To Protect and Serve by Pat Adeff Page B

frustration getting there.
                  Also, the school was having her favorite fundraiser that afternoon; the annual Halloween Carnival!  Two years ago the school had vacillated on whether to call it a Halloween Carnival or a Fall Festival, after one of the new moms became upset that they were “celebrating the devil.”
                  Well, it turned out that the lady wasn’t interested in having any sort of conversation about it, since she knew that she was right and the school was wrong.  In the end, the woman removed her child (who had never been able to do anything up to her mother’s standards anyway) and homeschooled her.  Nancy felt sorry for the little girl.  The girl liked to sing and had an excellent voice, but the mother felt that singing was against God.  Even though it was difficult, sometimes you just had to let some of them go and hope their lives turned out okay.  It was heartbreaking.
                  The rest of the families were just fine with a Halloween Carnival and enjoyed bobbing for apples, the bean-bag toss, fishing for prizes and pie eating contests that were part of the festivities.
                  One of the booths that raised a lot of money for the school was the Fortune Telling booth.  Nancy as the Performing Arts teacher, and a couple of the older girls would deck out one of the outside lunch areas with a tent, put up a bunch of scarves, tassels, and old jewelry, light some incense and pretend to tell fortunes.
    The fortunes ran along the lines of “Ah!  I see that you need to work harder on your math homework!” or “I see that you have a boyfriend!  Does his name begin with a ‘G’?”  The kids loved it and it was fun for everyone.              
                  Nancy had fun with it, too, since she got a chance to perform (with a very bad accent, which ranged throughout the evening from Middle Croatia to Minnesota.)  She wore an awful wig that looked as though someone had put the world’s largest brillo pad on her head, and more clanky jewelry than any respectable fortune teller would ever wear.  It was clichéd, but fun.
                  The carnival finally got underway and Nancy had been telling fortunes for about an hour.  The draped door was pulled aside as Nancy’s next customer entered.
                  “Come into my parlor,” Nancy tried to make it sound mysterious.
                  “You have come to have me tell your future - yes?”  Nancy looked up just then at the person standing in front of her.
                  And stopped.
                  Doug Saunders was there in all his uniformed glory.  Shiny black lace-up shoes, pressed slacks, heavy utility belt, crisp uniform shirt over Nancy’s favorite part, the Kevlar vest.  When her eyes reached his, she realized that she’d been staring at him with her mouth hanging open.
                  Her mouth snapped shut in mortification.  Nancy couldn’t believe that only the third time he’d seen her, she was now in one of the most ridiculous costumes imaginable.  She sighed inwardly.  Well, at least it’s different than her cleaning-house ensemble.
                  “Ah!  A member of our protection forces.  A modern knight in armor!  Please sit down and allow Madame Futurenata to tell your fortune.  Yea, mon?”  Now the accent had moved to Jamaica.
                  Doug removed his cap and sunglasses and settled himself into the cushy draped chair across from the small round table in front of Nancy.
                  It didn’t help that he was starting to smile as he took in all of Nancy’s gloriously over-the-top attire.
                  “You look...ah...in character?”  Doug’s grin threatened to get even wider.
     
                  “Madame Futurenata sees all and tells all.”  Nancy