The clowning continues

Seeing nobody there, the lady clown allowed herself to relax. It must have been a stray gust of wind. She shrugged, and continued to pick flowers.

From the other side of the tree crept the boy clown. He crept up behind her on tiptoes, shushing the audience, and once more positioned his bellows. The girl clown hummed away, blissfully ignorant.

Another gust of wind send her skirt flying. Again, she turned, saw no-one there.

Susie gritted her teeth. She'd always had a problem with clowns. It was the way the ordinary laws of the universe didn't seem to apply to them, the way they could show up out of nowhere to mess with you at any time. You never knew where you were with a clown. They creeped her out. But she couldn't interrupt the show, could she? After all, it was only a bit of fun.

The girl clown went back to picking flowers, a little more cautiously this time. She glanced over her shoulder once, twice, until she was assured she was alone.

The boy clown came creeping out. This time, instead of a bellows, he held something even scarier. A ping-pong paddle.

Susie gasped. He couldn't really be planning to. Could he? Someone needed to stop him! She glanced left and right, but saw only grinning faces. Even Bonnie was smiling, although she was beginning to seem a little puzzled by the whole thing. Why was this happening? How come everyone was on the clown's side but her?

The girl clown whistled a jaunty tune, and stooped over at the waist to pull up the prettiest daisy of all. Her bottom wiggled temptingly as she strained at the flower, her pretty red lips pursed with the effort.

The boy clown raised his paddle. He took a practice swing, then another. He winked once more at the audience, flexed his muscles and raised his arm high in the air.

Susie's blood ran cold. The words 'He's behind you!" hung on her lips, refusing to come out. The girl clown's plump bottom swayed back and forth as she did a little flower-picking dance. The boy clown reached out with his thumb and forefinger and pinched the hem of her skirt.

Susie winced.

In one smooth motion, the boy clown flipped the girl clown's skirt and brought his ping-pong paddle down as hard as she could on her panty-clad bottom. The girl clown squealed and jumped a foot in the air. She spun around, clutching her posterior, astonished, as the boy clown stood back and laughed soundlessly at her.

The girl clown, primly holding her skirt down, shook her fist at him. The boy clown smiled and shook his head. As if explaining something to her, he turned and pointed towards the crowd.

The girl clown also turned, and saw the crowd watching her, as if for the first time. Her eyes went wide, and she clasped her hands to her cheeks, pantomiming horror.

Bonnie had stopped laughing, but everyone else made up for it.