CHAPTER XXII: DISASTER FOR THE CLOWNS

Snarling briefly, I roared, simultaneously rearing on my hind legs, whilst swinging my front legs in a mad frenzy.

'Back!' yelled Rosie, whipping a makeshift whip in my direction, while making sure to keep some distance between us.

I stepped closer, making sure I didn't take my eyes off her. This was it.

'Back, you horrible beast!' she yelled as I got closer, still whipping the whip at me.

I roared again, careful not to show any signs of fear.

'I have no fear!' said Rosie. 'Hi-ya!' She whipped the whip again – and it lashed against my front right foot.

I stopped immediately, holding it up. It was quite painful.

'Oh... oh my goodness,' she said worriedly.

Bursting into tears, I fell backwards, now resting on my back on the hard ground in the belt-buckle enclosed ring. Rosie quickly dropped the whip, and scurried to my side.

Looking around, she noticed the audience booing at the performance that we had screwed up. At the booing continued, I vaguely heard Ymri finish his drum roll on a note that would have been spectacular, but I barely noticed. Rosie turned her attention back to me, while I continued sobbing. Why was I such a cry baby? I knew deep down, of course...

'Oh, I'm so sorry Dim,' said Rosie hurriedly, raising her voice over my wailing. 'Is it an owie?'

'Owie,' I moaned, 'owie owie!'

'Don't worry, it's OK,' she responded, pulling forward my front right foot and looking at it.

While she soothed my pain with nice words, I heard several of the flies – for that was all the audience consisted of today – taking flight and buzzing out of the tent.

Trying to ignore the pain in my whipped foot, I rolled, much like a tortoise, back onto my legs. Supporting me, Rosie walked with me to the other backstage entrance, as several more flies took their leave. While we walked, we heard P.T. talking.

'No!' he yelled at several more flies left. I then heard someone approaching him quickly, a fly no doubt.

'You, come here! I want my money back!' he said to P.T.

'Uhhhh,' stammered P.T.'s voice, 'no refunds after the first two minutes.' I then saw him quickly, with his standard "plink" noise, leap to the main backstage, where all the other circus bugs were, no doubt.

Just as Rosie and I went through the other backstage, I heard one of the fireflies yelling 'popcorn, stale popcorn!' No doubt he was doing it to try to keep some of the audience, as they were most probably still flying away.

Rosie and I finally made it backstage. She let go of me, and I let myself breathe.

'Sorry, Dim,' she said again. 'It was an accident.'

'I know,' I said. 'Just... go get a bandage or something...'

'On it,' said Rosie. She instantly scuttled, with her six bony, skeletal legs, off to where the supplies were kept, inside the circus wagon.

While Rosie was gone, I felt I had little better to do, so I approached the backstage entrance that we had come in by. Peeking just around the flap, I was able to see the show as it progressed.

Slim had just walked on onstage, carrying a fake flower hat again. Ymri played an exciting fanfare of a drum roll, enhancing the scene. Up in the rafters around the trapeze stood the two fireflies, but Flash was snoring himself off. Blip had only just switched on his rear light, when he noticed his dozy companion. He gave Flash a quick nudge, and Flash jerked awake, quickly turning on his rear light, and sticking it in the cone to spread the image across the ground.

Slim and Francis did a few fake dances in the midst of one of the fireflies lights, before Slim spoke up.

'La la la la la,' he said in a boring tone, moving from side to side, 'spring is in the air, and I am a flower... with nothing interesting to say.

'Ah!' yelled Francis, quickly jumping behind Heimlich, who had jumped out of nowhere.

'A bee!' exclaimed Slim – of course, Heimlich was dressed up as a bumblebee again.

'I am a cute little bumblebee,' said Heimlich excitedly. 'Here I come!'

He sloshed his way after Francis and Slim, for they had taken to running around the belt-buckle ring.

'Slow down, u flowers!' he groaned as he passed several flies in the audience, including one with a huge piece of candy corn. Noticing it, he instantly turned to face it, mouthing an 'Aw!'

'Candy corn!' he drooled, approaching the fly with his huge snack. 'Ere, ere, let me help u to finish it!' The fly instantly buzzed onto his candy corn, clearly eager to keep it.

Meanwhile, Francis and Slim were still wandering around the belt-buckle ring. It was then that some of the flies picked a fight.

'Hey cutie,' yelled one of the flies at Francis, 'wanna pollinate with a real bug!' He and his companion laughed at these words, nudging each other and clapping.

Francis surpassed a smile at these words. Turning around, he opened his coleopteran shell and buzzed forwards, landing on the edge of the empty ice-cube tray in front of the flies.

