That night, Ty decided to get to work on the final member of his family. Mark was a humorless man, who took himself incredibly seriously. He always berating Ty for playing video games and not making more of himself. He lost his temper whenever he felt he was being disrespected by Ty or Dustin. Thinking upon the various times, he had been punished for cracking a joke, Ty smiles and knew he had the perfect punishment in mind for his foster father.
Ty walked into his foster parents' rooms, where June had finally fallen into a despondent sleep. He cracked his fingers and looked down on the head of his household. Mark cut a conservative figure, he prided himself on being a paragon of ordinary, respectable, suburban masculinity. He kept his still thick brown hair neatly groomed. He wore gray or navy blue tailored suits with solids shirts and monochromatic ties. He shined his shoes nightly. He worked out each morning, keeping his figure trim and fit. Ty smiled mischievously and got to work.
********
The next morning, Mark awoke, as he always did, at 5:30 AM. He went to the garage to lift some weights and do some pull-ups. He went back in the house and showered. When he got out of the shower and wiped the steam from the bathroom mirror, he nearly yelped.
On his face was a bright red clown nose.
Mark stood stunned for a moment, then shook his head. "Some smart-ass prank of Ty's," he thought and brought his hand up to the offending object.
*Honk!* "OW!"
The clown nose would not come off. It honked like an ill-tuned horn, once squeezed, but would not budge. It hurt for Mark to pull at it, as if it had fused with his face. He tried again, only to get more pain and honks. "Son of a bitch!"
Mark barreled out of his room, crossing the hallway into Ty's room, intending to wake up the prankster and give him a piece of his mind.
"Listen here, pipsqueak, I don't know what glue you put on this, but you better..."
Mark stopped when he entered Ty's room. He had expected his foster son to be fast asleep, but was startled to find him sitting calmly at his desk, as if he had been expected him.
"Morning, Mark. Something the matter?"
"All right you asshole, you know exactly what's the matter! Get this piece of shit off of me!"
"You're stronger than me, as you've pointed out endless times. Why don't you make an attempt to pull it off?"
"You know full well I can't! You've glued it on!"
"You don't get it, do you, Marky?" Ty grinned and approached the fuming man. "It's not glue - that's your new nose."
"Cut the bullshit-"
"Oh it's not bullshit, Marky-poo. This is you now." With that he twisted and pulled the bright red circle, which remained utterly stuck on Mark face.
"Fuck! Stop that!"
Ty chuckled. "Calm down, there Marky, your face is turning as red as your nose!"
"Fuck you, you little-" Mark lunged towards his foster son, only to trip and tumble to the ground.
"What the fuck-" Mark tried to figure out what had knocked him off-balance. He looked down towards his feet. Instead of the black slippers, monogrammed with his initials that he had put on, he found he was wearing two fire-truck red dress with canary-yellow spats and bright orange laces. More alarming than the garish coloring of the footwear, however, was their size. The shoes seemed to fit him snugly, but were easily six or seven sizes too long. He was wearing clown shoes. Yellow and red polka dot socks rising up to his knees completed the look.
Ty was doubled over in laughter, looking down at his fallen foster father. "Now that's more fitting footwear don't you think?"
At this point, Mark had begun to realize that this was no mere prank, that his foster son had some power over him. "Listen, here Ty, I don't know what you think you're doing but-"
"Oh, we're just getting started." said Ty with a gleam in his eye.