The day of the Talent Show came. It was a night where every curious citizen of Royal Woods come to watch talents like never seen before, and parents to be proud at the sight of their children performing onstage. I guess this will bring a spotlight to real talent. Hahahaha! But anyway, with our whole routine worked out, I am sure things will go according to plan.

Backstage in the Royal Woods Elementary School auditorium, Luan enters to prepare her props for her presentation. She sees the other student participants packing up the rather narrow area, including a kid in a dobok practicing his flying kick to a pot hung on a pole. The young comedienne quickly dodges the attack from young taekwondo student.

She places her box of props on one side, then goes to pick up her baby brother Lincoln, dressed in full magician's attire, from the fire exit. As Luan brings him to a bench, she utters to him, "Well, here we go, baby brother. Talent show's here. Glad you can ta-lent a hand. Hehehe!"

When she laughs, Lincoln laughs as well cutely, as though if he has no idea what is going on. Nevertheless, he is up for what Luan had set him up to do.

"You know the drill. Stand-up, magic show and puppet show." But she notes also the bunny hand puppet that was still stuck to her right hand. "Although, we're having the puppet show now."

Lincoln sees the fluffy hand puppet that he tries to reach out for it.

"No, no Linky," Luan insists, "Mr. Bunny can wait. For now."

On that moment, Luna shows up from the fire exit, tired from presumably rushing to the scene.

"Luna, glad you had come! Have you drum rolling? Hahahaha! Get it?"

"Yeah," Luna answers, "I had to pick up my drumsticks from my classroom, dude. I thought I had it on my bag, but it was in my desk."

"Well, glad you stick to your instincts, or you'll have to bag for mercy. Hahahaha!"

But Luna is more or less barely impressed. "Can we at least stick to your performance?"

"Right!" With that, the two head to the stage manager, right near a spot with a vantage point of the stage.

Unbeknownst to them, Lori and Leni sneak in from the fire exit, swipe Luan's prop box and replace with another, which was obviously packed with the wrong props they intentionally to doom the performance.

"That should do trick," Lori sneers evilly.

"This looks great, Lori," Leni agrees. "But I don't know if we're doing this right."

"Leni, listen. Luan's doing it wrong. I am right. She is wrong. You're doing this for me. So, you're doing it right," Lori justifies.

"Oh, so I'm left!" Leni wrongly realizes, which makes Lori facepalm.

"Leni, did you left your brain back home?"

"Really? Have I left my brain back home? This is not good!"

Lori just groans at her sister's cluelessness when she tries to literally search for her brain from her body. "Come on. We have work to do."

At sudden relief, Leni finds it. "Oh, it's in my head. But I don't know if I can see it."

Meanwhile, at the audience, Mr. and Mrs. Loud arrive on time. They occupy the seats at the middle since most of the occupants are at the back. While Rita is excited to see Luan perform, Lynn Sr. is busy stubbing his fingers on his Blackberry.

"Oh boy, this is it! I can't wait to see what Luan had practiced all week long!" Rita exclaims.

But Lynn Sr. is haplessly occupied. "Yeah, sure. Maybe it's the preschool kids doing the flower dancing stuff."

Rita then captures his attention. "No, sweetie. Luan's performing on her own for the Talent Show."

Just by that reminder that Lynn Sr. snaps out from his own business, surprised by the news. "Wait! Luan?! Performing?!" He then gets up from his seat. "I forgot to give her some tips! Or some queues! Or even punchlines!"

Thankfully, Rita calms him down. "No, it's okay sweetie. You'll get to see her. She has prepared this surprise for you. Don't worry."

"Oh good. I just fear she might not know the punchline on the 'bad luck cats' joke. It was almost a cat-astrophe. Hahaha! Get it?"

"Yeah…get it…"

Sooner, the lights get dimmer in the auditorium and drums roll from the background, signaling for the talent show to start. A lot of young performers line up, prior to Luan, like a black kid dancing to the tune of "Staying Alive" by the Bee Gees, a blonde girl singing "Crazy in Love" by Beyoncé, a quartet of Japanese kids doing a trapeze act, a fat kid doing an air-guitar act of "Smoke on the Water" by Deep Purple, ginger twins on red jumpsuits dancing to "Boombastic" by Shaggy, a young pet owner trying to guide his parrot to show some tricks (though that failed) and two emo kids doing a lame interpretative dance to the tune of "All Star" by Smash Mouth. The reaction from the audience ranges from somewhat supportive to utterly passive.

