Colette checks herself out in the mirror. Her mime make-up was done right and the clothes she was wearing looked straight. She waves to her reflection in the mirror and smiles.

She turns around and grabs her keys and a few dollars to take with her. She walks out of her apartment and down to her scooter and mounts it. She turns the key and puts her helmet on.

Colette figures she’ll head down to the boardwalk and perform today. She glances at the sky and saw nothing but clear skies for today. She loved performing for people. All her friends thought she was crazy for studying to become a mime.

When Colette arrives at the boardwalk, she parks her scooter and locks it up. She was lucky to find a close spot to the boardwalk. She walks out to the boardwalk, pretending that she was fighting a strong wind.

Once she was on the boardwalk, she performs some simple mime tricks. One of them was standing on one leg while leaning against an invisible lamp post. She does another trick of copying a person as they walked by. She does that trick twice when another person walks by.

People give her money for performing on the boardwalk. By early afternoon, she stops and has a few hot dogs from the hot dog vendor. She makes sure not to mess up her make-up. While she is eating and resting. She stays in character and does simple tricks for kids and such. She even copies a police officer and pretends to be a crook for him as well.

Colette knew the police officers that patrolled the boardwalk. She had to show her permit a few times. The permit cost her a pretty penny, but it was worth it. She was done making money on the boardwalk for herself and some of the shops for the first part of the day.

After lunch, Colette performs for a few more hours. Afterward, when she has finished performing. She walks back to the scooter and mounts it.
She starts the scooter and rides toward her apartment. She stops at the nearest KFC restaurant and grabs a bucket of chicken and sides to go with it.

The attendant got a kick out of the simple performance she pulled on him. She loved seeing a smile appear on his face. It always made her feel warm and fuzzy when she could brighten someone’s day. When she pulls into the parking lot where she lives. She parks in her assigned parking space and locks her scooter.

Colette walks upstairs to the third floor, where her apartment is located. She takes her keys out and opens the apartment door and walks into her apartment. The lights come on automatically, as she walks into her apartment. She hangs her keys on the hooks on the shelf by the door.

Colette looks at her apartment and some of the decorations and awards she has won over the years. She was lucky that at least her mother understood her and how she felt. Her father on the other hand tried to understand how she felt but found it a little hard to accept.

She walks into her spare bedroom where all her costumes, make-up mirror, and exercise equipment are set up. She has a gym membership, but sometimes she doesn’t feel like going. So, instead, she works out at home.

Once she removes all her make-up and her mime clothes. she slips on an oversize shirt that exposes her shoulder. She walks into her kitchen and grabs a paper plate from the cabinet and fixes herself a plate. She walks into her living room and curls up on the sofa under a throw blanket that had the three stooges on it. She was a big Three Stooges fan. She was also a big Abbot and Costello fan.

She may be young, but she liked their style of comic relief. There were some other old comedians she liked as well, but they were her favorites. She turns her television on and watches Star Trek: Discovery. She would love to play a character on a sci-fi show.

Colette watches the current episode while enjoying the chicken she bought at KFC. As she lays there on the sofa watching her show and enjoying her chicken. She wonders what her older sister and brother are doing right now. Both of her siblings were married and had kids.

Her siblings didn’t mind her transiting from being a boy to a girl. If nothing else, what she went through, will help them with their children. That’s if their kids develop gender dysphoria or turn out to be gay or a lesbian.

Once the episode she was watching was done. She gets up and throws her plate and chicken bones away. She washes her hands in the sink and grabs a juice from the refrigerator. She heads back into the living room and watches a Disney movie on Disney Plus. She falls asleep halfway through the movie.

When morning comes, her alarm clock on her cellphone wakes her up. She turns it off and checks the weather for the day. According to the weather forecast, it was supposed to be nice and clear for the next few days. She gets up and heads into the bathroom and takes a shower.

After her shower, she dries off and thinks about what she should do today. She did her mime act yesterday and knew doing it twice in a row wouldn’t bring her much money. She looks through her costumes and decides to dress up as Harley Quinn. She dresses like Harley Quinn from the comics and cartoons, not from the movies. She’ll leave that to the actress Margot Robbie. She does a wonderful job playing Harley Quinn in the movies.

Colette gathers her things and takes her scooter to the boardwalk. When she arrives, she notices a crowd down on the boardwalk. A big crowd meant big tips. She finds an area to set up and goes to work performing. She even manages to get some of the sales associates and other businesses involved in her performance.

