Thanks for the reviews! I was so pleased to see that I got two requests as I actually forgot to mention in the last chapter that I was hoping for some. Give me a character and a situation and I'll write it, first-come-first-serve basis. (If there are no requests, I will choose one myself). Enjoy!

Max
(For TheNextAlice)

I have a confession to make...

Me and my dad were never exactly close, but I loved him a lot. He was Wesley Tobias Johns, expert farm owner at the peak of his physical and mental health, and I was his flamboyant, skinny, useless-on-the-farm eldest son. My little brother, Colton Oswald (we called him Oz), was much more suited to the farm life, but my dad was firm: the eldest would take over. He dedicated hours every week trying to teach me in the ways of the farm, but none of it ever really sank in.

"Got the head in the clouds, that boy," he told my mother in exasperation, on a fairly regular basis.

"I reckon he's after bigger things," my mom would respond fondly, "Ain't that right, Billy Bob?"

"Yes'm," I would invariably reply, though even at six or seven I wouldn't tell them about my real dream. Dad had it half right: I wanted, more than anything, to fly, above and away from the life at the farm where I could never really fit in.

Oz would tease me mercilessly, getting worse as we got older. When he was nine, and I was ten, he laughed in my face one day when I dropped the feed-bucket for the third time. "I'm going to have this farm one day, Billy Bob!" he mocked. "And what will you have?"

Angrily, I yelled back at him, "I'm gonna be the President of the United States!"

What started out as a childish outburst soon became fairly serious. I began to like the sound of it; William Robert Johns, President of the United States of America. I threw myself into political studies, much to the pride of my mother and the chagrin of my father. It was only when I was eighteen, poised to jump into college, that I realised what I'd not noticed: the farm was in trouble. Dad was an excellent farmer, but a terrible businessman, and he'd gathered significant amounts of debt over the years which were now coming back to haunt him.

We were all worried. I knew I couldn't expect them to help me out much with college anymore - although Mom made sure I knew that I would get every little bit of help they had to offer, and Oz's future was suddenly on the ropes as well. Never minding our futures, our present was at risk: we'd have nowhere to live if we didn't come up with the money soon. I decided to put off further education until we could afford it, taking a job as a campaign worker to at least gain some experience in my field.

I went by 'William' now; 'Billy Bob' was an affectionate nickname for a fairly uneducated child; an alter-ego I sometimes found myself slipping into in the most panicked of times (and still sometimes do). And it was 'William' who accompanied Oz and my parents to the magician's troupe when it came to town. We watched the performers in amazement, allowing them to take our minds off our troubles for a while, and then the magician in yellow asked for a volunteer from the audience. Somehow, I was chosen, bundled onto the stage. Afterwards, the crowd was cheering me, and I caught my dad's eye as he grinned, and - such a feeling! I was overwhelmed, amazed: these people were cheering, cheering for me! As I climbed down from the stage, still slightly dazed, my dad complimented me on my showmanship. Gruffly, he told me I'd been great up there. This was bigger to me than everything else put together.

I applied for a full scholarship to university, hoping against hope that I'd be good enough to get in to get on track for my dream career. I also began practicing magic tricks on the side, fascinated as I had been by the magician I had seen. I found, to my amazement, that I was good. I began putting on shows for the locals, though not as 'William' - no, the strong political-minded future president couldn't do that, nor could the uneducated child that was Billy Bob. I fashioned myself another alter-ego, tapping into the flamboyance of my early youth - a beautiful, perhaps a little egotistical, fabulous man who went by the name of Maximillion Galactica. While William studied, Max learned new tricks. While William talked to politicians, Max was choosing as many different symbols as possible for himself. While William took his scholarship exams, Max was performing bigger and bigger shows.

The parallel life, of course, couldn't last, and it wasn't all glory. My dad was told he had nine months to pay at least a quarter of the rent or the farm was gone. The next day, a miracle happened. I was now almost twenty-one years old, and I got the visit that changed my life. A beautiful young woman was sitting on the sofa with my father when I entered the living room; the girl couldn't have been more than sixteen, but she took my breath away. It took me a few minutes to realise that there was another man in the room.

"I am Russell Berry," the man told me, standing to shake my hand. His circus, he explained, was in desperate need of a new act, and I had been spotted by his daughter (the angel on the sofa) at one of my shows. He was prepared to offer me - well, a lot of money - if Maximillion Galactica would sign exclusively to the Berry Big Circus. I gaped, unable to believe what I was hearing, when I heard a shriek. My mother came running into the room. "Billy! It's here, son!"

She handed me the brown envelope which she clearly hadn't been able to resist opening. By her face, I knew; I'd gotten the scholarship. I looked to my father. "You do what you have to, son," he told me softly, and I could see the genuineness in his eyes.

I looked at the envelope, and at the ringmaster. I looked back at my dad. "How much did you say?" I croaked. The ringmaster repeated the number; more than enough to begin to pay off the debts at the farm. I looked to the girl on the sofa, who was giggling at me as if I'd done something very funny. I looked at the envelope which opened the door to my long-held dreams. And I turned to Mr Russell Berry and I said;

"That would be fabulous, darling!"

...I wanted to make my father proud.

Reviews and requests are loved :3