image [https://i.ibb.co/bMftjBTj/SS2-C01.jpg]
Once upon a time in the year 3086 there was a planet called Sifillis, and on this planet was a continent called Pus, and on this continent was a country called Bonertania, and in this country was an isolated kingdom called Krapateria, home of the lumpy, brown-skinned Krapaterians. The Krapaterians had no idea their kingdom was located inside a country on a continent, because due to the surrounding jagged mountain ranges Krapateria had never had contact with the planet beyond their own little municipality.
A passing hirsute insuffilating viper doused a massive brown circus wigwam with thick brown drops of rain. It was hot and stuffy inside the tent, where the Przygnebiajacy Spektakl circus was well underway, performing their last gig in this town before moving on. All over the big wigwam people moved about restlessly on the hard seats, and grumbled when sudden splashes of rain came pelting through the wigwam top. The chief nekroklown ran distractedly around both rings. He stood on his head, he walked on his hands, he leaped over an elderly wool-less mammoth, he farted riddles in morse code, he pretended he was a balky jackass reading an upside-down newspaper, he hammered nine inch nails into his nostrils, he set his pants on fire, he gargled razor blades, he did five minutes of really tight stand-up comedy.
But no one laughed. They didn't even smile at his oldest jokes.
"This is too terrible," gulped the nekroklown. Poo-gofferson was the nekroklown’s name and Poo-gofferson was a Spijökenian from the planet Spijöken, which meant his brownish-green (or greenish-brown) body looked like a pear-shaped beanbag chair, with his face on the top part of the pear. His arms were long and spindly and ended in bony, claw-like hands. He had eyes like a coffin fly, a jagged snout like a zebrahog, and a wide mouth full of rotting yet sharp yellow teeth like a belchckin. He had been a nekroklown since birth and had white clown make-up smeared all over his face, and wore a dingy stained yellowing clown suit and hat that were white when he bought them.
"Not one real laugh the whole afternoon! What's the matter with these folks anyway?" He wiped the perspiration from his forehead, then ran to his prop trunk and rummaged around until he found and climbed into his best slug costume. He maneuvered out to the center of the ring but his sadly discovered that even his best gastropod impression did nothing to lighten the audience’s mood. Also, if there were any actual slugs in the audience they would’ve been highly offended by his material.
It was beginning to thunder now, and the mammoths, amniotic sloths, scroatgoats, and other animals such as seals in the outside wigwams set up a dreadful roaring. From looking bored, the audience began to look frightened. Something must be done. The worried nekroklown, still in his slug costume and annoyed at the audience, rushed into the center ring and sprang to the back of the old big lumpy brown wool-less mammoth.
"Ladies and gentlemen and everyone else!" shouted Poo-Go, waving his arms to attract attention. “I am about to perform one of the most astonishing and amazing feats ever executed- a trick that has astounded the many crowned heads of Krapateria!"
People on the back rows, who were already pushing their way toward the exits, paused. A little girl in the cheap seats cheered faintly. Thus encouraged, Poo-Go turned a really marvelous somersault and landed on the tip of the mammoth’s trunk.
"Will some small child kindly step forward," begged Poo-Go, glancing hurriedly along the front rows. "For this trick I need a small, active boy. Ah, there he is!"
Urging the decrepit mammoth to the very edge of the ring, Poo-Go snatched a small brown boy- surprisingly un-lumpy for a Krapaterian- from a group of big-eyed orphans who had been brought to the circus for a special treat. The crowd gasped with surprise, and the terrified orphan tried to wriggle away, but Poo-Go held on firmly in one of his large bony hands.
"One ruffle of this boy’s hair, and he float three feet in the air! Watch!" cried Poo-Go, putting his sharp, yellowing fingernails to the struggling boy’s head. Then Poo-go suddenly blanked- he had forgotten the thaumaturgic charm that would temporarily make the boy hover- (despite all the magic tricks in his repertoire this was the only bit of actual thaumaturgy Poo-go knew). With a shrill whistle that made even the old mammoth prick up his ears reeled off the first ridiculous rhyme that popped into his head. And this was it:
"I’m a nekroklown!
Go to Honkytown!
Quarter pounder, utter downer,
Now you're a Honkytowner!"
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
A roar of delight went up from the crowd, for the orphan had disappeared- disappeared as completely as a fart! Poo-go was shocked.
"Help!" screamed Poo-Go, dancing frantically up and down. The audience was enchanted and rocking to and fro with merriment.
"That's the best trick I've ever seen," gurgled a fat man, mopping his face. "Look at him pretending to be frightened!” The head of the orphanage wasn’t amused. He hollered:
“Come on now, bring him back, you!"
