To Clown A Thief
A Clowntopia Tale
by Hugo Prosperio
Commissioned by vorheesfan07
PART ONE: THE THIEF IN THE JOKE SHOP
The shop was strange and unusual, like the physical representation of the ads for silly joke products you might find on the back of a Mad magazine. Carrie Farmington strolled around, taking in the sights, occasionally shooting an odd glance at the man dressed as a clown who had introduced himself as Chuckles. He was currently distracted with the girl who had entered who was also dressed as a girl.
Carrie rolled her eyes as Chuckles nibbled on his apparent girlfriend’s neck. She then noticed something that seemed rather out of place in the odd shop. It was a beautiful painting, and if she had to guess, she’d have said it was in the style of Claude Monet.
It looked like an old fashioned fair, tents set up and families enjoying their lovely afternoon. In the middle was a clown, looking sad, but beside him was a child offering him a balloon.
She spent several moments studying it, and then turned to the kissing clowns.
“Ehem. Do you mind if I take a photo of that painting? It’s beautiful.” she asked.
“Oh. Sure. Don’t mind at all!” Chuckles said. “It’s one of a kind.” he added.
“I kind of figured.” Carrie said with a grin.
She snapped several photos with her iPhone, getting it from different angles and stuff.
“Thanks. Interesting store you have here. I’ll be sure to drop by again.” She said as she walked of the door.
“I don’t like her.” Jen-Jen, the female clown said simply as the door closed.
Chuckles looked at his girlfriend with a raised eyebrow. “Why is that, pumpkin?”
“Something is rotten in Denver.” she said.
“Denmark, darling.” He retorted.
“Whatever. Something stinks. That girl wants that painting in the worst way, and she aims to get it. She is trouble with a capital T.” she said as she sat on the counter, swinging her large heeled shoes up and down.
“Oh, don’t be such a worry wort.” Chuckles said. “She couldn’t steal the painting if she tired. Besides, it’s likely she’ll never see this store again.”
Jen-Jen pursed her lips, looking out the window. She knew that Carrie would be back, and she’d be waiting.
---
Carrie sat at her kitchen table tick-tacking away on her laptop’s keyboard. She was instant messaging with a friend of hers who was an expert on rare paintings.
“I think I found something pretty special. Could be a lost Monet. The dopes just have it hanging up in their shop like it’s worth nothing.” she typed, then sent several of her photos.
“Oh my!” came the response. “That isn’t a Monet, but it could be just as valuable. There is rumor of a painter that time forgot, but some of his paintings are masterpieces. He had an affinity for painting clowns, such as the one you saw. They never knew his name, Only ever signed them C, and the only other two in existence are in various museums that paid top dollar for them.”
“And I bet they’d pay top dollar again.” she said aloud as she looked down at her computer screen. Carrie wasn’t your ordinary modern woman. She was a cat burglar of some renown. Of course, they never knew her name or had ever found her, but people knew she was there, and a few museums, the kind without scruples, paid her handsomely for her finds. She grinned and typed a thank you to her friend, and closed the laptop. She looked out the window and saw the moon shining bright. Closing time at the odd little joke shop was coming up fast, and she had to get ready.
---
A young man who had wandered into the store was now about three foot tall, his clothes hanging on his body, which was pink as bubblegum. He flapped his arms, his sleeves waving around widly.
“Hey, What Gives?!” he shouted in a squeaky voice. “I am a pipsqueak!”
“Indeed you are.” said Jen-Jen with a grin. She had offered him some pink taffy that he had eaten with glee, and now he was well on his way to being a silly clown. His hair was turning light blue, his nose also turning that shade as it swelled up into a ball.
“You turn me back!” he said, shaking a fist at her, but he suddenly felt light headed, and fell on his backside. Jen-Jen used her signature wand and waved it around the little man as his clothes became a one piece clown jumpsuit. His feet were left bare as they stretched longer and wider, the sight of which made him giggle.
“Boy I look silly.” he said as the tingles in his mind grew.
:”Sure do, Pipsqueak.” She said, printing a new name on him. It didn’t take long, just less than ten minutes from when he first entered the store, but now the young businessman was a short clown, giggling loudly as she escorted him to the portal to Clowntopia.
When she returned, she glanced out the window and up at the moon. If her her hunch was correct, the woman from earlier would be returning, hoping for the store to be closed. She had convinced Chuckles to let her close up the shop because she knew she wanted to catch this dishonest little woman in the act. Perhaps she was wrong, but her hunches rarely were.
