Chapter 1
Houston Apuckshunubbee clapped a massive hand down upon the table where his friends were seated for lunch. They didn’t eat outside with the popular kids or the jocks; they didn’t hide at the dumpsters smoking dope.
They ate inside a classroom, away from the prying eyes of bullies, ready to take their electronics and give them a swirly. They looked up at Apuckshunubbee, who had a wicked smirk on his fat lips.
Apuckshunubbee was a big guy, way over six feet tall, nearly seven! He weighed almost four hundred pounds, but with all that height, no one called him a fat ass, but he was very much a shy guy when it came to his looks.
He was already balding, and combed his hair over, giving himself the look of a 40 year old father. He dropped his backpack onto the table and watched his friends as he unzipped the black bag. He knew if he didn’t move quick enough, his friends would put forth all kinds of wild speculations.
From the depths of the bag, Apuckshunubbee took out a flyer and handed it to the only girl of the group, a little goth girl named Stina. She was dark, dramatic, a little unhinged, and Apuckshunubbee was smitten with her! Stina read the flyer and read it again and read it again one more time!
Apuckshunubbee stood there, looking as pleased as punch.
She handed it across the table to David, he read it, and he grinned excitedly. He passed it to Jack. Jack passed it to Matthew. Matthew passed it back to Apuckshunubbee, the three of them, plush Stina seemed to be excited by the prospects.
He sat down. Stina looked over at him, hoping there’d be some good news with that flyer. So did the other three guys sitting across from them. Apuckshunubbee let out a laugh. He knew that Stina would be excited by it, but his other three friends?
He told Stina that it was probably just a hoax, freak shows had been outlawed.
Stina didn’t seem to care, she loved new freak shows. Jack didn’t understand what a new freakshow was, it was a show where people with freaky talents preformed, and some of them happened to have a deformity, but it was everyone’s choice to work them.
Matthew had the bright idea that it was some snooty acrobatic show, like the ones in Las Vegas. The names even somewhat matched! Cirque du, the words that came after was the only difference.
Stina rolled her eyes and shook her head, she didn’t know for a fact that Matthew was wrong, but Stina felt that Matthew was wrong. “Since when does Las Vegas have a show with a preforming spider?”
“There was probably one at one point in the history of Las Vegas!”
“I’m sure this is a new Freakshow, are we going?”
“It’s fifteen bucks a ticket!” Whistled Apuckshunubbee. Stina and Matthew could go. She didn’t exactly want to go with him, but the show was being preformed in Garden Grove, not a place a young woman of eighteen should be alone.
The two of them could easily pay for the tickets. Matthew made a huge show though, about paying for Stina’s ticket. That women shouldn’t have to pay for their own ticket to any show, even if it was some Freakshow. Stina did not care, as long as she got to see Cirque Du Freak, Matthew could call it a date for all she cared!
After lunch and before the next class, Stina and Matthew made their plans, their friends listening in, imagining how it must be like! They’d meet the gas station around eleven that night. The gas station was smack dab right between their two houses. “If you aren’t there, I will go without you,” Stina said, taking the flyer from Apuckshunubbee for the address.
***
Stina whirled around, and saw Matthew step under the metal awning of the gas station, Stina still cringed at the fact Matthew saw this as a date — and she couldn’t stress it enough, it was NOT a date. He crowed out a high, moonlike laugh that frightened her. “You did come!” He said happily. Like she would miss something as cool as this, as cool as Cirque Du Freak. “I was worried you would have stood me up!”
Stina rolled her eyes. Like she would have really not come. If she stood him up, she wouldn’t get to see Cirque Du Freak! She thought Matthew was in love with her. How could he not know how deep her love for freak shows ran? “Matthew, I love freak shows. I’d never not see one,” she said. “Even if that means seeing one with you.”
“Are you saying the only reason you’re going with me tonight is to just see a freakshow?” Asked Matthew, who acted hurt, maybe a bit overdramatic. “You don’t want to spend time with me?”
That was one of the many reasons why Stina didn’t like Matthew.
They were only friends because they hung out in the same group at school, Stina was polite to Matthew, and Matthew was head over heels, the token goth chick at their school showed him attention. That was more than anything a guy like Matthew Austee could hope for. Anytime Matthew asked her on a date, Stina turned him down gently. No matter how many times she said no, it never sank into him in the slightest. “Matthew, let’s get going.”
The two so called friends dipped in the night, Stina moving silently through the shadows. Matthew fell behind, watching her. She belonged in the darkness. “Do you have to go so fast?” He panted.
Without so much as a word, Stina stopped so Matthew could catch up. Though she knew they couldn’t go at his pace, they’d miss the show! She broke out again into a brisk walk. “Hurry up, Matthew!”
