The day the circus arrived she already knew she was going to leave with it. It was a week earlier when the school graduation snubbed her valedictorian speech in favor of the class president. He was Freddie Sommers: tall and with an amiable smile and a widowed mother who tried hard to look 35 and succeeded based on the fact she had enough money to supply new uniforms, a science lab and ran the Twist-e-Freez on the road heading out of town. Mrs. Sommers and her son were popular in the way that shiny things are popular with kittens and morons. At least, that's the way Jane saw it.
She looked over her transcript with the AP classes in biology, English and psychology and grimaced for a moment. Her mom and dad were proud but all they wanted her to be was happy. She knew they would be just as proud having a moral idiot as their youngest child. If she was going to get anywhere it would be on her own. She had applied to college and had gotten a number of offers but for some reason she didn't accept. She never told anyone and as she didn't have many friends she new there wouldn't be too many people asking. Her guidance counselor didn't ignore her as much as he knew she would be alright and left her alone. He never thought to check her college situation.
It was back sometime in mid-May when the advance man for the circus came to town to put up posters. Her parents ran a small convenience store that was slowly being run out of business by the "Pump-n-Chew" on the corner. It was open twenty four hours a day and had cold fuzzy drinks and bright lights. Her parents place called "the store" by everyone in town had broken linoleum tile that her father had decided not to replace because of his imminent retirement.
Still, people came there and the advance man gave them a poster and 4 free tickets and left a lingering smell of cigar smoke and the impression he wanted to stay and look over Janine more than was legally appropriate. She was 17, she felt 67, but she looked, she didn't know how old she looked because no one ever looked at her.
She looked over her transcript with the AP classes in biology, English and psychology and grimaced for a moment. Her mom and dad were proud but all they wanted her to be was happy. She knew they would be just as proud having a moral idiot as their youngest child. If she was going to get anywhere it would be on her own. She had applied to college and had gotten a number of offers but for some reason she didn't accept. She never told anyone and as she didn't have many friends she new there wouldn't be too many people asking. Her guidance counselor didn't ignore her as much as he knew she would be alright and left her alone. He never thought to check her college situation.
It was back sometime in mid-May when the advance man for the circus came to town to put up posters. Her parents ran a small convenience store that was slowly being run out of business by the "Pump-n-Chew" on the corner. It was open twenty four hours a day and had cold fuzzy drinks and bright lights. Her parents place called "the store" by everyone in town had broken linoleum tile that her father had decided not to replace because of his imminent retirement.
Still, people came there and the advance man gave them a poster and 4 free tickets and left a lingering smell of cigar smoke and the impression he wanted to stay and look over Janine more than was legally appropriate. She was 17, she felt 67, but she looked, she didn't know how old she looked because no one ever looked at her.
