Luan stowed Gary in his carrier and hurried out to the backyard. Mr. and Mrs. Crane, Alvin and Susan, were standing near the back door. Other parents and the child guests were milling about in various groups. The parents were all standing in small groups by the drink and buffet tables with brightly hued cocktails in their hands while the children chased each other around or bounced in the bouncy castle. There was a caterer and his assistant talking to a couple of the parents and the two cleaning ladies who had helped Luan look for Gary were trying to pick up after the guests.

What resulted was a cacophony of noise that made the usually confident Luan feel nervous and overwhelmed.

She was about to head to the stage that had been set up for her, when Mr. and Mrs. Crane approached her and pulled her to the back side of the stage.

"You just barely showed back up in time," Mrs. Crane said, clearly irritated. "Where were you?"

"I had to check the sound equipment myself," Mr. Crane complained. "That was supposed to be your job, kid."

"We hired you based on a recommendation of a good friend of ours," Mrs. Crane said. "Don't make us regret our decision, Luan. I'm sure your giant family could use the money. Money is sure to be scarce for a family such as yours who is trying to overpopulate the world."

"My family doesn't take…" Luan said, but was interrupted by cheers.

The two dozen or so kids had spotted her, led by the birthday boy, now nine-year-old Benjamin Crane. The strawberry blonde boy beamed up at her and hooped about in excitement.

"You're here!" he exclaimed.

"Oh…yes, I'm here," Luan said, hesitantly. She looked back the adult Crane's for a quick second before continuing to speak. "Let's get this party started!"

She quickly put Gary in his proper place and stuck her red clown nose onto her real one before bouncing onto the stage. By that time, all the kids were standing at the front, waiting excitedly for the show to begin. She took a deep breath and smiled her biggest smile. Never had she been so nervous to put on a show, especially one she had done many times before and had done her very best to perfect.

"Welcome one and all to my stage of mystery! You will be dazzled," she pulled a bright lamp from under her coat tails, "bedazzled," she stuck her hands into her pockets and pulled them back out with large costume jewelry rings on all ten fingers, "and possibly frazzled!"

As she spoke the final word, she was shot in the face with water by all of the rings at once. Luan acted surprised as she stared out over the crowd of children and parents, her face dripping water. The children giggled and squirmed.

Luan's magic act was also a comedy act and shared many of the same elements as her clown act. In parts, she incorporated audience members, usually the birthday boy or girl would be one of the participants.

The teenager started her approximately thirty minute act the usual way, working with Gary. She started by making a stuffed white rabbit appear from a seemingly empty brown, paper bag. After proving that it was indeed a fake rabbit by having Ben touch it and squish it, she had him hold the rabbit and placed a thin white scarf over the rabbit. She waved her magic wand, had Ben say the magic words, Abra cadabra, and whipped the scarf away.

The stuffed rabbit was now Gary!

Luan took Gary and held him up for all to see. The kids all cheered and laughed. Suddenly, or so it seemed to the audience anyway, Gary jumped up onto Luan's bare head.

"Hey, you!"

Luan grabbed for the rabbit, but jumped away and appeared on her left shoulder. She grabbed for him again, but popped up on her right shoulder. The audience of grade-schoolers were laughing uproariously as this was going on.

Luan grabbed for Gary once again and he hopped onto her head and wiggled his nose, in a seemingly cheeky way. Slowly, the teenager reached for her top hat, but not being able to reach it, looked to Ben who was still standing on the stage with her.

"Could you hand me my top hat please?"

Quickly, he grabbed her hat and handed it to her. Carefully, she took the brim in both her hands on either side and made exaggerated movements of preparing to put it over her head. All at once, she flipped the hat around and over, onto her head, trapping Gary underneath.

"Hah, now I got you, you wascally wabbit," Luan exclaimed.

Using both of her hands, she squished her hat down to her head, making it as flat as a pancake. She took the hat off and showed the audience that it was solid. The children oo'd and ah'd and cheered. Several made guesses as to where the rabbit had gone.

"It's hanging off her back!"

Luan turned to show that there was nothing hanging off her back or anywhere else on her body. She turned to Benjamin and handed him the hat. He tapped it and tossed it from hand to hand before handing it back to Luan.

"Where's the rabbit?"

"You didn't see him?"

Luan jerked the hat to the side and popped it back out. Reaching her hand in she felt around.

"I know he was in there somewhere?" She then called into the hat, "Gary, where are you? The game is over, you can hop on out!"

She pulled her hand out, in it was a half-eaten carrot.

"Gary I asked you to clean up in there after our last show! Come out!"

She stuck her hand in once again, pulling out a number of items. First came a flower, next was a string of scarves, and finally the stuffed rabbit again.

"This bunny really Bugs me, get it?" she laughed. "Alright, Gary it's time to carrot out."

She reached into her hat one last time before Gary popped his head out from its opening. The kids cheered and clapped. Some claiming there was no way he could have been trapped in the hat before. None of them had seen her put the rabbit or any of the other items in the hat, but none of them could come up with an explanation of how Luan had done her trick.

Over the following half hour, Luan preformed a variety of simple illusion and card tricks, all the while incorporating her quirky sense of comedy. For several tricks she employed the help of Ben Crane, the most complicated of which had Ben appear to levitate off the stage.

Her finale was an escape act. It was a new addition to her act, she had only performed it twice before and was only doing a fairly simple escape. She had Ben handcuff her behind her back and then secure a canvas poncho over her with many buckles, snaps and knots. She had him set a time for ninety seconds. Then, Ben joined the rest of the children to watch.

After about thirty seconds of grunting, the audience could tell that Luan had released her cuffs. She grunted and squirmed about, unbuckling the buckles and untying the knots from under the poncho. She beat the timer by ten seconds. The crowd cheered and clapped as she took a bow, Gary on her shoulder.