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In the Center Ring

A Story by Geo Holms

The blue bunny nibbled at his cotton candy, waiting for the show to start. Kami mused at the big top interior, audience seating all around the perimeter, three rings in the middle. His big rabbit ears a-twitched in anticipation, waiting for the show to began. He'd never been to a circus before and he really wanted to see what the fuss was about.

His friends raved about all the sights and scenes. Especially something they described as a clown monster dog, which his mind couldn't quite parse. He didn't know what a clown monster would look like. A clown? A monster? Something in between. His friends always chuckled when he tried to get details, and told him that he would have to see for himself. Now here he sat, ready to see for himself what a clown monster was.

The lights dimmed and the show began.

Kami held his breath as the tightrope walker, a raccoon of much brovado, bounced along the high wire. He cheered as the flying-squirrel cannonball shot across the three rings. He clapped wildly at elephant tap-dance routine. But through every event on display in those three rings, he kept wondering about that clown monster dog, his mind still rotating possibilities in his head, running through the proportions of monster to dog to clown they could be. Maybe it would be a scary clown, with fangs and blood and claws.

At this thought, Kami thought maybe he didn't want to see what a clown monster dog could be. Maybe he should go home to the safety of his den and snuggle his carrots and hope the clown monster didn't get him. He nibbled on his paws, glancing at the lit EXIT signs.

The badger ringmaster appeared on the right ring, spot light making his smile gleam as he spun his walking stick. "And now, the part of the show you've all been waiting for..." He pointed his stick at the center ring, "The comic rigamoles of TUUUUUUUUUUUUSK the CLOOOOOOOOOOOWNNNNNNNN!"

The spotlights all swung around to focus on the center ring.

The empty center ring.

A creature suddenly flopped into the light. "Oh! Sorry! Sorry! I was on the left ring! I-" The creature tripped over his own big feet and onto his nose with a loud HONK. The audience giggled, and Kami leaned forward. He'd never seen a creature such as this before.

The had to admit that the term "clown monster dog" was apt. The creature had a big red nose, large fangs (though oddly not-scary), a mane of bright orange fur, blue spots over his white hide, just a strange mix of clown and monster features on a stocky plump frame, all coming together with a pink bow with white pokadots on his neck. In fact, Kami thought the term “monster” was entirely too strong. Maybe more of a clowndog?

Kami watched as the creature balanced a ball on his nose, then balanced on the ball with his nose, then dug into his bag of tricks, confetti and streamer going everywhere. As the creature moved through each routine, Kami grew more enamored, and almost wished he could get a closer look.

The clown monster rose his voice, loud and squeaky, "For my next part, I'm gonna need a volunteer from the audience!" He made a show of looking out over the audience for willing volunteers. Kami saw many beasts throw their paws into the air, and after a few seconds, his own paw followed, not thinking that...

The spotlight blinded him. "You! The blue bunny! Come on down!"

Before Kami could react, he was pulled from his seat by a gruff circus bear in a tutu who carried him down from the stands to the middle ring, set next to Tusk. The circus monster smiled widely down at him. He presented a big paw to the bunny. Kami stared at the huge clawed paw, then back up at the clowndog, and the smile was so warm and comforting, Kami couldn't help smile.
"Hi! I'm Tusk! What's your name?"

"Ah...I'm Kami." The blue bunny patted the huge presented paw, causing Tusk to give a squeaky chuckle.

"Don't be nervous, Kami! I'm sure we're gonna be good friends! Now let's have some fun."

Tusk turned to his bag of tricks and pulled out a few bowling pins. He tossed the pins into the air and started juggling them. As he juggled, he pulled more items from the bag: a tennis racket, a lamp, then, somehow, an anvil, without missing a beat, all the items being thrown into high arcs, caught, passed between his big paws, then tossed back up.

"Come on over, Kami. I need you."

The blue bunny hopped over tentatively. "What do you need me t-aaaaaaaah!"

Kami found himself as the next item being juggled by the clowndog, his limbs flailing as he went up, down, passed between Tusk's deft paws, then tossed back up again into the air, watching as the other items flew past him. This happened happening for a few more rounds, and the bunny's panic almost had moved to excitement when, going up, he heard a clunk, and looked down in time to see the second pin hit clunk in the middle of the circus monster's head, causing him to wobble out of balance.

As the bunny found himself at the top of the arc, he saw the tennis rack hit the creature, then the lamp crash, causing Tusk to fall to the side. Kami fell onto his fluff rabbit butt where Tusk had been standing a moment before, he looked to the clowndog, literal birds tweeting above Tusk's head, when he remembered something.

What had happened to the anvil?

He looked up just in time to see it fall right onto his face.

Thankfully, being a toony bunny, Kami was used to this sort of thing.

However, an anvil had still landed on him, so he couldn't move.

