Jeefo and Jessica stepped inside the trailer. Inside the living room they saw BubbleLulu standing in a floral print dress that could have looked like a normal woman's except it was accented with a petticoat and pink bloomers, as well as green and yellow striped socks. She was looking in a compact mirror powdering her big red nose.
"Oh Jeefo!" she said when she finally noticed her son. "How do I look?"
"You look great, Mom," Jeefo said, then indicated Jessica. He told his mother how he had bumped into Jessica and accidently ruined her makeup. "I brought her here to see if I could fix her face with the Chronivac."
"Oh. Well, that's awfully nice of you, Jeefo." She looked into her compact again and applied gloss over her clown mouth, the set a huge pair of big hooped cold earrings in her ears. "So, you think JoJo will like this?"
Jeefo nodded. "Excuse me," Jessica asked, "but where are you going dressed like that?"
"I'm having dinner with JoJo McBride at the supper tent," Jeefo's mother said, "then he's taking me to see a movie at the drive in in town."
Now Jessica was perplexed. Upon joining this circus she learned it had some very strange rules concerning it's clowns, namely they had to be in makeup 24-7, even when they were helping with taking down and setting up tents or taking care of the animals. Not that she minded; it was still a lot better than her old life at home. She shared her trailer with May and June Summer , a whiteface/auguste sister team and she never saw them out of makeup. May even had the skin her clothes would have covered painted white all the time. "You mean you're going into town like that?"
"Why not?" BubbleLulu replied. "We're just going to the drive-in, if anybody sees us and asks we'll just say we lost a bet." She turned back to Jeefo. "Oh, and you'll be watching you sister tonight while I'm gone."
"Sure Mom. Where is Amybelle anyway?"
"Oh, she's playing with Betty Kane-you know, the lion tamer's girl? She'll be back here before Jojo picks me up."
Jeefo nodded and led Jessica down the hallway to his room in the trailer. Jessica's eyes widened at how bright and colorful Jeefo's room was, far more than a typical teenage boys was. There were posters on the walls, but instead of heavy metal bands or scnatily clad models, they were simply of clown girls-although most of them were dressed more scantily than the circus here would allow.
"Site over there," Jeefo said, pointing to a folding chair next to his ordinary-looking computer.
"What are you doing?" said Jessica as she saw Jeefo type on the keyboard. "Aren't you going to get out some greasepaint and paint my face?"
"No, this is much better." Now Jeefo patted a strange shaped box with a camera lens and pointed it at Jessica.
"What is that?"
"The Chronivac. It's what turned me, mom, and my sister into clowns."
"What do you mean it turned you into clowns?"
Jeefo told her the whole story-how a few days ago he had gotten the Chonivac in the mail, and how his mother used it to turn him into a clown for his sister's birthday. Then about how he used it to likewise turn them into clowns, and they went and joined the circus.
Jessica's eyes widened in disbelief. "You've got to be joking."
Jeefo shook his head. "No I'm not. Come pull my nose."
Jessica did. HONK! It wouldn't come off. She pulled the fringe of orange hair around Jeefo's bald head, and it wouldn't come off. She licked her hand and ran her hand on his face. Nothing came off. "It's all true?"
Jeefo nodded. "It also altered our minds, so we compulsively behave like clowns. We like it really." He rubbed his shiny smooth pate. "I don't even mind going bald at fifteen!"
"The other clowns here-"
"Most of them really are clowns like us; they don't wear makeup. Maybe they were born that way, maybe they were altered like my family. We really didn't ask."
Jessica looked at the Chronivac. "Can it change me too?"
"It can. If you don't want to I won't but-"
"No. I want this. I've always loved clowns, ever since I was a little girl. I've wanted nothing more than to be a clown, even though my family didn't like the idea. PLease, I insist you do this."
"Verry well. Just take of your wig and hold still."
Jeefo pressed the ENTER key. The beam shot from the Chronivac and hit Jessica square in the chest.
As Jessica was already wearing her costume no change happened to her clothes. The beam however burned away her makeup and her skin faded to a pale ivory white. The eybrows rose up and became thin black lines that stretched all the way down to just below her eyes. Yello-orange filled the spaces around her eyes and a vertical black bar arose right in the middle. pink formed on her cheeks, making a permanent blush while her mouth stretched from ear to ear in a full red smile. Her auborn hair curled and changed to vibrant rainbow colors. Her feet crackled and stretched until they fit her size '24 mary janes perfectly.
The final change came as her nose turned red and swelled up into a ball like Jeefo's only not quite so big.
Jessica rushed over to the morrior on Jeefo's dresser. She gave a small gasp, it looked just like her old makeup, only more...real.
Gingerly she touched her nose, and squeezed. she giggled in delight when it gave a small HONK!
"Do you like it?" Jeefo asked.
Jessica turned around and hugged Jeefo. "I'M SO HAPPY!" she cried. She honked her nose a couple of times, then landed her clown mouth on his in a big, juicy SMOOCH!