'Oh yeah,' they said, as he closed his shell and faced them, bringing one hand up to his flower hat, 'come to papa!'

'So!' yelled Francis, swinging his flower hat down in front of the fly brothers, 'being a ladybug automatically makes me a girl. Is that it, fly boy, HUH?

'Yikes!' yelled the fly, jumping backwards into his seat.

'She's a guy!' his companion yelled.

'Francis!' said Heimlich, standing beside Slim on the other side of the tent, chewing on the candy corn, 'leave dem alune, dey have poo-poo heads!'

'Not again,' moaned P.T. from the primary backstage entrance. He turned around and leaped outside.

'Judging by your breath,' yelled Francis at the flies, 'you must have been buzzing 'round the dung heap all day!

'Come on Francis, you're making the maggots cry,' said Slim, approaching the feisty ladybug. Looking up, Francis noticed a mama fly holding two fly larvae, which were brawling like children – which, of course, they were.

At this point, I felt I could not continue watching. While this didn't happen all the time, I found it a bit too sickening to watch. I pulled my head back inside the flap of the secondary backstage entrance, and I sighed.

It had been this way ever since... the incident happened. My personality had reverted to one of constant depression, and it showed no signs of fading away. My performance hadn't been as keen as it had been, and it had suffered as a result. I felt that nothing could be done to fix this, in any way. My despair was here to say.

While none of the other circus bugs had even so much as acknowledged that anything had ever happened, just as I had requested, I knew they still remembered it. They still acted kindly towards, asking if there was anything that they could do. I constantly denied it, except from Rosie, who was the closest thing I had to family now. They never said anything, but they found other ways of reminding me. I wish they would stop, but I had decided to revert to a new phase for my life.

I rarely spoke to anyone else, unless it was just Rosie and I around. I tried to never show emotion in any way – of course, that part wasn't working particularly well. This way, I could convince myself that... none of this had ever happened. I would most likely stay this way until my dying day. Then... I might find peace.

My thoughts were finally interrupted by Rosie returning. She had a bandage with her. In the haste of thinking about what I thought about every day, I had completely forgotten about my foot. However, the pain in my front left foot had almost dulled away, but I decided to put it on – just to appear normal.

Without speaking to each other, I followed Rosie around the tent to the primary backstage entrance. We would be on again, and I felt it fair it be ready to go on. How ironic...

Rosie was just pulling off the bandage, when P.T. reappeared.

'Dim, Rosie, whole troupe onstage, finale now!'

'Uh, okay,' stammered Rosie, fumbling with the bandage while I held out my front left foot. 'I just need a little time to –'

'NOW!' yelled P.T. going back onstage himself.

'Coming, coming,' muttered Rosie, dropping the bandage as I lowered my foot and scuttled onstage, going through the flap. I passed the two blue balls that were Tuck and Roll. Just as I had gone through the flap, I heard Rosie speaking.

'Tuck, Roll, let's get moving guys, we're up next.'

I heard them unroll with a pop (saying 'Ha now!'), and then them arguing with each other again.

'Buene eska!' said one.

'Hai thrithi iti!' said the other.

'Don't you understand,' snapped Rosie at the two of them, 'we are UP.'

'Up!' they responded before, while saying words that rhymed with "up", flipping themselves into a totem pole, of sorts.

'Hey!' they said, having finished their move.

'Hey,' moaned Rosie, turning around to follow me, 'they don't understand me...'

Facing me, Rosie shook her head at me, obviously frustrated at the duo. Next to P.T. she seemed to get the most annoyed by them. I barely noticed though, due to my never-ending depression.

Watching, I saw Manny doing his magician act. If was different than before, as now he had Gypsy. However, the audience's interest hadn't changed.

'Get off the stage, you old hag!' one fly yelled at Manny.

'Huh?' he responded, turning around, searching for the guilty fly. 'I demand to know who said that –' and a tomato hit his in the eye, splattering his vision. The flies that had done it laughed, clearly amused.

'How dare you!' he shouted at them – only for two more tomatoes to hit him, making him look worse.

'Ingrates,' he spat, turning around and walking away. Another tomato his him as he did so, and the booing intensified.

'Manny?' said Gypsy's voice from the Chinese take-away box that she was in, shaking as she spoke. 'Manny?' it said as the box shook again.

Several flies in the audience seemed to be arguing with each other. My attention got drawn to one particular duo, near the flies who had heckled Manny.

'I only got 24 hours to live, and I ain't gonna waste it here. C'mon' he said, buzzing off. His companion followed suit. Indeed, all the remaining flies were leaving, almost there.