Throughout the day, she works her ass off. By the time she is ready to leave. She is tired from performing. Some of the business owners want her to come back tomorrow and be Harley Quinn. She agrees since they helped in her performance.

The next few days, she comes back to the boardwalk pretending to be Harley Quinn. On her second day of performing, a few guys show up dressed as Batman or some other goodie-to-shoe from either the DC universe or Marvel universe. She has fun with them as they attempt to capture or stop her. The crowd loves it and gives all of the big tips.

She and the guys head to a nearby bar. It was called Ye’ ole Skull and Bones. The place is normally packed on pirate day and such. The owner of the place was a descendant from one of the pirates that had traveled with Captain Cook. He styled the inside of the bar to look like the inside of a pirate ship.

Colette looks at the guys after they placed their orders with the serving wench. She only knew three of the six guys “thanks for showing up today.”

“Hey, when I heard there was a person down on the boardwalk dressed as Harley Quinn. I knew it had to be you.” Troy smiles at Colette.

“Yeah! Who else is crazy enough to dress like a female villain and run around on the boardwalk with a giant mallet?” George looks at Colette with a smirk on his face.

“Well, I am glad you guys came down. I know everyone enjoys the performance.” Colette takes a sip from the glass of water.

After five minutes, their drinks show up. Ten minutes after that, a large pizza with everything on it arrives. The pizza itself was thirty-two inches round and had at least two lbs. of toppings on it.

“I hope everyone is hungry because this is a lot of pizza.” Troy takes a couple of slices to start.

“I know I am. Do you guys know what it is like to swing that large mallet around as I do?” Colette takes two slices as well.

“Isn’t it made of foam?” Charlie looks at Colette.

“Yes, but still. It has to look realistic.” Colette takes a bite out of the slice she took.

For the next few hours, all seven of them enjoy the pizza and drinks. Colette makes sure to stick to just soda or sweet iced tea. None of the pizza was left over after the seven of them got done with it.

Colette looks at the guys “this was fun guys, and we should do it again.”

“You’re right. How about we do it at the comic con coming up?” Charlie was a big comic book person.

“I wouldn’t mind. Which villains do you want me to dress up as?” Colette enjoyed cosplay a lot.

“Whoever you like. If you come as Harley Quinn, expect to get a lot of attention. You do a good job acting like her.” Troy liked the comic book Harley Quinn over the movie one.

“I’ll make sure to remember that.” Colette covers up a yawn.

“Good, then we can have fun at the comic con.” Troy could imagine how much fun they could have.

“Well, it’s time for me to head home. I’ll see you guys at comic con.” Colette pitches in to help pay the bill.

She grabs her stuff and walks outside to her scooter. She rode it over to the pub, instead of just walking. She puts her helmet on and drives home.

Colette arrives home safely and locks up her scooter. She covers up a yawn as she heads up to her apartment. She was feeling tired and full from all the pizza slices she ate. She unlocks her apartment door and walks inside.

Once she was inside her apartment, she closes the door and lock it. She covers up another yawn as she heads toward her bedroom to get undressed. She’ll put her costume in the other room tomorrow.

She crawls into bed, in just her panties. She doesn’t bother to put her nightshirt on. She sleeps naked, curled up under the blankets in just her panties.

The next day, when she got out of bed. She was feeling tired when she looked outside. She noticed how cloudy and rainy it was.

“Damn!” Colette turns around and changes out of the panties she wore to bed.

She walks out of her bedroom and towards the kitchen to fix herself some breakfast and a cup of coffee. She figures that the weather was going to be nasty today. She’ll work on a new costume for an upcoming performance.

She was putting all those years of clown school and mime school to some use. After fixing breakfast and her coffee. Colette heads into her work room and workout for an hour on the exercise equipment she owns. After working out for two hours and watching RuPaul Drag race on Paramount Plus.

Colette walks over to her sewing table and starts working on her new costume. There was a Shiner circus event coming up and she wanted to be part of it. She works on the costume while watching RuPaul's Drag Race. Some of the outfits that some of the queens wore looked good, while some looked like they were a costume.

She continues to work on the costume and accidentally sews a seam, she wasn’t supposed to. She takes out the seam splitter and undoes what she just did.

“I really, need to pay more attention to what I am doing, instead of watching television.” She finishes opening the seam.

