It was another day at Maggie and Haiku's house, where Maggie was just... Sitting alone, on the living room, reading a book. Not that the book was anything that interested her, but really, what else could she do?

"Maggie?"

The emo teenager turned around and saw Haiku standing nearby.

"Oh hi, Helen," Maggie nonchalantly remarked before returning to her book. "Do you want me to take you to the poetry club or something? Perhaps it has something to do with Lucy?"

"Actually, I was going to ask you to do that, like usual, but something came up," Haiku explained as she sat next to her sister. "You see, Lucy's in the middle of a rest right now. Apparently, her sisters tried to get her to look good to a boy she had a crush on, but once she found out he liked her just as herself, she decided to give herself a little break. After snapping very harshly at her sisters and taking a bath, of course."

Maggie raised an eyebrow. "And why are you telling me this?"

"Because she's on a rest, Lucy canceled all the plans we had for today," Haiku moved closer to her older sister. "So, I'm fully free, and we can have some sister-sister time together! If you'd like, that is."

The emo became so shocked about this revelation, she dropped her book, but quickly managed to compose herself and try to act like she was stoic about the matter.

"...Maggie, I know we don't tend to hang out very often, but there's something I need to ask you," Haiku took a deep breath. "How did you and Luan meet?"

The emo teenager flinched, but quickly recomposed herself and answered, "It happened a long time ago..."

A long time ago...

A much younger Maggie was looking around the park, with her mother carrying a baby Haiku. The emo girl ran all over the place, giggling to herself as she followed a random butterfly that caught her attention.

However, just as she was about to crash into a tree, she heard some laughter nearby. Laughter that came from a nearby... Party of some sort.

The girl promptly returned to her mother and said, "Mom, can we go look at that party over there?"

The woman promptly got up, and the trio went to the party, where Maggie met Luan for the first time: As a young little clown assistant to the party's actual clown. And it isn't long before she notices the cheerful girl.

She waves hello, and Maggie eagerly waves back before Luan is forced to get back to work. "Mom! Did you see that?!" Maggie exclaimed. "The clown's clone just waved at me!"

"That's not her clone, darling, that's her assistant," Maggie's mom clarified. "Her job is to help the clown correctly perform her jokes and tricks."

Maggie tilted her head, clearly in confusion.

"Just watch, darling," the woman said with a laugh. "Their actions will speak more than my words."

And so, the young Maggie decided to watch the show, and was left mesmerized by the several acts: One involving a mirror between each other, another involving a couple of bananas, and so on and so forth, but the girl couldn't really process what was fully going on, she was that overjoyed. And of course, once Luan had some free time and Maggie had a chance to see her, the peppy girl immediately took it.

"I saw your act and I thought it was cool and everything," Maggie told Luan, leaning to the left and right in rhytim. "I would like to know if there was a way I could learn about it? It looks fun!"

"Oh, it is fun, I assure you!" Luan answered, giving the girl a smile and a thumbs up. "Well, I don't know if they're accepting submissions now, but there's a clown school in Royal Woods that teaches the tricks and stuff me and my mom just did! If you want, I can give you some information about it-"

"Please do!" Maggie chirped, jumping up and down. "I wanna go there!"

So the younger Luan wrote down the information and handed it to Maggie, who eagerly took it and read it as Luan was approached by her boss. She and the boss spoke for a moment, and promptly walked away, but not before waving goodbye to Maggie, who waved back.

"Hey, thanks for the info!" Maggie exclaimed in joy. "See you at clown school!"

"You got it!" Luan chirped. "See you over there too!"

And so, the duo bid farewell...

Back at the present...

"Huh, I think mom did say something about you attending a clown school before," Haiku scratched her chin in wonder. "She did say you weren't able to last in there long, though."

"Yeah, no matter how hard I tried, nobody seemed to get my sense of humor," Maggie somberly answered, looking at the ground. "Some said it was too dark, some said it was too intense. It didn't matter, what mattered was that nobody got it, and the clown school was kinda biased with that: If the general audience couldn't understand your humor, you weren't going to go far as a comedian. So they kicked me out."

"Oh, sister, I'm sorry to hear that."

"It's okay, at least there was somebody who did get my sense of humor."

"Who?"

"...Luan..."

Clown School Flashback...