Poo-Go was in a tizzy. He didn’t know how that rhyme had popped into his head, or where the orphan had disappeared to. The only thing he could think of was to try it again. H cried out the verse while pulling off the headpiece off of his slug costume:
"I’m a nekroklown!
Go to Honkytown!
Quarter pounder, utter downer,
Now you're a Honkytowner!"
There was a tearing rip and a clap of thunder. The crowd stared, rubbed its eyes and stared again. No nekroklown, no orphan! Why, this was tremendous! They stamped with glee and shouted their approval. But the ringmaster- who was very, very drunk- fell breathlessly against a post. In a few seconds the crowd stopped laughing as suddenly as it had begun. Bumbershoots were brandished furiously, and people shouted at the ringmaster to produce the orphan at once. The ringmaster gaped at them and shook in his shiny shoes, but he resolved to save himself if he could. Raising his intestine whip for silence, he announced in his most impressive voice that the best part of the trick was to come- that Poo-Go and orphan were at that minute standing at the circus gate to wave good-bye to the audience, one of the most distinguished and delightful audiences it had ever been their pleasure to entertain. He clicked his heels together, made a deep bow and the crowd, convinced that he was speaking the truth, began to stream out of the big wigwam. Without waiting another second, the ringmaster grasped the old mammoth by the ear and ran him out the back of the wig-wam. In five minutes he had summoned the whole circus and the troupe was dashing about in the pelting rain, dragging out cages, prodding the mammoths, tugging at the big trained iguanas, pulling down the wigwams, and putting the trapeze artist back into cryogenic stasis.
"Something terrible has happened; we've got to move out of here," chattered the owner of the show, a fat old hairless badger-shaped yokai named Stanley, as he rushed from group to group. By the time the indignant old gentleman who had brought the orphans to the circus had been to the gate and back, the first of the heavy circus wagons was already rattling over the hill. The few workmen, hastening the last bits of loading, shook their heads dully when he demanded the orphan and, after threatening and stamping in vain, the distracted old gentleman ran off to fetch the police, with the thirty-nine other orphans splashing dejectedly behind him.
Police! What could police do against thaumaturgy? Speaking of thaumaturgy, how did Poo-Go know that the rhyme that had popped into his head was an old thaumaturgic charm? It had carried off the orphan like a skyrocket, and when Poo-Go had frantically repeated the thaumaturgy words, he too had been snatched into the air, hurled through the wigwam top, and flung down beside the frightened little boy in the strangest land he had ever seen. Fortunately they had fallen on a soft dune of blue sand. Poo-go’s slug costume also provided him with a modicum of protection.
Poo-Go was in a tizzy. Not knowing what else to do, he leapt to his feet and shouted:
"I’m a nekroklown!
Go to Honkytown!
Quarter pounder, utter downer,
Now you're a Honkytowner!"
Nothing happened. Poo-Go looked doubtfully at the orphan, twisting the head of his slug costume in his long skeletal fingers.
"Well, here we are," he said, winking more from force of habit than because he felt particularly jolly. Around them for miles and miles stretched a flat, depressing blue desert.
"Yes, sir!" gulped the orphan, swallowing hard. Tirdly had wet his pants at some point in the last three minutes.
"Now don't call me sir just because I worked in a cir-cus. My name is Poo-gofferson, but call me Poo-go, won't you, bro?" he said. He smiled, showing his jagged yellow teeth. "And what is your name?"
"Tiny Tirdly," sniffed the orphan, with another swallow.
“Well, Tiny, let’s go see if we can find someone to tell us where we are.”
"Yes, sir," said Tiny Tirdly solemnly, for he was a very solemn little boy. Living in the Krapaterian Orphan Asylum had made him that way and, as for adventures, he had never had an adventure in his life. There were lessons and meals and punishments, and once in a while a fight among the older boys, but no one in that big, busy home had time to talk to Tiny Tirdly, nor answer his questions. So the big-eyed Tiny Tirdly had grown quieter and more solemn each year of the seven he had spent in the dull brown asylum.
Poo-go looked at the little boy curiously as he trudged along beside him. The kindly nekroklown decided that he was going to like Tiny Tirdly, and right there he decided that Tiny Tirdly was going to have a little fun. "I'll bet he's never laughed out loud in his whole life," thought Poo-Go to himself, and began running over in his head the funniest jokes that he knew. He had just decided on the one about the elkfish with diarrhea, when an ear splitting screech knocked all thought of joking out of his mind. Suddenly a company of screaming and hooting brutes descended upon them in a whirl of scimitars, cleavers, large salamis, machetes, slingshots, machine guns, shotguns, clubs, blackjacks, switchblades, samurai swords, sharpened petrified poo sticks, veiny vines with big rocks tied to the end, bricks, hammers, high heeled shoes and at least one flying guillotine.
image [https://i.ibb.co/20DHwkK1/c01.jpg]