"-clowns," the fortune teller said as she took a strange pinkish dust from her pocket.
"Wait, we can't be clowns," Adam said. "I mean, we don't have any stuff or the training or-"
"Don't worry," said the fortuneteller as she blew the dust in their faces. "You will."
"Please, just let us go," pleaded Denny. "We'll be good, I prom-ah ah AH AH CHOO!" He, Adam, and Kelly all sneezed simultaneously, then stared at each other in shock and horror.
For each of them had a bulbous red clown nose.
The fortune teller squeezed Adam's nose first, then Kelly's, and finally Denny's. She giggled as a loud HONK! sounded from each."The three of you will be real clowns, not just performers in makeup, I promise,you." She removed their shoes and socks, and smiled as they grew into abnormally long clown feet. "Now, I'm afraid I've got to get ready for tonight's work."
As she stepped behind a dressing wall, Adam looked in horror as his hands and feet turned a milky white and he knew the rest of his skin was the same color. Looking at Denny and Kelly, he saw Denny's complexion become a dull orange while Kelly's went to sugar pink, with white around their eyes and mouths.Kelly's hair became fire engine red and curled into a bushy afro; black horizontal lines appeared inside the patches of white around her eyes. "Please, let us go-hee hee-," she giggled and stopped, for her voice was a Minnie Mouse soprano. "Did I just giggle?"
"You sure did," said the fortune teller as she stepped out in her old fashioned gypsy style costume but still looking an attractive young woman. "As much as I'd like to stay and watch, I've got work to do. "So-,"
she stepped in front of the vanity mirror, and right in front of the children's eyes seemed to age fifty years. Her smooth porcelain skin became leathery and wrinkled, her vibrant brown hair went scraggly gray. Her back became bent and both her nose and her chin lengthened until her profile deem to form a crescent moon. Three warts appeared one other her left eye, another at the end of her nose, and the third on her pointed chin.
"You're little joke would have done you nos good," she said with a hag's cackle as she turn to face her prisoners. Once I was like you, a carnival patron who thought to pull a prank-and I fell under it's curse." She cackled again. For a year I spent like this, until I gained the privilege to turn back at will. Yet I cannot leave, nor would if I could-and neither will you! You three may be able to change back to humans-if you earn it-but you will work as carnival clowns for the rest of your lives!" With a final cackle the crone picked up a gnarled walking stick and hobbled out the trailer door.
Adam had been so focused on the fortune teller's transformation he forgot about his own and his friends'. Now he looked in the vanity mirror and saw how his cheeks had become red with three black freckles in each one. His eyebrows were gone, replaced by arching black lines that appeared high on his forehead, and his lips were now bright red and stretched into a wide smile. Adams hair was now blue and becoming thick and curly.
Adam glanced at his friends. Kelly now had a black mouth inside her muzzle, and her eyelashes had stretched and curled into ridiculous proportions.
Denny on the other hand, had a dark black 'beard' around his muzzle and his sandy hair was becoming dark and matted. Then, all of sudden, despite being only thirteen, the hair on top fell out, leaving a horseshoe of thick greasey hair around a dull orange dome.
"You're bald!" Adam laughed, then stopped. Why did he laughed; there was nothing funny about what was happening to them. And why had his voice sounded so deep with that goofy lilt?
"I'm not the only one," Denny replied in a comically mournful tone. Adam looked back at the mirror and saw he was right; the hair on the top of Adam's head was gone, a thick mass of blue curls surrounding a dome as smooth and white as an egg.
"You're both bald!" giggled Kelly. She of course sill had all her hair-and now a pair ofinsect like antenna sprouted out of the thick curly red bush.
"Stop that!" cried Adam, his voice now even deeper and goofier. He he-this isn't-hee hee-funny at all!" He now couldn't help himself he lete go at full blat. "HEEHEEHEEEHEEHEEHEEHEEHEEHEEHEEEHEE!"