Colette takes what she has done and puts it on the mannequin that was already set up with her measurements. She makes a few adjustments to the costume and tries it on. She notices there were a few places where the costume was too tight and other areas where it was too loose. She marks those areas and takes the costume off.

She glances at the clock mounted on the wall and notices it was almost noon time. She pauses the show she was watching and goes into the kitchen and fixes herself some lunch. If she didn’t eat, her sugar levels would be low.

While she is heating a can of soup, there is a bright flash of light, as lightning strikes nearby. The building shakes from the shockwave and her windows vibrate. She ducks down, just in case the windows in the kitchen shatter. She stays kneeling for a few minutes and slowly stands up.

Colette turns the gas down on the stove and heads towards her front door. She opens it and steps out onto the landing to see where the lightning struck. She notices smoke a few blocks away from her location.

“That was freaking close.” Colette could hear sirens coming towards the fire caused by the lightning.

Corlette walks back into her apartment and finishes making her soup. She was glad that the lightning hadn’t knocked out the power to her apartment complex. After she finishes her soup, she cleans the kitchen and goes back to working on her new costume.

Before she goes to bed, she applies online to perform in the circus the Shiners are sponsoring. She hopes they accept her application. Around midnight, she turns in for the night.

The rest of the week, Colette practices what she wants to perform at the nearby park. The people that travel through the park, stop and watch her as she juggles flaming sticks and sharp knives. She doesn’t use dull knives when she practices, but laser-edged ones.

Between her performances, she takes a sip of cold water from her water bottle. She spots Officer Green and Officer Cruz walking toward her. She waves to them as she takes another sip from her water bottle.

“We need to see your permits, Colette.” Officer Cruz knew Colette always had them with her.

“Sure, no problem.” Colette pulls her permits out of her gym bag and hands them to Officer Cruz.

“What else do you have in that bag, Colette?” Officer Green has never seen Colette perform.

“Torches, knives, throwing rings, and juggling balls.” Colette opens her bag for Officer Green to look inside it.

Officer Green looks inside the gym bag and couldn’t believe how freaking big the knives were. He also noticed how sharp they were.

“Where did you get knives this big?” Officer Green pulls one out to look at.

“I had them custom made. They are made of Damascus steel and are perfectly balanced.” Colette pulls one out and balances it on her finger.

“They must have cost you a pretty penny.” Officer Green hands the one he was holding, back to Colette.

“They did, so what do I owe a visit from my two favorite police officers?” Colette looks at both officers.

“We’re following up on a complaint from a citizen that called the police station saying a person was playing with fire and large knives.” Officer Cruz knew it could only be one person.

“You got to be kidding me.” Colette couldn’t believe someone would do something that mean.

“Unfortunately, no. The woman was complaining about you being dangerous and such.” Officer Cruz just looks at Colette.

“So, what do you want me to do?”

“Nothing. If they call again or if another person calls complaining about you. We’ll just inform them that you have a permit to perform.”

“Thanks, I can’t believe someone can be that petty.” Colette wonders what is wrong with people.

“You know how people are, nowadays.”

“True, they are very, very crazy.” Colette couldn’t believe some of the stuff in the news.

“Be careful, Colette.” Officer Cruz liked Colette.

“I will and you two be careful as well.” Colette watches as Cruz and Green walk off.

Colette goes back to performing for the rest of the afternoon. She makes sure, she is careful when she does. Around early evening, she stops and starts packing her gear up. She drains her water bottle and walks toward her scooter.

Instead of heading home right away, Colette stops at her favorite sub shop and orders a foot-long meatball sub with onions. She was in the mood for a sub for dinner tonight. She arrives home and before she heads upstairs to her apartment. She checks her mail and takes it upstairs to her apartment.

Colette just drops everything she took with her in the living room. She’ll put it away after she eats the sub, she bought. She walks over to the sofa and sits down on it. While she is eating, she turns the television on and watches Blue Bloods. The episode was a rerun, so she was barely paying much attention to it.

Her cellphone beeps letting her know she has an email. She puts her sub down and looks at the email and notices that it was from Shiners. She opens it and they have approved her application to perform in their circus. Instructions were included on what she needed to do and when she could pick her tickets up.

A big cheshire smile appears on her face. She’ll have to come up with a routine, but she already had some idea of what she wanted to do. She goes back to watching her show afterward. While she is watching her show, her mind subconsciously starts working on a routine to perform at the circus.

