At Gene’s instruction, everyone flipped over their cards. And there, in front of Mike looked at the picture on his card. "Seriously?" There was a slight murmur around the table as everyone else looked at their own cards.
On each was a picture of a clown.
Specifically on Mike's card, the clown was pudgy looking with an orangish complexion. Dressed in a mostly yellow, red and orange checkered suit and enormous wingtip shoes, the face a white muzzle surrounded by red blush and a black clown smile inside, white ovals that reached high up to the forehead topped by wide black arches and eyelids shaded orange, and bald head fringed with fight green curly hair and topped a tiny orange banded derby.
“Clowns?” gasped Ronaldo. “What the hell does this mean?”
“What're we supposed to do?” said Carly. “Put on makeup and costumes, and act like buffoons?”
Similar confusion could be heard around the long table. Suddenly, Mike began to feel a strange tingling all over his body. He glanced at
his hands and yelped in surprise. He jumped up and gave everyone a full view of his emerging beer belly and his skin changing to pink. He heard other shouts of shock, as Rolando's skin also faded into a ruddier orange, and a white muzzle formed around his mouth surrounded by black. He glanced at Carly, who also grasped her chest. Her breasts and butt were growing, giving her a rather voluptuous figure, her skin became sugary pink with white patches around her eyes and a white muzzle with a red cupid's bow inside. Jason stood up suddenly, as his skin became chalk white, and his hair turned purple.
As the group’s changes subsided, they left ogling at their own bodies and clothes, and glancing at the bodies of their neighbors. It was surreal.
Mike couldn’t believe the sight of his body. He was now dressed like the clown on his card; he could see the wingtips of shoes poking out under his gut. He felt his face; his nose was now a perfect sphere, round, rubbery and nearly as big as a tennis ball. His hand moved up to the top of his head. 'Oh no,' he thought in horror, 'I'm actually bald!'
He really was a clown. An auguste clown, he somehow knew, along with a newly acquired knowledge of the clown hierarchy and an auguste's place in it.
Ronaldo was now a hobo clown, even fatter than Mike; a battered derby sat over a head that was now completely bald, and he wore a shabby looking black suit covered here and there with colorful patches. The white muzzle inside his 'beard' was turned down into a frown. At the center of his face was a coal black clown nose.
Jessica was now a whiteface clown. Her brunette hair had become cherry red, stretched down into ringlets down her back, and topped by a blue floppy brimmed hat pinned back with a rose; she wore a red blouse and blue skirt fluffed up with a white petticoat; she had enormous black eyelashes shaded in blue and a glittering red ball for a nose. The lenses of her glasses were now shaped like hearts with blue and red frames.
Carly was an auguste like Mike. Her complexion was sugary pink, with white eyepatches halfway up to her forehead, and a white muzzle with dainty red clown smile inside and bordered with bright red blush underneath a rubbery red ball of a nose. Her shirt had become a purple blouse under a yellow apron dress fluffed up with purple petticoats,
Bree had become a bag lady, a feminine version of a hobo dressed in a red and white stiped shirt and blue jeans jumper covered with res and black patches. Her skin was a pale peach, with a white muzzle ver her mouth, faint white patches around her eye and a ruddy peach bulb of a nose. A floppy blue hat sat over her hair which was now matted and black, with streaks of blue. Oddly, her nose piercing remained in her bulbous nose.
Jason began to sit down again. He now looked like the Joker, except his hair was now purple, and the purple and green colors of his new clothes were revered from the comic book character. Of all the contestants, he had changed the least.
“You have all experienced your first changes.” Gene piped in after the shouting stopped. “For our first season you will be living your lives as clowns; along with the physical changes, you have all been endowed with the knowledge of clowning, such as clown routines and various jokes, both practical and impractical. Should you be eliminated, you will then be employed at a circus or and entertainment agency. If you win, however, you will have the choice of reverting to human or living as a clown for the rest of your life, and leave with an additional $500,000! Thank of this as your 6-week experimental makeover!”