?"

Mom said that was fine, and we then heard Annabella yelling for someone named Salvatore to get the freshest shrimp and crabs. She then yelled out for someone else named Paulo to collect at least one or two freshly caught black sea bass, haddock or weakfish.

Annabella then returned to talking with mom as she waited for the boys to bring her the items she had demanded they find for her.

"So, Esther, which do you want? Black sea bass, haddock or weakfish? Weakfish look like trout but ocean fish," Annabella declared. She then continued, "To get decent amount, you might need two or three of any of those fish, they often not big, not like bluefin tuna."

Mom took a moment to think about it, then stated that she would take both bass and haddock and the two women hashed out the order.

When they were done, mom smiled and said she would send a payment to them shortly, could they deliver today or tomorrow?

"Where you be now?" Annabella asked, to which mom replied that we were at the Lycoming county fair in Hughesville, PA.

Annabella listened, then said, "You order be there by ten PM tonight at latest, I send Salvatore to deliver personal."

Mom replied, saying, "I'lll be sure to let the folks at the fairground's gates know, so one of us can meet him there. Thanks, Annabella!"

As soon as the call had been disconnected, mom was tapping the keys, entering the info for their website, then paying for the order.

A few minutes later, she received confirmation from the shop's site that the order had been placed and would soon be on its way.

I grinned at mom as I asked her, "So do we tell anyone that you plan to make a seafood chowder soon, or leave them unaware of it?"

Mom returned the grin, "Oh, I don't plan to tell anyone until it's just about done, by which point they'll all know!"

She then said that she would be waiting by the gate to the fairgrounds later that evening to meed Salvatore and collect the delivery.

Mom said that she would have a simple meal of burgers and fries waiting for us in about forty-five minutes before I wandered away.

I left the RV a short while later with a big smile on my face. I had given a promise to mom that I wouldn't mention it to anyone.

Allison soon found me, took a long look at me and asked me what the heck was happening, that I had a mile wide grin like that?

I laughed and said that I couldn't say anything, she'd have to wait and maybe she would find out some time over the next day or two.

I told Allison that mom was going to make burgers and fries, which started her whining about why she couldn't have some.

I giggled, pulled out my old cell, called mom and asked if there might be enough for Tina, Ricki and Allison, she replied in the affirmative.

"Well, Allison, I guess you got lucky, mom said there should be enough to feed you hogs," I said to her, then I was running for my life!

Allison chased me all around our area, back and forth around the vehicles, zigzagging around games booths, for almost twenty minutes. I'm not sure how I managed to stay ahead, but I did, although she came very close to catching me a few times before we both ran out of breath.

We finally stopped running, then noticed we were not far from the RV, and we could both tell that mom was cooking dinner.

We sat there in the grass near the RV, just winding down, talking quietly with each other until mom yelled the food was ready.

Allison made a quick call to Tina and we were all piling into the RV to eat.

I don't think anyone else noticed, but I saw mom heading for the gates to meed Salvatore about half an hour after we finished eating. Allison and I had gotten stuck doing the dishes. That didn't take very long, thankfully, and we decided to just relax for the rest of the evening.

I guess it was good that we had everything set up by early evening that Tuesday, as the fair would start the next afternoon.

Except for this Wednesday and Thursday, the fair would be opening the gates at 10 AM each day, The rides wouldn't be allowed to start until 5 PM on the weekdays, and 2 PM on the weekends. I inferred from this that we would need to focus on our shows during the daytime.

We were up around our usual time of about 7 AM on the first Wednesday here, even though the gates wouldn't open for another nine hours. That just mean that we could use the time to relax, except that Sgt. Mom had other ideas, such as making Allison and I do schoolwork.

Yep, the two of us were stuck in that RV studying from 8:30 that morning until about mid-afternoon, then mom finally decided to let us go.

We both ran off to change into a set of our costumes, then waited as the Valbists plus Peter and Jenny had first show in our tent.

We finally got our turn, and hustled up the ladders, then cartwheeled toward the middle of the tightrope from each end. As often happens, we lost ourselves somewhat in the rhythm of the movements, only returning fully as we finished the act to lots of very vocal applause.

Jackson Pelt was the next in line, and a few folks ran in to switch things around for his act.

We did two more performances each before the gates to the fairgrounds shut at 10 PM that night, and repeated it the next day.

With the gates opening at 10 AM from the first Friday onward, we changed our schedule so we each could perform five times a day.

Because the lions and the elephants were the only acts using the first big tent, they managed to do six shows each per day.

I can remember Allison and I watching mom and Terrence putting the lions through their paces while we were between shows that Friday. It had been a few months since Terrence had joined us, and it was already becoming evident that he was improving quite a bit. I suppose it was due to the fact that we knew Terrence for that long that made it possible for us to see the barest flinch now and then as the act progressed.

Compared to how he had been when he first joined us back in mid-April or so, it was definitely a major improvement.

Allison and I had a couple of wobbles up on the rope, times where we almost lost our balance, but were able to stay up there without falling.

I know Jack Birchland would have preferred to have the rides going all day, but they still brought in good money when they were running.

Mom made a chowder using the bass plus about half of the shrimp and crabs on the first Wednesday afternoon, which was, of course, soon finished with someone actually scouring the bottom to get the last of it. She laughed as I showed her the pot before I cleaned it.

She did it again using the haddock plus the rest of the shrimp and crabs on the first Saturday, with the same result, as expected.