The circus was still several weeks away, so she had plenty of time to develop a routine. When it starts getting late, she fixes herself some dinner and goes to bed afterward. While she is sleeping, she debates if she wants to do a standard clown or dress as a female Beetlejuice.

The next morning Colette wakes up and just lays in bed. She was so comfortable and didn’t want to get out of bed, but she knew if she didn’t. Nothing was going to get done today and she had a list of things she needed to do during the day.

She finally motivates herself to get out of bed and get dressed. Since she had a lot of things to do. She checks the weather and wears a pair of shorts and a nice tank top with dancing fairies on the front of it. She bought the tank top from a hippie lady that owned a unique store. Everything inside the store looked like it came from the ’60s and ’70s. It had a cool vibe to it. It was relaxing to walk around inside it.

She grabs the keys to her grey 2017 Honda Accord. She normally drives it when she has to do shopping or she is going to visit her family. Otherwise, she uses her scooter a lot to get around.

The first place she stops is Malinda’s Cloth World. She finds a close parking spot and parks. Once she shuts everything down, she gets out of her car and walks inside the store. She stands at the entrance and just looks around. She loved this place. She didn’t spot anyone at the
registers, which wasn’t unusual. If the store clerk wasn’t at the register, that means they were straightening things up or putting up new stock.

“Anna, are you working today?” Colette looks around for her friend and mentor. Everything she knew about designing and sewing she learned from Anna.

“I’m back here, Colette.” Anna sticks her hand up in the air and wave to Colette.

“What are you doing back there?” Colette starts walking toward Anna.

“Rearranging the shelves. We got some new product that came in and I’m making space for it. What brings you up here today?” Anna looks at Colette and notices how casually she was dressed.

She was still amazed after all these years, that the little boy she knew grew up to become a young lady. Nothing could have prepared her for that. Everything Colette did when she was younger never suggested that she was unhappy being a little boy.

Colette stops when she comes to her friend and mentor. There was product in baskets surrounding her.

“It looks like you have been busy.”

“That I have. So, what brings you up here today?” Anna knew Colette only came into the store to buy material for her costumes or to buy some patterns she needed or to modify for the costumes.

“I need pinstripe cloth to make a Beetlejuice costume.” Colette already decided what she wants to dress and perform as.

“Isn’t it a little early for Halloween?” Anna steps over a basket carefully.

“It’s for the Shriners circus. They are setting up a circus in town next month and I asked if I can perform at the event.”

“Let me guess, they said yes?” Anna knew how much Colette likes performing.

“Yep, so I decided last night I wanted to do a Beetlejuice routine.” Colette had a few ideas in mind already.

“You know, you can always buy the costume.” Anna leads Colette over to where the material she was looking for was stored.

“I know, but you know how intense my routines are. So, I need to make them from stronger fabric.” Colette very rarely used store-bought costumes.

Anna looks through several bolts of material until she finds the one, she is looking for. She pulls it out to see how much material was left on it. She locates the tag she puts on every bolt saying how much is left.

“There’s thirty feet of fabric on this bolt. How much do you want?” Anna looks at Colette to see what she wants.

“I’ll take everything left. I can make two or three outfits from it.” Colette knew she’ll need at least two outfits.

“What else do you want?” Anna knew Colette never bought just one item.

“Now that you ask.” A playful smile appears on Colette’s face.

“Up oh! I know that look.” Anna just smiles as she teases Colette.

Colette walks out of the store after an hour with her arms full of bolts of fabric, and several bags of supplies. She puts everything in the backseat of her Honda. Afterward, she gets in and drives towards her next stop.

She stops at a guy’s house that sells real leather and makes leather items. She places an order with him and orders several leather sheets. She was going to need them for making some shoes. She made all her shoes for her costumes.

After Colette was done there, she heads towards Blane’s Theatrical Supplies. When she walks into the place, they were a little busy. She loved this store as much as she loved the fabric shop. She grabs a basket to go shopping for the makeup she was going to need. They also had wigs and a few other items she wanted.

Colette spends about an hour in the store shopping. She was like a kid in a large candy store. By the time she was done buying everything, she was ready to move on to her next stop. She stops by the bank to drop off all the money she had earned from her performances. While she is waiting in line. A bunch of guys wearing a black masks and carrying military-style weapons rush into the bank.

One of them shoots up at the ceiling, while another one orders everyone down onto the floor. The one giving the orders looks at everyone “put all your phones, jewelry, money, and wallets into the bag.”

