Penny Royalty was raised in the subterranean catacombs of Chicago.

Abandoned under the Wacker Bridge by her birthmother, Penny assimilated into the seedy underbelly of Chicago – not really knowing who she was or where she’d come from.

Little Penny quickly learned how to fend for herself… and make a duplex out of a Refrigerator box and a Jewel shopping cart. She decorated it by slugging sleeping bums and pilfering some of their more desirable items. Examples include a velvet painting of the Pink Panther taking a crap and 500 polaroids of half nude former roller derby queens. Penny’s explanation in retrospect was simply “I’ve always had a thing for hot chicks on wheels.”

So her days were spent rummaging through the trash of some of Chicago’s most historical establishments – most importantly the Schubert Theatre. In the summer of 1994 the Schubert did an all-girl production of Cats on skates….needless to say, it didn’t fend well with critics or Andrew Lloyd Webber.

It was in the Schubert’s dumpster that summer, that Penny found a brand new pair of furry roller-skates. From that day forward, Penny skated everywhere. She started slow by racing the Brown Line, and she won. She practiced flying leaps over sewer gratings and played chicken with the cabbies of Chicago. Then she moved on to bigger challenges, like competing in the “Rat Run” that occurs every spring when the over-flowing Chicago River sends thousands of rodents scurrying into the streets of downtown Chicago. Racing those rats with her furry skates really trained Penny for her true calling --- the DERBY.

If you ask any of the girls how Penny came to hook up with the WCR, most would say they don’t remember. According to Juanna Rumbel, she just started showing up at practice with those damn furry skates. Ivana Krushya insists that her regular attendance at boot camp was due, in part, to the fact that she had been plotting world domination under the jungle gym in Wicker Park. Regardless, the girls accepted Penny – but made her get rid of the furry skates.

Queen B assumed the gregarious duty of turning Penny into a lady, and by all accounts bestowed the moniker of “Penny Royalty” on her. PennyRoyal Tea is actually a British abortion drug, but why Queen B had an affinity for it is a whole other story (uh, slut!). Queen B taught Penny the importance of being a lady – poise, grace and blocking a jammer from the inside.

So each time Penny steps on to the rink ….and you catch a glimpse of her neatly starched tutu or a whiff of her Estee Lauder Parfum, keep in mind that she’s still a rat racer at heart.