Chapter 58

Abby seemed to be a nice girl ... perfect can get on your nerves though.

Since the FED A gifted Junior with everything from the northern tip of Lake St.Clare... 42 degrees 69 minutes north ... west to Lake Michigan, Lansing, Flint and Grand Rapids fell into her purvue. Michigan State University was now in the Princessapality. Junior operated on the system ‘get ‘em while they’re most vulnerable’ ... hormonal and free of parential influence ... MSU was free for foreign students. Generally, foreign was meant to be FED A students but since that wasn’t written down some sneaky 18 year old in Germany applied. She was admitted and that opened the flood.

Although room and board wasn’t ... free ... it was damn cheap.

I found it behoved me to visit Surprise more often than I used to. Junior is in her Saint Johns castle, a bi-level four bedroom two bath house in an old subdivision southeast of the city proper ... in between old old 27 and new old 27 ... on Kibby. New old 27 has been bypassed by 127 east of town ... done before the Island Disaster. MSU is just 23 miles down the road ... and Junior liked Abby, too.

Abby couldn’t go home ... dead, you know. She ended up tutoring for cash and her summers were spent in Pentwater.

We ... the Princessapality ... has Monster Millions ... a Lotto subset. Inflation hit Powerball... 5 bucks a chance. Monster is still a buck. Seven million a drawing and it rolls over with a 50 drawing roll over limit. Two drawings a week ... time limit to claim is 180 days... 50 drawings ... three hundred fifty million ... or is it 3.5 billion? In the 50 years Monster has been a Lotto, there have been thirteen unclaimed 50 drawing prizes. The unclaimed money is sent to the several states Teachers Retirement Funds. Michigan has 798 billion drawing 7%. The seven percent interest was split between all 20 year retired tenured teachers who participated and paid 7% into their states Teachers Retirement Fund and added to their monthly retirement check. It’s a pretty penny.

This prize is going to be ‘no winner’ number 14...

... unless something happens.

Seven said, “Abby, here’s a buck. 13-36-45-57-67, Monster Ball: 14.

“But.”

“Nope. 13-36-45-57-67, Monster Ball: 14.” Seven wrote it on Abby’s hand. “We’ll even deliver.”

A general store in Alpena. Corner of Washington and Ripley.

Abby walked in, took a request slip, circled the numbers and paid her buck. The betting ticket printed out ... the numbers matched. Abby signed it. The claim ticket was stashed in her purse.

The day before the last day, Seven delivered Abby to the State Lotto office in Lansing.

“May I help you?”

“I think I won.”

She passed over the ticket.

The clerk ran it through the reader.

“You did.” She pressed a button under the counter.

Mayhem!

“You took your time,” said the local office manager.

“I bought a new purse and cleaned out my old one ... imagine my shock. I forgot I bought the ticket.”

“When did you buy the purse?”

“Yesterday.”