Another member of the crew holds a bag open and goes to everyone to collect their items. As he walks toward everyone, she watches him. She pulls out one of her knives she keeps on her for protection and hides it. She watches the guy guarding them and when the one guy gets to her. She strikes with her knife, sending it through the foot of the guy collecting the items from everyone.

The one guy guarding them turns to shoot her but gets shoot by an older gentleman. She twists the knife and reaches up and pulls the mask off the guy she stabs. The other two robbers that came in with the two under attack try to run, but one is shot by the older guy.

Colette pulls her knife out of the guy’s foot and throws it at the chest of the fourth person. It strikes the guy and sinks into his chest. He drops to the floor. The guy she stabbed tries to kick her, but she grabs his injured foot and flips him backward onto the floor. She jumps onto him and straddles his chest. She looks down into his hazel eyes “say goodnight, Gracie.”

She knocks him out as her brother taught her. She could hear sirens coming her way. The older guy that shot the one guarding them. He was looking at her with a smile on his face.

Wayne was impressed by the actions of the petite young woman with short dark brown hair. He saw how big the knife was sticking out of the chest of the one guy. He also wonders where she got it and what type of training she had. She was calm when she struck and handled herself pretty well.

Wayne walks over to the young woman as she straddled the robber. He reaches his hand down to her, avoiding the blood from the guy’s foot.

“Thanks.” Colette grabs the guy’s hand as he pulled her up.

“You’re welcome. Where did you learn what you did?” Wayne was curious.

“Self Defense classes. I use to get picked on and beat up when I was younger.” Colette looks at the older guy standing before her.

He had on a nice business suit and was physically fit. He looked like he was of mixed heritage. He was tall and had short light brown hair. It wasn’t a military-style haircut, but a stylist's short hair.

“I mean with the knife. That’s a huge knife and you threw it like it was nothing.” Wayne was curious.

“Oh, that. I’m a performer. I perform juggling sword and knife acts. I carry a knife around with me for self-defense. You never know what creeps might try to take advantage of a girl like me. I saw you carrying a gun. Are you a cop or something?” Colette watches the guy’s face.

“I’m a detective with the Charlestown police department.” Wayne watches the young woman’s expression.

“Well, detective. I’m Colette Thorton mime extraordinaire.” Colette causes one of her business cards to appear and hands it to the detective.

“Well, Mrs. Thorton. I’m Detective Penn with the Charlestown police department. If you ever get pulled over for speeding or some minor
infraction. Just hand this card to the police officer. It's good for one use.” Detective Penn hands Colette one of his courtesy cards.

“Thanks, Detective. I think those officers are going to want to talk to us.” As Colette spots the police cars pull up to the bank.

“Yep, I hope you don’t have any plans for the next few hours.”

“Just some grocery shopping, is all.” Colette hopes she can still deposit the money she had on her.

Detective Penn starts walking towards the entrance. He had his badge out to show the police he was one of them. He tells the first officer that approaches him what went down. He also tells them they need two ambulances.

Several of the people thank Colette for saving them. The bank manager informs her that the bank might reward her. She tries to tell him, they didn’t have to, but he insists.

For the next few hours, Colette is stuck at the bank answering questions. The media had shown up and they had a bunch of questions for her and Detective Penn. They also interviewed several of the employees and customers that were there as well.

By the time she was done with that, Colette debated if she wanted to go grocery shopping. She looks at the items in her car and figures she best go ahead and get her shopping done. That way, she could hide from people if she wanted to.

Colette pulls into the Piggly Wiggly parking lot and parks her car. She heads inside the store and goes about her shopping so far no one has heard what went on. She relaxes as she goes about doing her shopping. While she is in line to checkout. She notices a few kids being a little restless ahead of her.

A smile appears on her face as she throws her voice towards the stuffed animal the little girl held. She watches as the other children try to figure out what was going on. When they start pulling on the plushie, she makes it sound like it was in pain. She leans towards the children “I think you’re hurting her.”

The mother of the children looks at Colette and was amused by her antics as well. She didn’t know who the woman was, but she liked her. Just before she leaves, she mouths “thank you” to Colette.

A smile appears on Colette’s face as she checks out. She was going to need to order a new knife to replace the one she had to leave for evidence. She walks to her car and put her groceries into the back of the car.