Maggie, now a teenager and looking a bit like an emo, packed her stuff after being told she was basically out of the clown school. Just as she eyed one of the things she was supposed to pack, however, she was caught off-guard when somebody shouted:

"Hey!"

The downed girl immediately turned around and saw none other than Luan running up to her.

"Remember me? I was the one who gave you the info of this school, Luan," the comedian remarked, earning a silent nod from Maggie. "I saw how the everybody else didn't laugh at your jokes and how you were expelled from the school. I wanted to try and meet you for the last time before you left."

Maggie looked at the ground. "I'm flattered, but-"

"Oh come on, don't let the fact that those downers didn't get your jokes, just like how I didn't let them stop me from laughing at them," Luan replied, surprising Maggie. "They weren't even bad or anything, they just catered to one very specific crowd, that's it."

"So you were the only one who laughed in the room?" Maggie remarked, gaining a smile. "I was wondering who was the one laughing. I didn't think you'd find my jokes funny."

"Well, I'm not called the class clown for nothing," Luan boasted with a giggle. "And unlike in most schools, that's not a bad thing! It just means that I can see the humor in anything, if it has humor. And you certainly did! You were just catering to people who like dark humor."

Then she whispered to Maggie's ear. "If I can tell you a little secret, that's my favorite kind of humor."

Maggie did the "my lips are sealed" gesture in return.

"You know, I was actually hoping we could become closer friends later on this school year," Luan remarked, her smile slowly turning into a frown as she finished. "But now that you're leaving, I can't help but feel saddened. I wish I had something to remember you."

Maggie soon got an idea and reached for her backpack, "Well, I don't want to leave the only person to ever like my jokes in the downer. So, here's a gift for you, to cheer you up."

And so she took out a familiar little hand puppet.

It was Colonel Crackers.

"I hope you'll take good care of him," Maggie told the comedian. "I was going to use him as a companion during my comedy career, but seeing as that's basically going nowhere, I might as well give it to somebody who has promise, right?"

"I'll make sure your legacy isn't forgotten anytime soon, don't worry," Luan confidently stated as she grabbed the terrifying puppet. "How about we walk together down the hallway?"

Maggie frowned, but made sure her smile didn't falter. "Y-You don't have to-"

Luan chirped, "Doesn't mean I don't want to."

Cheering up once more, Maggie just nodded, and so the two girls walked all the way to the exit, together.

Back in the present...

"Wow, so Luan was the person you hung out with when I started hanging out with Lucy?" Haiku repeated, earning a nod from her older sister. "That explains where you went all the time, and why you always broke out laughing in your room!"

"Yeah, I had to keep up face, so I needed to hold my laughter until I came back home," Maggie brushed her forehead. "Curse my bad sense of humor."

"I think your sense of humor is fine," Haiku blurted. "You just so happen to like puns most people would groan at."

Maggie chuckled. "And funnily enough, most people do groan whenever she utters a pun."

Haiku smiled. "I bet you could make them funny."

The emo threw a look of complete shock at her younger sister. "Are you bluffing? Even if I did have an idea of how humor works, I really doubt I'd be able to make most of Luan's material funny."

"No problem, I just give Giggles a call, and she can teach you a thing or two," Haiku put a hand on her sister's shoulder. "She's a decent comedian, and has much more variety than her friend. At least, that's what she told me."

"And do you believe her?" Maggie raised an eyebrow.

"Well, from what I saw, she's not spitting out puns every second in an effort to be funny-"

"She's automatically a much better comedian in my book."

Haiku couldn't help but giggle for a moment, before hugging her older sister. "So, are you and Luan still friends?"

"Yeah, she can grind my gears at times, but I just can't hate her. At least, not openly and without a reason," Maggie sighed and looked at the ground. "Besides, it's not like I have any other friends. So if I'm not friends with her, then I'm friends with... Nobody..."

Haiku raised an eyebrow in worry. "What about the emos that went to your birthday party?"

"Mom just invited a bunch of random emos in hopes that I would get friends," the emo girl looked away. "Besides, even if I did make friends with some of them, the person I cared about the most was away during the celebration."

"Who was that important person?"

"You."

Upon hearing that, Haiku frowned and hugged her sister more tightly as she said:

"I'm sorry I couldn't come to your party."

Maggie, however, just brushed her sister's hair and said, with a reassuring tone:

"Don't worry about it."