"....as my character Tootlebug."
Nelly sat down in a chair as her sisters got to work on her. Olivia applied white greasepaint all over Nellie's face, then patted it all over with baby powder. After the excess powder was brushed away, Nicky drew wide blue eyebrow arches on Nelly's forehead, and blue triangles right underneath the eyes. Tiffany painted red hearts over Nelly's cheeks, then gave her youngest sister a big wide red clown smile.
After her makeup was done, Nicky glued a ping-pong sized red ball covered with glitter over Nelly's nose, and Olivia went to Nelly's room and came back with her costume-a classic one piece clown suit, red on one side and yellow on the other. The yellow side was covered with red hearts; the red side with yellow. White ruffled lace bordered the wrists and blue pom-poms ran up the middle.
Nelly got out of the chair and stepped into her suit. After Nicky clasped the last buttons in the back, she helped Nelly put on some white gloves and a white hood over her head, coving up all Nelly's skin. After stepping into a pair of red and yellow high-tops, a curly yellw afro style wig was placed on Nelly's head, and she stood before her triplet sisters as her clown character 'Tootlebug.'
"All right, Patches, Peaches, and Rosey," she said, giving Nicky, Ollivia, and Tiffany their new clown names, "we better get going to the Y, shouldn't we? After all, we don't want to make our instructors mad again, do we?"