A moment later, he saw light again, the anvil being pulled away, Tusk's concerned face looking down at him, hearing the laughter from the audience in the background. "Oh! Sorry! That was supposed to land on me!"

He reached down and peeled the disk of toony bunny off the ground, Kami only able to twitch weakly, all mobility hindered by his current much flatter form, he felt his face going hot, thinking of all the beasts watching seeing him like this.

The clowndog looked between the audience and the flattened bunny in his big paws. He brought the bunny's flat face up close. "Ur...hope you don't mind, the audience kinda seems to like it and I don't wanna disappoint them. Sorry about this."

Sorry about what? Kami is unable to ask this as the monster sets the disked bunny onto the ground. He watches from his helpless state the monster digging through his bag of tricks and pulling out some sticks and some plates. Plate by plate, his sets one at a time spinning on the sticks, precariously balanced, occasionally shaking the sticks to keep the plates spinning. Kami had to admit the monster's paws were surprisingly deft for being so big.

Tusk took one more stick from the bag and came over to the bunny. No, Kami thought, he wouldn't. Kami could barely manage to twitch as the clowndog picked him up, flipped him, and set him spinning on the stick. Through the blur and dizziness, he could feel the stick on his underside, rubbing against his flattened footpaws and cottontail.

Meanwhile, the audience clapped and cheered as Tusk balanced back on his tail, four plates on sticks balanced on his four limbs, the bunny disk spinning on a stick balanced on his snout. They laughed uproariously as the monster lost balance of everything, and with a flailing of limbs and crashing plates, flopped to the ground.

He sat up, gave a big smile and a wave to the audience, then got up to his, trying to find where the bunny had ended up, looking about the ground at the broken plates. As he spun around, he heard the giggling and laughing increase. The monster looked down to see the bunny out of disk form, but his full body flattened across the clowndog's front, his surprised expression facing outward.

Tusk peeled the blue bunny off his front, murmuring an embarrassed sorry to Kami before turning to the audience. "Why don't you give another round of applause for my adorable assistant."

Kami's face went red, not only from being flattened like this, but also being called "adorable". When he got out of this, he would hide his burrow forever. He wondered how many carrots he could order in bulk.  He tried to pop back out of his flattened state. Currently, he could only sway a little back and forth in the monster's plush grasp.

Tusk brought him over to the bag of tricks and pulled out a tank. Kami saw the word helium on the side, and tried to say something, but couldn't manage anything besides a surprised squeak as the hose was stuck into his mouth.

His cheeks ballooned out, then his body reappeared, then his limps fwooped out as the air filled his form, and then kept filling him, and he started floating off the ground. Tusk's eyes widened, and the audience laughed harder.

The clowndog tried to turn off the dial to off, and ended up breaking it off with his large paw, and the air filled up Kami further, soon turning him into a round blue bunny ballooning out and floating up, only able to make muffled squeaks through the hose in his mouth.

Tusk grabs one of the bunny's ears with one paw, and yanks the hose with the other. The hose comes loose, but Kami does not deflate. Tusk reaches behind his back and pulls out a pin. "I think we need to let out some air out." He glances up at the inflated bunny and whispers. "Sorry, good fellow. It's the only way. I swear, won't hurt a bit."

Kami's eyes widened and he tried to shake his head at what the clowndog was about to do. He could only wiggle his paws helplessly as Tusk brought him down, and then poked the pin into his tummy. With the sound of a deflating balloon, the blue bunny balloon let out his excess air, swooping about the tent until he flopped back at the clowndog's feet, back to normal.

The clowndog knelt down and rubbed Kami's head, and despite all the hijinx that had just transpired, he relaxed under that huge plush paw, leaning into its rubbing, forgetting the hijinx, the circus, the audience.

Then he heard the laughing. Something was off. He looked down and found his brown pants were missing, leaving him pantless in front of all these people.

Tusk lifted him up, smiling at the audience, he spoke in a hushed whisper. "Don't worry, bun. Let's get you out of here for now." He walked over to the bag of tricks and dropped Kami in, who fell through the opening of the bag, down, down, onto something soft. He looked up in time to see the clowndog looking down far above from the opening of the bag. "See you after the show." He shut the bag, leaving Kami to sit their in the dark.

Time passed. Kami considered his options and found he had none. Had he just been kidnapped? Should he be calling for help? Should he be panicking? Should he try and find some pants down here? None of these questions had immediate answers, so he hopped around in a circle, uncertain of wandering far in the dark expanse that made up the inside of this bag.

