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things girls”—she caught Jenn’s questioning glance—”most girls, look forward to is thinking that someday they might maybe be Miss Fawn Creek. And their moms probably dream about it even more. Then you show up, an outsider from the city, and not even a Minnesota city, with your
Seventeen
magazine wardrobe and the sort of polish no one else around here has and before you can say, ‘Jack Pine Savage,’ you get yourself named Miss Fawn Creek.”
    “That doesn’t make any sense,” Jenn said. “If everyone thought a girl from Fawn Creek should have won, why’d the judges choose me? I wasn’t holding a gun to anyone’s head.”
    “The judges were guys,” Heidi said flatly. “Guys see things different. Ken Holmberg? I’m betting he took one look at you and figured you stood a whole lot better chance of being crowned Queen Buttercup than Karin Ekkelstahl, and if you got the title, the Federation might hold its regional conference in Fawn Creek.”
    Right.
She
was Fawn Creek’s ticket to the Dairy Big Time. “If you thought all this, why didn’t you
say
something?”
    Heidi shrugged. “Wasn’t my business.”
    “So why are you telling me now?”
    “You asked. And you’re just not too bright when it comes to people, Jenn, and I didn’t think you’d figure it out by yourself. At least, you’re not too smart about small-town people—or maybe it’s small-town society. You don’t get it …” She trailed off thoughtfully. When she wasn’t playing with dogs, Heidi considered herself something of a budding sociologist.
    “So I told you.” Her face lit with one of those abrupt and transforming smiles common to native Minnesotans. It wasn’t pleasantness that engendered that smile, Jenn had learned. It was a reflex. It was one of the reasons, Jenn was sure, the whole “Minnesota nice” illusion had evolved—”Smile and keep ‘em guessing.”
    “So then, I guess I’ll be off to watch the K-9 unit,” Heidi said. “You want to come, too?”
    “No. I can’t,” Jenn said.
    “Okay, then. We’ll be seeing you later, I’m sure,” Heidi said cheerfully and took off, leaving Jenna alone in the nearly empty building.
    Jenn walked slowly, her uncomfortable thoughts swinging between undeserved guilt and righteous anger. Even if what Heidi had said was true, it wasn’t like Jenn had known she was committing some social crime. Besides, even the kindest critic would have to admit that none of the other contenders for Miss Fawn Creek would have made it as far as Jenn had.
    Outside, the sudden sun dazzled her eyes and the air smothered her like a sweat-soaked sauna towel. Noise bombarded her. She stopped in front of a human river of twenty thousand jostling, munching, slurping, sweating, stinking visitors to
Minnesota’s Great Get-Together
. People hollered and vendors shouted while kids yelped with delight and wailed in frustration, the racket fed by rock music blasting from the radio station booths scattered along avenues as over it all roared the amplified sound of screams siphoned from the midway rides.
    “Jenn! Sweetheart!” Like Glinda in
The Wizard of Oz
, Jenn’s mother seemed to float not so much out from the crowd, as above it. Even here, Nina Hallesby managed to look wealthy and feminine, from the tortoiseshell sunglasses perched atop her auburn hair to the discreet gold knots winking in her ears. “I was so proud of you.”
    “You were?” Jenn regarded Nina doubtfully. Other than expressing first disbelief (“You want to enter a Butter Pageant?”) and then fake enthusiasm (“I’m sure you’ll make a wonderful Butterball Queen!” Towhich she’d had to respond, “That’s Buttercup, Mom. Butter
CUP
!”), her mother had never said much about Jenn’s Run for the Buttercups. “But I lost.”
    “I know.” Nina patted Jenn’s shoulder. “I saw.”
    Jenn was surprised. She hadn’t realized her mom had even been there. It didn’t really seem like Nina’s thing. In Raleigh, Nina