While she is driving home, she listens to Katy Perry. She was a big fan of Katy Perry and Taylor Swift. She pulls into her parking lot and park. She has to make several trips as she carries everything she bought upstairs to her apartment. She checks the mail and takes it upstairs as well.

Once everything is in the apartment, she separates the bags and starts putting the groceries away first and starts on the other items, afterward. Even though she bought groceries, she orders some lunch for herself. She changes out of the clothes she wore and into another pair of shorts and a different tank top. She noticed there was some blood on her shorts from the robber. She pretreats her shorts to get the blood out.

Once the shorts were treated and soaking. Colette sits down and starts working on her Beetlejuice outfit. She makes sure to put a stretchy material in the crotch area, so she can do splits and kicks and such. She turns the radio on and listens to the music playing over the airwaves.

After a while, her doorbell rings and she looks at the ring camera and notices it was the delivery guy. She grabs some money from her purse and walks towards the door. She carefully opens the door and notices it was Greg.

“Hey, Greg.”

“Hey, Colette. Your order comes to seven, forty-five.” Greg looks at Colette and notices she wasn’t wearing a bra. He liked her round breasts and wonder what size bra she wore.

“Thanks, Greg. Here’s a ten-dollar bill. Keep the change.” Colette exchanges the money for her food.

She also noticed that Greg was staring at her breasts again. She should have left her bra on, instead of taking it off. She didn’t mind too much for him staring. She was amazed at how big her breasts started getting when she started hormones. Her sister started wearing a DD cup bra, after giving birth to her children. Her sister's breasts got bigger when she was pregnant and stayed that way after she finished breastfeeding her children.

“Thanks.” Greg pockets the money and walks off.

Colette just shakes her head as she shuts the front door. She felt the heat from the food through the paper it was packaged in. She walks over to her sofa and pulls her sub out. It was a nice Philly Cheesesteak from Phil’s steak house. He made the best Philly Cheesesteak in Charleston. She had ordered beer batter onion rings to go with her sub.

She turns the television on and searches for any mention of the bank robbery. She finds that all the local stations were reporting on it. She sits there and watches as they showed what happened. They don’t mention her name at all, which she is thankful for. She doesn’t want anyone to know she was involved.

After she finishes her sub and onion rings. She washes her hands and goes back to work on her costume. She had a lot of work to do.

Shiners Circus, Several Weeks Later:
Colette spotted her sister and brother and their family. She was glad they could make it. She walks over to them.

“Are you guys having fun?” Colette picks her nephew up and holds him.

“I can’t believe you came as Beetlejuice.” Rebecca looks at her little sister.

“Hey, I’m the ghost with the most.” Colette imitates Michael Keaton’s voice for Beetlejuice.

“Keep doing what you did weeks ago, you’ll end up being a ghost.” Michael looks at his little sister with a serious face.

“Hey, I just couldn’t lay there and let those men walk off with my hard-earned money. Do you know how hard I have to work to get enough money to live on?” Colette looks at her older brother for an answer.

“If you got a normal job, instead of clowning around as you do. You wouldn’t have to work so hard.” Michael has never approved of his little sister playing the fool or the mime act she does.

She was talented and smart enough to get a nice job either at his firm or at an insurance agency. He knew his sister was a B roll honor student throughout her years in high school.

“But I love what I do. I make people laugh.” Colette tickles her niece and nephew.

“Still, you can do better.” Michael holds his newborn daughter. His wife had to work today, so he got stuck taking his kids to the circus, thanks to his sister giving them VIP tickets.

“You sound too much like dad.” Colette knew her father didn’t approve of what she did.

Colette spends some time with her family before she must be inside the main tent to perform. While she is performing, she feels a sharp impact on her right leg. She could feel blood sliding into her underwear from where she just got injured while performing a handstand.

She feels another sharp impact on her right shoulder, as she rolls forward from the pain. She was gritting her teeth as she tries to move. Something hits next to her, just missing her.

Bobo spots blood coming from Colette’s right leg and right shoulder. He summons some of the other clowns and runs out to Colette to cover her. She was trying to keep the crowd from seeing her injuries.

“We got you covered, Colette.” Two of the clowns help her up off the ground and support her.

They escort her to where the paramedics were and sit her down on the stretcher. Both bullets had lodged themselves in her body. Colette felt the burning sensation from the bullets She has never been shot before.

She passes out on the way to the hospital. Whatever the paramedics gave her for the pain, it was enough to knock her out. One of the paramedics works on her as the other one drives them to the hospital.