Allison and I managed to catch parts of some of the various music shows on the stages around the fairgrounds, including artists like Kenzie McCarter, Kendall Phillips, Highway Sisters, October Rose, and a few others in between doing our own shows now and then.

Yep, country music, but what do you expect from a fair that's also doing various animal events, many of them farm type animals?

There were also a few derby shows, a tractor pull, etc., but those shows each cost $10 bucks, which meant we didn't bother to see any. We may not be dirt poor, but we really can't afford to be gallivanting around, spending that much that often, without getting something useful from it.

Jack was much happier with our being able to do all the shows each day. With the rides only going for the evenings mostly, except for the weekends, that meant that the majority of what we earned would be at the entry point of the big tents as each act took place.

We gave it our best effort every time we went up on the rope, and I would have to assume we did quite well due to the applause we received.

I think the scariest part of our time at the Lycoming fair was when I slipped and fell down to the net on the second Thursday evening. I'm not sure how it happened, honestly. I suppose I miscalculated my foot placement, as my foot slid off the rope, causing me to take a tumble.

I was just a bit too far away for Allison to catch me like I had done with her a while back. I heard her barely audible squeak as I fell.

As much as it might be nice to do the act without the net below us, I am very, very glad it was there this time.

I ended up with a bit of a bruise on my left shin from how I landed on the netting, but was otherwise fine. Well, if you call a bruise about 3" long by just over an inch wide a "bit" of one. It seems I hit a snap-tight connector piece on the edge between two of the net pieces.

I laughed it off, and was scurrying back up the ladder to rejoin Allison on the rope just a brief moment later, bruise or no bruise.

The fair wound down on the second Saturday evening, with the gates closing for the final time at 10 PM.

I didn't even make a fuss about heading back to the RV on that final evening of the fair, I simply went straight to bed, utterly exhausted.

----- Present day, RV behind Walburton's Wonderful Whirlds of Whee rides area, Lake County Fair, Eustis, Florida -----

Phineas Terrance Walburton III, the craggy faced, tall, lean 78 year old owner of Walburton's Wonderfuls Whirlds of Whee looked around at the people crowded in his Winnebago Spirit RV. His face showed the effects of stress, fatigue and the possible loss of all he held dear.

"We're in bad shape, folks," he stated, "Right now, we owe over $26,000 in unpaid dues and fees for our rides. If we don't pay at least $9,000 of that within the next two weeks, I'll be forced to put Walburton's Wonderful Whirlds of Whee into bankruptcy. I'd like to avoid that."

Piper VandeBeer, one of the two merry-go-round operators, looked up at her boss, "How did we end up in this situation, Phin?"

"Sheer rotten luck, Piper, we had to repair the ferris wheel, the pirate ship and the twin merry-go-rounds after that accident last fall when that speeding high-flying dimwit ran into two of our trucks while trying to escape from a bunch of police cars that were chasing him. The trailers took some damage but several parts of the ferris wheel, the ship and the merry-go-rounds were damaged badly enough they had to be replaced. Those parts ended up costing us about $37,000 including shipping costs and it took three months to get the rides back up to specs.

"We were able to cover those costs, but we haven't brought in any money since then and our winter lease arrangements ended in November. I was covering the rental costs, but when the lease expired, the guy started charging us more, and our credit cards were overextended. The credit card companies have been on my butt since early January, and I got the letter yesterday that we have to pay up fast or..." he shrugged.

Janice Winterbottom, one of the ferris wheel operators, shook her head and sighed, "Damn, it sounds like we need a miracle right now, boss!"

"Yes, Janice, that is a pretty good way to describe it. I don't have a clue as to where we might find that money."

Clarke Horton, the Tilt-A-Whirl operator, growled, "What about if we all pony up some cash, could we cover the $9,000 payment at all?"

This led to several minutes of discussion, with the end result being that they could cover maybe a third of that payment from personal funds.

"Nice suggestion, Clarke," Phineas stated, "But if we did that, those of us with any cash now would be in even rougher shape."

Phineas turned and began pacing, a few step one way, turn, a few steps the other way, turn, back and forth, lost in thought.

----- June 23, 1974 at a truck stop somewhere in Texas -----

"Harry, I hate to say this, but it's time for us to part ways, Walburton's Wonderful Whirlds of Whee needs to find its own events for a while."

"Why, Phineas?" Harold Banfield asked. "Our two families have worked the roads together since 1907 when your grandfather and my great-grandfather started the business as a joint partnership. It's worked for all these years, what makes it different now than before, Phineas?"

"The fact that three of the last six places we've worked wouldn't give us permits for our rides, Harry, that means we don't earn anything. I'm not sure why the heck you keep failing to check whether the places allow carnie rides or not, but it's making it damn hard for me and my folks to keep going. I have over a dozen rides, all good for bringing in people and cash, and we haven't been able to use them much lately, Harry."

"Give me another chance, Phineas, we can work this out as a team like we've always done."

"I'm truly sorry, Harry," replied Phineas, "But this has been happening for the last three years, I can't afford to lose any more business."

With that remark thrown over his shoulder as he turned and started walking toward his first motor home, Phineas set out on his new path.

----- Back to present day, RV behind Walburton's Wonderful Whirlds of Whee rides area, Lake County Fair, Eustis, Florida -----

Phineas stopped his pacing and every person's head in the RV swivelled toward the door as a knock sounded on it.

Phineas waved to Janice who was standing closest to the door, she opened it, letting in a man about forty or so years of age.

"Hello, old Phineas, I haven't seen you since I was seven. I hear you're having financial problems, I think I can help," stated Jack Banfield.