Clowns, Crimes and Case Numbers

Chapter Two

Olivia got out of the taxi, paying the cabbie the fare through the window in coins. As he drove away muttering about circus freaks, she looked at the red and white striped tent critically before moving towards it. She could work with that image.

Olivia pulled aside one canvas flap of the entrance and walked in, the bleachers cleaned out of people but not of litter and the center empty of everything save sawdust.

“Is anyone there?”, her voice echoed in the manner of a horror movie’s protagonist just before the prisoner of, or the serial killer himself, made their presence known.

The other side of the tent was hit with a gust of wind, making another, back entrance flap open, revealing a safety pin holding candy cane to peppermint.

Another tent. That gave Olivia the feeling that the word Great referred to size. What she didn’t quite understand was how the Traveling part got any easier or prominent to warrant its presence in the title. Olivia crunched the sawdust underfoot, and in vengeance of its fellows some sneaked into her shoe from who knows where.

Before she could pull aside the canvas acting as bouncer of the green and white tent, she was stopped by the bouncer of the aforementioned canvas bouncer.

A ramrod straight backed woman who was old enough to have a head of snowy white hair but young enough to intercept her fast with a spring in her step hindered her entrance into the peppermint tent, “Who might you be?”

“I might be Olivia Pike, your PR Manager”, Olivia tried to inch herself around the woman and into the tent, “Though I’m not quite sure. And who are you?”

The woman didn’t blink so much as an eye, unfazed, replying, “Mrs. Hurt, your most immediate superior, and also someone with the authority to tell you stop lying to me, and especially not in a way you seem to think as funny, and get into class. This instant”

She immediately stopped the slow moving Mission Sneaking into Green and White Tent without Mrs. Hurt Noticing and turned to look at her, “Wait, what?”

With an impatient roll of her eyes, Mrs. Hurt pulled aside the double canvas of the candy cane and peppermint tents, gesturing for her to get in.

“What class?”, she still didn’t move, not looking away from her.

“Playing dumb isn’t going to work”, Mrs. Hurt replied, still holding the canvas, “But if you insist upon proving your obviously inferior intelligence, you’ll find out what class it is only if you sit through it”

Olivia looked at Mrs. Hurt for a moment, trying to formulate a sarcastic retort to her irrefutable logic in her head, before turning and getting in with as much dignity as she could muster.

Sitting in the class were all people Olivia’s age-- graduate students fresh out of college, about thirty of them, sitting at desks. Mrs. Hurt followed Olivia in, and announced to them, “Let this be an example. Any bunking, especially on the first class, will not be tolerated, for Mrs. Hurt sees all. Now, Maybe Olivia, sit down”

The only seat left was next to a dark-haired, Scottish looking boy, who immediately whispered when she sat down, “Ambitious of you, Blondie”

“I wasn’t bunking”

“And I wasn’t talking about that”, he replied, “I was talking about being a blonde assassin. I hope your hair doesn’t glow with all the fury of a burning cliche. That would be horrible for sneaking around in”

Olivia closed her eyes for a moment and took a deep breath, exhaling as she opened her eyes, “What’s your name?”

“Scotty”, he had a genuine smile on his face, “Nice to meet you, Maybe Olivia”

“Just Olivia”, she replied, “And Scotty?”

“Yes, Just Olivia?”, she rolled her eyes at that.

“Shut your face”

His smile was unaffected, and Mrs. Hurt started to look around, sending fail-proof, silencing glares, “If everyone is done talking, may we start learning how to sophisticatedly and silently rob and assassinate people?”

The only sound was silence and the only sight was nodding heads save Olivia’s.

“What did she just say?”, she whispered to Scotty.

“In case the concentrated Death Glare brewed by Mrs. Hurt herself wasn’t strong enough to silence your internal, distracting and never ending praise for me, she mentioned starting the course”

“On killing and thievery”, she said, uncomprehending.

Olivia immediately remembered him calling her a blonde assassin and beat herself up (figuratively, of course, she had much too much of a reputation to keep for that) for not noticing it. She was seriously starting to question her life choices. Choices, that she remembered a minute later, after Scotty put her name down on the permanent roster as Maybe Olivia, included forgetting to put the contract in the mail. Olivia knew and acknowledged that she was completely, utterly and royally screwed.