Kyle Perkins was a happy clown. For most that would not be unusual, but is was for Kyle. He was a rare type of hobo called a bum. Like other bums he had very little color in his face; his lips inside his muzzle were the same black as his beard shadow while the white patches around his eyes were shaded a dull grey. Even his bulbous nose was black; whenever he squeezed it it sounded like a foghorn. Like nearly all hobos bums wore dull black, gray or brown clothes covered here and there with various patches. But most hobos wore patches that were bright and colorful. Kyle and other bums's patches were dull and dingy.
Where most hobos were usually happy and didn't mind being the butt of other clowns' antics, bums hated it. Okay, so hobos always did the lowliest jobs, like hauling garbage or sweeping up the streets. But did the others have to continually do things to emberrass them? Kyle frequently heard his father mumble those very words every night, when he didn't have a liquor bottle in his mouth.
"You ready?" he asked his cousin Larry Dinkle. Larry was a bit odd. In most ways he acted and dressed like a typical bum but he had a most devious zany streak in him-Larry's mother was the more cheerful kind of hobo, maybe it had screwed up his DNA. Larry just grinned and honked his big balck nose.
They stood in the bushes of the Smith's backyard. After fifteen minutes two clowns came out-a guy and girl, both hobos.
Normally Jen having invited hobos to her party would have made Kyle explode. She was always pulling jokes on them, like last week when she'd caused his pants and boxers drop in front of the entire school, and then acting nice to them. He preferred whitefaces like Ginger MAlloy; at least the half-harlequin girl honestly despised hobos and didn't pretend otherwise.
The hobo couple sat down on a small boulder near the hire-wire the Smiths had in their backyard, and began to kiss. Right before their lips could touch, Kyle and Larry both grabbed them and placed chloroformed cloths over their faces.
Qhickly the two cousins stripped the couple and took of their own clothes. They were both about the same height, weight and shoe size as this couple. The male was bald where Kyle had a full head of hair but the fringe around the edges was the same dingy red brown as Kyle's own. He also had been wearing a bettered bowler hat, as long as Kyle wore it down low no one should notice.
Larry dressed up in the girl's clothes. Because female hobos had the same dark beard shadow, usually cut their hair short, and dressed similar it was not hard for a male to impersonate one. Larry even rolled up her socks stuffed them up his shirt to fake breasts. Next he used a face paint kit he'd brought along to paint his nose and lips red and his cheeks pink, then glued on a set of purple eylashes like this girl had. If none looked closely he could pass for the one they'd chloroformed.
Next Larry painted Kyles nose a happy red and his lips a lighter gray. That was all Kyle needed; with the battered derby hiding his full head of hair Kyle looked almost exactly like this guy. Kyle knew both him and the girl from school, and their circle of friends. As long as they managed to avoid them no one else should notice anything.
They stepped inside. Sure, there it was, a big bowl of punch out on the table. Kyle patted his jacket pocket; he'd brought along with him a flask 99.3 proof whiskey, made by his uncle a bootlegger-another profession bums frequently engaged in-and swiped from his father's liquer cabinet. He planned to pour the whole contnet in there when no one was looking. What would happen when enough of these clowns got drunk.
Idly, he asked one auguste clown, "Where's Jen?"
"Oh her?" The auguste shrugged. "She went out with her old boyfriend Jac-Jack to pick up the pizza for tonight."
Kyle sighed. He'd have to wait for Jen to get back; without her here she probably wouldn get into trouble.
He chuckled to himself. Charley and Mitzi, another hobo and auguste whose parents worked for Ginger's family would soon be arriving in the back yard. And with them would be Skippy, the Clownton Joeys' mascot kangaroo, to add to the havac a houseful of drunken teenage clowns could wreck....