The Censor: Prologue
Hannah sighed after the last Jefferson child skipped out of view. It had been a tiring day. Between taking notes and looking interested in Ms. Denise Jacquet's useless, abysmally boring history of lovers before she moved to Vintswood and trying to wrangle the wild and crazy Jefferson children to take their family portrait, Hannah was exhausted.
Although she never actively daydreamed about her summer between high school and university, she never pictured herself as an elected official working for the Mayor. Yet here she was, the town's first censor.
What's a censor? Well, Mayor Roth coined the term as "someone who takes the census." Hannah hadn't bothered to look it up in the dictionary, she didn't really care about all the flyers and propaganda littering the school during finals. She just wanted her classes to be over so she could hang out with her friends before "life as an adult" began. She should have paid attention though, she thought uselessly. If she had, she could have intentionally bombed the exit exam essay.
No, she thought, she wouldn't have done it even if she had known. Instead she finished high school with a bang, the highest essay scores in the whole class. Being elected Vintswood's first census taker was her reward.
Last year, Town Hall burned down. All of Vintswood's family histories went with it. So when Mayor Roth was elected, one of his first orders of business was to get that information replaced. His senators debated and came up with this idea that a high school student could use their social network to make it easier and accomplish this task during their summer break before university. They also came up with electing the censor based on the exit exam essay alone. Senator Patience Roberts, Hannah's mom was thrilled when Hannah was picked.
That's where Hannah found herself, her summer nearly gone and exhausted at the end of her work day. As she flipped through the stack of folders marked "done" she appreciated how her photography skills had developed.
The Smiths (PT#9, Johnny, Jill, Jenny, Jezebel, Jupiter, Jane, Jasper)
The Singles (Glabe, Pixler)
The Jacquets (Denise, Gilbert, Judy, Gibson)
The Moles (Erin Beaker, John)
The Beakers (Circe, Loki) not pictured are their two infants Hella and Ulf
The Ramaswamis (Priya, Sanjay)
The Tricous (Vladimir, Velvet, Amarantha) Amarantha is the youngest daughter of Jon Smith and Jennicor Tricou.
There were at least 25 folders in the 'done' pile and yet the 'in progress' pile was stacked just as high. According to her calculations, besides the 55 family portraits, she also had to take photos of the major organizations in Vintswood, like PT#9 Smith's once a month Moon Goddess devotional sessions and the scientists of the Goth Foundation.
Along with all the photographs Hannah had to take, she also had to collect family histories and any other tidbits of information she could get her hands on. All this, she had to present to Mayor Roth in their once a month meetings. Hannah felt that the Mayor just loved listening to town gossip.
Like the fact that the Curious brothers were hoping they could marry off one of their hypothetical daughters to Alexander Goth, the Goth heir. Why? Not money, actually. No they wanted their named added to the foundation. Curious-Goth Foundation. Why couldn't they just ask Mortimer Goth is beyond me. I mean all three brothers work there and have taken over most of the work anyway.
Hannah slowly climbed the stairs to her loft. In one week she would be a college freshman. And her censor work was far from done. If the senators had thought this could be completed, well and thoroughly, in one summer they were sorely mistaken. Hannah hoped that she would be able to balance her classes with her work. Scheduling family portraits around her classmates' classes and her own was going to be a challenge.
She took one more look around before flipping off the light and crawling into bed for the night.