Colette wakes up a day later and looks around the room she was in. She notices her mother was sitting next to the bed she was laying in. There was an IV going into Colette’s right arm and a machine connected to it, to deliver pain medicine to her.

“Where am I?” Colette looks at her mother.

Catherine was napping when she hears Colette’s voice. She opens her eyes and looks at her little girl “you’re in the hospital, sweetie. Someone shot you while you were performing.” She grabs and holds Colette’s hand.

“Man, talk about going out with a bang.” Colette just smiles at her daughter.

“Only you would be cracking bad jokes right now. Do you know who shot you?” Catherine had been informed by her son about what Colette did during a bank robbery.

She and her husband were both proud of Colette and worried as well. According to what her son found out from a friend of his on the police force. One of the bank robbers is the son of a Freddy Duran. He is a known criminal and has connections with several high-level Mafia members.

On top of that, the police never did catch the getaway driver. He was gone by the time they showed up, the getaway driver had left.

“Detective Penn stopped in to check on you. He wanted to see how you were doing.”

“Oh? Is he coming back?” Colette was curious if he was coming back.

“Yeah, he said he’ll be back this afternoon to check on you.” Catherine had seen the concern in his eyes when he looked at Colette, while she was unconscious.

A nurse comes in and checks on Colette. Her blood pressure was low, but nothing to be concerned about. The bullet wound to her right arm and leg was covered, but the nurse changes the dressing, and looked nasty.

“That looks like a very ugly mole.” As Colette looks at the wounds.

“You’re very lucky. The bullet only damages some of the muscles and tendons in her arm. It missed your bone.

“Does that mean, she’ll have to have physical therapy for her arm?” Catherine looks at Colette’s nurse.

“And her leg as well. The bullet nicked her femur.” Nurse DaCosta rewraps Colette’s leg and checks the pain medicine.

She looks at Colette “let me know if you need a stronger dose of pain medicine.

“Thanks, I will.” Colette watches as the nurse leaves.

The rest of the morning, Colette and her mother talk. Detective Penn shows up to check on her and to inform her that she’ll be getting police protection. Until this matter goes to court.

She finds out that he has been harassed as well. She could see where someone had sucker-punched him. The right-hand side of his face was bruised. He leaves and the rest of the afternoon she spends with Colette is visited by her older sister and brother.

Two Months Later:
Colette was a little nervous as she sat next to the prosecutor. Detective Penn was sitting next to her as well. She spotted the gang members that had attempted to rob the bank they had been at. The getaway driver had been caught. He was dumb enough to make a move against her while she was under police protection.

The robbers had hired some high-class lawyer to defend them. Every time he opened his mouth, she would throw her voice to make it sound like he just cut gas. When people look around to see what was going on. She would play all innocent.

Detective Penn gave her a look every time she pulled the prank. She had a feeling that he knew it was her. She just smiled at him as they listen to the defense attorney. He was pretty good and tried to make her look bad on the stand, but she turned the tables on him. By making it seems that his clients were of low intelligence and morons.

The audience and Detective Penn loved the way she played the defense attorney. He did everything he could to make her look like a crazy person when he showed her a huge juggling knife. How his client had tried to help her, but she stabbed him in the foot and killed his friend.

The problem the defense attorney had, was that Colette knew how to make him look like a loser every time he tried to make her look bad. She knew how to twist facts and perceptions as well. By the time the jury made their verdict, the defense lawyer looked like a fool. Plus, it didn’t help that she kept throwing her voice as well.

When Colette and Penn step out of the courtroom. He looks at Colette “was it necessary for what you did in there to be the defense lawyer?”

“He deserved it. He tried to make his clients look like angels while bad-mouthing us and trying to trip us up. He knew he couldn’t get to you. So, he went after me, but I turned the table against him.

“Have you always been this clever?” Detective Penn had to give Colette credit for what she said.

“I’m an entertainer, it's what I do best.” Colette smiles at Detective Penn.

“Remind me to never piss you off. I would hate to see how you would retaliate.”

“Oh, I would have so much fun.” Colette rubs her hands together and an evil smile appears on her face.

Detective Penn just shakes his head as he walks off.

A smile appears on Colette’s face afterwards as she walks off with her family. She looks at the statue of Lady Justice as she walks out of the courthouse “I bet you are smiling.” As she catches up with her mother.