She closed up what she could, counting the few human dollars in the drawer, locking up the cabinets, and making sure the odd bobblehead on the counter had a drink before he went to sleep.
And then she waited. She then hid herself using a special spell, hiding in a place that the woman would never think to look. Right under her thieving nose.
She didn’t have to wait long.
Carrie walked up, wearing a very slinky catsuit and a mask that covered her eyes. She took out a circular device and pressed against the door knob, which blew the knob right off into the store, the metal orb spinning around like a top. The door creaked open now that the knob was gone, and she pushed it, walking in. She tip toed in at first, but then stood up tall and looked around.
“No alarm. Just as I thought. What rubes.” she said with an amused chuckle. She walked through the store, glancing at the odd items on the shelf.
“No, I don’t think I’ll buy a super whoopie cushion, I have bigger things in mind.” She giggled as she walked over to the painting. She glanced up at the grinning clown painted in the middle and she licked her lips.
“You are going to make me a rich lady, Bozo.” she said.
“Oh am I?” said the clown in the painting, lips clearly moving.
The male clown, balding and fat began to shift and change. He sprouted breasts encased in a tight top, and long female legs were wrapped in a tight skirt. Red curly hair sprouted from his head, and he looked a lot like the female clown who had be giving her the evil eye earlier in the day. She patted the child in the painting on the head, and the child skipped away, off to the side.
“How the hell…” Carrie said. Not much caught her off guard, but she could hardly believe her eyes.
“Well, it’s simple. Some clowns are magical, clowns like me.” she said with a smile that seemed to stretch on forever.
“I...I…” Carrie stuttered.
“Ah, you didn’t expect to be caught. Stealing from Mr. Chuckles is naughty naughty!” she said, wagging a finger.
“You aren’t talking to me, you are just a painting.” She shouted.
“You are the one shouting at a painting.” Jen-Jen’s visage laughed. “So you tell me what is real?”
Carrie looked up and squinted, then put her hands on her hips in a defiant way.
“Yeah. I was coming to steal from Mr. Chuckles. Seems like he has no idea what he has on his hands here. A rare painting by…”
“A man called C? Are you that thick. Chuckles painted this himself, and he embued with with wonderful magical powers. It can change a person who stares at it for too long into a clown like the one in the portrait, but I decided you deserve a different fate.”
“Oh yeah, what fate do I deserve, Bozo?” Carrie said, practically spitting the words.
“Well, you see, it’s hard to do anything to you while you are there and I am here, so let’s swap things around, shall we?” she said.
Carrie started to laugh derisively, the gall of this clown girl to try and trick and trap her, but suddenly the world felt like it was spinning. The store moved around her at what seemed like thousands of miles and hour, wind whipping her hair out of it’s tightly fashioned bun, letting it flow freely.
Then it all stopped.
She looked around and gasped when she saw she was no longer in the store, but in the landscape picture in the painting. She stood on a dirt road, and a balloon tied to a string floated through the air softly. She heard giggling, and her head darted around.
“Oh what the hell, what the hell.” she muttered. “This has to be some kind of hallucination. Something that bitch clown sprayed me with. I am just on the floor of the store, dreaming this screwy place.”
“Well, this Bitch Clown certainly did something to you.” came a loud voice. “But I would say that you aren’t asleep, and you are most definitely inside a painting. That should be fascinating, shouldn’t it? Someone who steals paintings for a living getting an up close and personal look at one?”
Carrie turned. She saw what seemed like a window on the horizon. She let out an odd noise of fright when she saw the giant clown face looming in it. That’s when the world began to shake and move.
“Don’t mind me,” said Jen-Jen. “I am just going to take the painting somewhere where we can have some quality alone time.”
“Let me out!” Carrie screamed before she tumbled and fell onto the ground. She felt fear well up inside her, a fear she had never felt.
It felt like ages while the painting was being moved, like it would never end, but eventually the world came to a stop and the clown’s face appeared in the window again.
“Aww, lookit the cute little kitty cat, all jumbled and bumbled. Well, that is just the start of your lessons, my dear. We are going to teach you what happens when you try to steal from a clown.”
“You let me out, bitch, or so help me, you are going to…”
“What?” asked Jen-Jen. “Were you going to say regret? If I let you out know, you’d be stuck as tiny little human with no way to get big again. I could squash you like a bug. Rethink your words, little one.”
The fear welled up again, almost like a sickness. She wanted to be tough, but she had been bested by the clown, a clown who was not even close to being finished with her.
TO BE CONTINUED