'Ahh!' yelped P.T. He leaped past me and Rosie, who looked confused. He went backstage, obviously.

'I've just about had it with these losers!' he spat, as he leaped past us, carrying a big match again. He leapt onto the upturned wastepaper basket, and swung the match at the fleeing flies.

'Flaming Death!' he yelled, drawing the attention of the flies, who stopped flying away, looking behind to watch. While he gave his lecture, we all made out way to our positions. We had practiced Flaming Death, but we had never actually preformed it.

'I hold in my hand, the match,' said P.T. making his words fit with the fanfare Ymri played on the makeshift drums. 'The match that decided whether two bugs live or die this very evening.' The flies buzzed a bit closer, looking curious.

'In a moment,' he said leaping in front of the trail of matches that went through two poles, 'I will light this trail of matches, leading to a sheet of flypaper, dosed in flammable ink!' As he spoke, Francis and Heimlich jumped up and down on the bottle of flammable ink, squirting it onto the flypaper. Slim gestured to it from beside. Meanwhile, I made my way to my position.

'Aimed directly at the flypaper,' continued P.T., pointing his match upwards, 'are Tuck and Roll –' the two of them swung off the trapeze, and landed on a small stool in front of the cannon, popping open '– the pill bug cannonballs!' He then pointed upwards at me, for I was on a high stool high above the cannon.

'The cannon will be triggered by Dim –' I waved a foot, surpassing a smile –' trained to jump at the sound of this bell – Gypsy rested on top of the bell, while Manny spun the dail on it to '– in 15 seconds.'

The flies landed down on their feet at these words. I could tell they were now interested.

'Out pill bugs' only hope of survival,' continued P.T. gesturing up to Rosie, 'is our mistress of the high wire, Rosie!'

Rosie waved a bit like me, but then looked nervous when P.T. kept talking.

'Secured to a web line of exact length,' said P.T., 'Rosie will plumage down between these two posts, spinning a web of safety, in less THEN 15 SECONDS!'

The flies looked happy at these words; two of them slapped hands together.

'Not god enough, you say, huh,' said P.T. leaping back onto the wastepaper basket. 'Well, what if they were all... blindfolded!' he yelled, lighting up the match, as the light the fireflies were shining turned blue.

We were all blindfolded. Not able to see, I chuckled as Ymri struck up a drum roll. I distinctly heard the flies buzzing back to their seats to watch.

'Ladies, gentlemen,' said P.T. as he leaped forward to somewhere, 'may I suggest those of you with weak contusions, leave the arena. For this act is so dangerous, should the slightest thing go wrong –'

I heard the noise of the match being clubbed away, and the flame spreading along the matches.

'No!' moaned P.T.

'Ah!' yelped Rosie, springing down on her web line, spinning a web of safety. 'Okay, back and front, up and down...'

Next I heard Manny and Gypsy groaning, and then the bell going off.

Letting out a chuckle, I leapt onto the cannon, hearing a pill bug shoot out of it as I landed on it. Wait... one pill bug?

Shaking off my blindfold, I saw one of the pill bugs hit P.T., sending him straight through the air. Rosie finished the web and stood back – only for P.T. to fly straight through a hole in the middle. He stuck to the flypaper.

'Ah!' yelled Heimlich. 'P.T.!' exclaimed Francis, as all the other removed their blindfolds P.T. pulled off an elbow, and looked down.

'Rosie...' moaned Rosie, and the flame started to spread along the matches. P.T. squirmed and, struggling, lifted his right arm free of the flypaper.

'We need some water! Water, water, water!' moaned Slim, Francis and Heimlich, running around in panic. The flies in the audience were laughing, clearly enjoying the act.

P.T. pulled his other arm free, and then began shaking his body, trying to pull himself off.

'No! Get me out...' he moaned as the flame drew closer on the line of matches.

He shook himself free, and landed down. He chuckled, walking forwards – and then the flypaper landed on top of him and the flame, setting it all on fire.

'Whoa,' said one of the flies as the fire burned their vision.

The fire malted away, leaving a singed P.T. standing on the ground. We approached him, looking apprehensive.

'It's the web,' stammered Rosie, 'I'm sorry, it's the web...'

'You're all fired,' said P.T., still sending smoke up from himself. We all gasped, and then the clown trio returned.

'We got the water!' yelled Francis as the three of them threw the water on top of P.T. making him float around inside the big droplet.

'Here we go, P.T.' said Heimlich slowly.

The flies in the audience were actually cheering. 'Whoo!' said one fly.

'Burn him again!' said another.

Approximate Movie Running Time: 19:15-25:03