Without warning, plush claw gripped his ears and pulled him up, up, up and out into the open, and face to face with the smiling clowndog. "Hi there! Sorry about all that." The monster set Kami down. When he looked around, he saw a mirror surrounded by colored lights, dozens of makeup containers, deflated balloons, confetti and streamers everywhere, colorful posters on all the surrounding walls, and more devices for hijinx purposes scattered around, Kami swore he even saw a clothes wringer among the clutter. "This is my dressing room," Tusk explained, "Sorry for the mess. Find that chaos helps me to focus. So many fun bits and pieces scattered around, keeps presenting new and fun ideas. Like you, good bunny!"

"Like me?"

"Oh yeah! You're a natural, buddy! Was so much fun playing off you! Sorry for throwing you into it, but the show must go on and all that. Hope you didn't mind."

Kami was about to give the clowndog a piece of his mind for using him for juggling and dropping an anvil on him and inflating him and making him lose his pants and throwing him into the bag. Yet, when he looked at the clowndog's face, he found any anger contained faded away under the monster's embarrassed grin, those big eyes hopeful, hoping he didn't disappoint, hope so hard that it looked like the monster might cry if Kami said the wrong thing. So the bunny changed course and said: "Naw. I had fun."

And weirdly, as he said this, and thought about it, it all had been rather fun, the strange rush with each progressive escalating event, which he normally would never admit, but in the face of Tusk, he couldn't help let himself embrace the experience as fun.

The clowndog's face broke into a wider smile and before the bunny could react, he found himself pulled into a big hug in the monster's thick plush limbs. "I'm glad you liked it! Isn't it fun? Getting a reaction from the audience? I like it when they like me. It really is the best." He swung back and forth as he hugged the bunny, the hug growing tighter and tighter, though with those plush-light limbs, the hug remained pleasant and cozy. Kami found the hug amazing.

Tusk suddenly released and set the blue bunny down. "Sorry! I got carried away. I tend to get carried away. Especially with such cute beasties. Sorry! Didn't mean to say that! I meant to say you were a really really cutie beastie. Urf!" The clowndog hid his face behind his huge paws.

"Oh. Y-you don't have to be sorry." Kami shuffled his feet.

The monster's face lit up. "Really? That's so cool! It would be cool if you come to a show again. That would be really fun. You were a really really good assistant. Most assistants are angry or something after. I don't know what I'm doing wrong. I just wanna make people happy. Making people happy is awesome."

Kami found the clowndog endearing. "Well...you're awesome at...being awesome," he said, shuffling his paws.

"D'awwwwwwww! Thanks for saying that! That's really nice of you! How about I get you a present for being such a cool assistant." Tusk scampered over to an open trunk and started digging through it, his thick tail wagging back and forth.

Kami looked down at himself and found he still didn't have any pants. He gave a squeak and covered himself, looking around frantically for something to cover himself with. He spotted his browns pants, half-way in the clothes wringer. Tusk must have found them and washed them. Not wanting to bother the clowndog, he tip-toed over to the clothes ringer and tried to pull out the pants with a paw, while his other paw still attempted to cover himself.

The pants were damp and stuck in the wringer. Kami gave another yank. The pants didn't budge.

Kami turned to ask the clowndog to help, just in time to see Tusk's thick tail hit a rubber chicken, sending it flying across the room.

The rubber chicken flew into a shelf of precariously stacked joke books.

One of the joke books fell onto a toy cannon on the shelf below.

The toy cannon shot out a flag with the word BANG!!! on it, in the process turning on a fan next to it.

The fan started blowing air across a desk, causing an over-sized novelty pencil to roll off the side onto the floor.

The pencil rolled into a catapult switch, causing a bowling ball to go sailing through the air.

The bowling ball landed on a pillow on Tusk's bed, causing a few feathers to expel out of the side.

Kami breathed a sigh of relief that nothing too terrible happened. Tusk still dug through the trunk, unaware anything happening.

The blue bunny is still held the pants tight when a single feather from the pillow floated down onto the switch of the laundry wringer, causing it to click, and with a sudden whirr of machinery the pants and bunny were pulled through the wringer with a toony fwuhfwuhfwuhfwuhfwuhsqueeEEEAAAAaakkkkfwapwapwap!

The bunny floated to the floor in his re-newed flattened state, his pants flopping to the ground next to him.

Tusk gave an "Ah-ha!" sound and yanked something out of the chest, losing his balance, falling on his back, right onto the flattened bunny. The clowndog got up, brushing himself off. "I found it!" He held up a carrot, looking about for the bunny, but Kami was no where to be seen. "D'awwww. Kami? Where did you go?"

The bunny found he couldn't really respond being stuck to the back of the plush creature.

"Oh!" The clowndog found the bunny's pants. "He must have left these by mistake! It would be rude not to return them, he was such a nice bunny after all. He must have had some bunny business to take care of just now. Still wanted to say good bye...oh, well!"

Kami gave a mental sigh. He figured he would fall off the back of the clowndog eventually, or someone would notice him. He hoped.

In any case, the bunny thought this might be the start of a very interesting relationship.