My Secret Life
By
Rebecca Anna Coleman
Sequel To
Magnolia Blooms & Sakura Petals

-4-
Volunteering for the Dunking Booth

When you consider the minuscule population of Greenville, when compared to Memphis or Jackson. No doubt you will be amazed that this small, delta town has produced so many famous and wonderful writers. Dozens of them, the most famous of all of them though, was a man by the name of William Alexander Percy. Whose Lanterns on the Levee: The Recollections of a Planter's Son is required reading for all those who wish to understand how the modern south was born, molded, and formed. He also wrote the text for my favorite Episcopalian hymn They Cast their Nets in Galilee. The local public library was named in his honor.

And here in this humble sanctuary I found myself, browsing the teenager section of the William Alexander Percy Memorial Library. People who often visit our tiny township of Greenville for the very first time are often surprised how cosmopolitan the town is when compared to the surrounding hamlets, villages, and towns. As such the teenager section can boast a number of completed manga series and was the meeting place for the local anime and manga club. The anime and manga club would meet weekly in the teenager section on Saturday afternoons at straight up noon.

Beside the anime and manga club one could find another club or group, or guild as they often called themselves named “The Fellowship of the Knights of the Golden Goose” a local Dungeons and Dragons group that meet here twice weekly. Wednesday night and Saturday afternoons just an hour after the anime and manga club had finished meeting.

Anyway it was the hottest part of the afternoon. The weatherman had predicted the high for the afternoon would reach a hundred and ten. And it felt more like a hundred and fifteen, and I wanted to see if I could pass as a girl in a public place and well the local library seemed like the best possible place. And so I stood there in the dim lighting, allowing the voice of long dead and sometimes forgotten writers to whisper their dusty wisdom into my tender, novice ears as I stepped slowly among the row upon row dust jacket covered books.

Like I said before, Greenville for its small size had produced a string of famous writers. Dozens of them and most of their published works can be found here, read here, and checked out. It made me really understand the size of the shoe I was stepping into and trying to fill. And the fact that I was walking in the footsteps of these men and women who had not only mastered the craft of writing but had honed it to a fine cutting edge. And yet here I was, I was not even worthy of being called an apprentice, I did not even consider myself a novice. I was at best a rookie.

I mean beside a Pokemon fanfiction that I'd written in elementary school that had ended up being around six or maybe seven thousand words once I'd finished the damn thing, and such tiresome effort I had poured into those seven thousand words! I had struggled with all my might to string words together and in the end I had forced myself just to put one word in front of the other!

Yes, beside that fanfiction, had I produced nothing. Can you even count that elementary school fanfiction attempt? Would these towering giants even stoop to give me the time of day?

I needed to do something. I had dozens of ideas for ghost stories right now floating around in my head. And I knew from my last email with editors of Shojo Kaiden that they were delighted with the idea of publishing Southern Gothic inspired Kaiden stories. And I even had one story written for them, that story was sitting on the hard drive of my desktop at home right now. But I also wanted to publish stories with Shojo Beat. And so I needed Shojo Beat to publish. But that was the million dollar question. What would Shojo Beat want to publish? I had no answer for that question and yet I was hoping to find an answer here.

Then I noticed something, pinned to the cork board that hung in the hallway was a picture. The picture had clearly been drawn by one of the local anime artists that called Greenville home. Because it was clearly anime inspired and was giving off strong Studio Ghilbli vibes.

The picture showed a girl with brown hair that reminded me of a jar of nutella and was worn in the classic shojo bob, she was wearing the classic navy blue one piece school swimsuit often seen in such slice of life anime's as Love Hina, Oh My Goddess!, and You're Under Arrest!.

I think it was called a Sukumizu, yes you could tell it was a classic Sukumizu because it was navy blue and there was a square piece of cloth in the middle. It was common in Japan for girls who took swim class to wear a square piece of white cloth pinned to the middle of their Sukumizu. Normally the girl's last name or her name would be written upon the cloth. The artist must have known this because there was something in Japanese written upon the white cloth in the picture. I did not know Japanese, I only knew a little Latin to stumble through Holy Mass and enough Greek to make a fool of myself. Anyway since I could not read written Japanese I had no idea what the artist had written in the space. Maybe nothing at all, because it looked like a hodgepodge of Hiragana, Katakana, Kanji, and Romaji. Anyway I give the artist an 'A' for the effort.

Anyway, the girl was sitting at the edge of a blue, drop seat of what appeared to be a dunking booth. She was smiling though, you could clearly see a deep, ruby blush reaching from one cheek to the other bridging the bridge of her nose. Under it was printed a message.

“The Greenville Anime & Manga Club will be sponsoring the dunking booth this coming Saturday for the fourteenth annual celebration of the 'The Discover Greenville Festival!' The Dunking will open at ten o' clock in the morning and will run till three o' clock in the afternoon. We are looking for eight, willing volunteers to work one or two thirty minute shifts! Please, wear a modest bathing suit, ladies that means a one piece and gentleman, please wear a shirt with your swim trunks, and if you volunteer please bring a spare set of clothes. One of our staff members will be on hand to safeguard your purse or wallet and phone! Ladies, if you have a Sukumizu please wear one! If you would like to volunteer please contact the front desk for more information! Or call me personally, Sarah Percy at (882) 914 – 1616 or send me an email at SarahHime@Hotmail.com!”

I blinked. Well, I guess I could write an article about volunteering for the town's dunking booth. And it's not like anybody will connect the dots. Even if they somehow connected the dots I doubt anybody would care. And so I decided to take a deep breath and roll the dice and hoped they ended up on lucky number seven.

And so I reached into the pocket of my jeans and pulled out my phone. I dialed the number listed on the flyer and waited. I could feel my heart beating like a jackhammer inside my chest as the phone rang, rang and rang. Fifteen rings later I heard somebody pick up and before I could say a word a very southern voice picked and said.

“Moshi Moshi, This is Percy-San!”

I blinked. I was taken back a little. I knew that some die hard anime fans often casually mixed Japanese with English, which meant that they would sometimes attach Japanese honorifics to people's names. A habit I found somewhat annoying.

“Yes, good afternoon.. This is Heather Croft. I saw your poster and I was wondering if you're still looking for a volunteer?”

“Hai! Konichaw! Croft Say! Yes we are still looking for a brave volunteer or two! We have two open spots. The first open spot is at ten in the morning. That is the opening shift! The next shift is at ten thirty which is the second opening shift! Would you like to volunteer for either of those two?”

“Sure! I would like to volunteer for both of those two slots.” I said blushing.

“Okay! Thank you for volunteering! The Booth opens at ten in the morning. The booth will be located downtown across from The Fred's Dollar Store.” Sarah Percy said. “The whole stretch of downtown will be closed to traffic. Well not foot traffic anyway. So basically it’s going to a massive open air bazaar complete with food trucks, stalls, and live music and even live entertainment. We’re even going to have Inky the Clown this year who’s driving up from Yazoo City to perform!”

“Is that the same Fred’s Dollar Store that is right beside George’s Hardware Store and right across from Robert Grill & Cafe that is located right beside Ol’ River Peddlers Printing Services?”

“Yes!”

“Okay I'll be there..”

And that is how I ended up volunteering. I was sure I could squeeze at least fifteen hundred words from that little stunt. A fifteen hundred word article would be a good start to my publishing career with Shojo Beat.

End of Chapter 4