So, there goes the talent show. Every kid just kills it on the stage, no pun intended. Well, except maybe the two emo kids waving their arms, which I think was interpretative dancing? But I doubt it. They're really killing time. I had goosebumps that I might flounder this up. How will the people think of me?

Just as Luan is contemplating her stage fright, Luna interrupts her, which slightly surprises her. "Dude, are you good?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. I just feel the stage scaring me. Hehehe," Luan expresses her fears comically.

"Well, it better be scaring you, because I'll tear the stage to shreds!" Luna exclaims.

"Now that would never shred a tear! Hahahaha. Get it?"

"Yeah pretty much. Speaking of which, I tried to find my drumsticks. And guess what I found…" Luna then picks up her bag and pulls out two chicken drumsticks with buffalo sauce.

"Woah, I can't believe they stick to their menu. Hahahah. Get it?"

"This is serious, dude. Someone stole my drumsticks and hid it somewhere."

Just at that moment, the announcer calls for Luan to proceed onstage for her act. Applause comes by.

"That's our queue," Luna reminds, "See you onstage. I'll get my sticks."

After those hijinks, Luan nervously proceeds to the stage. She is greeted with a round of applause and a cheer from her parents. "Woohoo! Go Luan!"

"There's my baby girl!" Rita applauds her.

Once the applause dies down, Lynn Sr. still cheers for her, "Go Luan! Don't forget the gopher joke I told you!"

"Calm down dear," Rita tells her husband, "I am sure Luan knows what she's doing."

Just as audience welcomes her, the very young comedienne trues to mutter her friends. But she can only describe her feelings, "Wow. I never imagined lots of people would be here. Or a crowd…for that matter. I guess my forecast was right: one crowdy day."

With that joke, there comes a few chuckles. But Luan manages to reinforce a backup joke: "Well, fair enough. Tonight, I guess, wasn't much of a hot topic."

Just with that punchline, majority of the audience responds with rousing laughs.

And now, I feel it. I feel the laughs, the people who loves my jokes. I can almost see the look on Luna from the drums and Lincoln's giggle from my right backstage. I feel I was born for this.

"That was close call. I can almost hear a thundering applause," Luan throws the punchline, prompting Luna to do a drumbeat and Lori, who is hiding behind the stage, to be annoyed. "Good evening everyone! This is just the tip of the iceberg of what we have tonight. So, let's moonshine. Hahahaha!"

But somehow, the usage of word troubles the Loud family matriarch. "Wait, how did she know that word?"

"Who cares?! It's so hilarious!" Lynn Sr. tells her, but cannot stop laughing.

"You'll need some explaining when we get home," Rita frowningly implies.

Anyway, back on Luan who is currently doing her opening spiel. "Well, that's enough climate jokes. I don't weather I should switch to cloud jokes or something else. Hmmm. Somehow, my thoughts float away." After brainstorming for a while, which is definitely part of her routine, Luan shares, "Oh, why don't we move on to current events on TV? And I know what you're thinking. What would a 6-year-old know about current events? Well, I do know about wars and stuff, and also news about which Jonas Brother raided the kingdom of the crystal skull."

Of course, giving a timely reference to a movie released on that year prompted the audience to take a hoot on it. Luan goes along. "Seriously, my dad and I saw the movie. And during the movie, he always complained, 'Where were the Sleestaks?' Well, my mom said…" But before she can spout out her next words, the microphone rings with a feedback. The sound screeches over the auditorium whenever Luan tries to utter a word on the mic.

Or probably the mic just doesn't like me.

While the feedback continues to screech, it is revealed that Lori tampered with the auditorium's sound mixing system to distract Luan's routine. Conveniently, the booth she is in has no one in it. "Hehehe! Literally like a bee in a bug zapper."

However, she hears some people approaching the booth. "Oh-oh." Lori then escapes through a window by using a heavy-duty blue ribbon to glide down back to the ground and returns backstage, unnoticed by anyone.

The stage manager then quickly replaces Luan's wired microphone with a wireless one.

"Oh, thanks," Luan says to the stage manager. "Glad you mic this thing work. No need to drop another." This is followed up by another round of laughter across the hall. "Isn't that right, Luna?"

At that call, Luna does a humorous drumbeat. "I wouldn't drumbeat that." And she beats another.

Luan then continues her routine smoothly.

But Lori is not done. She then contacts Leni via walkie-talkie, "Beauty to Leni, plan B!"

"Plan B! What happened to Plan A? Did he quit?" Leni responds hysterically, to which Lori finds disgruntling.

To be continued to the next chapter…