She has an overinflated opinion about her act

Almost everyone in the world loves a good circus. With it's high-flying trapeze artists, wonderful animal tricks, and ****-defying stunts, there is always something for everyone.

And at every circus, you'll find clowns. People in loud make-up and brightly colored clothing, their job is to perform humorous antics and make the audience laugh along with them.

Unfortunately, not everyone thinks clowns are funny. Many find them creepy, and tend to characterize them as criminals or monsters. As such, the reputation of the actual funny clown has been hurt. And no one knows that hurt more then Barbara Ticci-Anna Ricci.

Barbara's family were the "Twelve Months of Amazement", a circus group named so because each member (Barbara herself, her parents and three sibling, her aunt and uncle, and her two cousins) was born in one of the year's twelve months, and each go in order of the month born (Barbara was born in February, so she goes second). The group traveled with Cobalt World, one of the last performing circuses in the USA.

Barbara was the groups clown, having started her career at 18. Now 24, Barbara was a professional at her job, and fairly well known in the clown community but in all honesty, she just loved being a clown. So much so that even when she wasn't working, she continued to wear her costume and make-up. It made it easy to spot her in a crowd, with her bright pink and purple clown wig, big red clown nose, white make-up with bright red lipstick, and huge pink clown shoes. Her bright pink overalls and frilly purple shirt fit well on her fairly slim frame.

And she always sought to make people smile and laugh. She always told jokes, performed goofy antics, and generally tried to be a ray of sunshine whenever people felt down.

In the last week, though, she had finally gotten a phone (she'd been putting it off due to not wanting to be distracted from entertaining), and learned of all the hate that clowns tended to get, leading to where we meet her now.

It was just after another show, and The Twelve Months of Amazement were resting in their rather large trailer. The show had gone rather well, with Barbara's clown act and the magic show being the most popular. Though Barbara was somewhat frustrated.

"Hey, Bar-Bar." Barbara's mom, Corrine (the circus fortune teller born in May) said, using Barbara's clown name. "What's up? You're not still upset about that news article, are you?"

"It's not just that." Barbara replied, running a hand through her clown wig. "Hollywood's releasing 3 movies where a clown is the villain. We're supposed to make people laugh, not scream."

"I know it's frustrating, Barbara. But none of it is your fault." Corrine replied. "There are still people out there who loves clowns as much as you love being one." She then looked at the clock. "Oh, sorry. I need to go open the fortune-tellers tent. People really want to see their future." With that, Corrine departed, leaving Barbara to her thoughts.

'I know mom's right, but it's still annoying.' Barbara thought. 'It shouldn't bug me. I'm 24, a professional, and people love me, but that might not be enough. Maybe, just maybe, if I spice up my routine a little, I can help people understand clowns are funny. But what to do...'

After thinking for a moment, Barbara thought up a new routine involving...