No Longer the Family Clown novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Badger Gets Stuck
Bobby hides his sister's panic attack behind a badger costume at the school gala, and the family blames him for ruining his brother's recital. He hands back the form they promised him and walks out.
I was wearing a badger head the size of a washing machine when I heard my sister start to wheeze.
It was the school fall gala, and I was the mascot, standing alone at the back by the exit doors.
My brother sat at the grand piano on stage with his hands on the keys.
He had been waiting there for the room to go silent.
In row B sat a man with a clipboard from the arts academy, my dad's old college roommate.
He had driven in to hear my brother play.
In row F sat my family, and my sister had the seat against the wall.
Her wheezing was the only sound in the auditorium.
Mom whispered, "Breathe, honey, breathe," and three rows of heads turned around.
Dad whispered, "Carolyn, do something," and that made it four.
My sister had made me swear years ago that nobody would ever watch her have one of these.
I had sworn.
So I did what I do.
I took a pair of sunglasses from the strap pocket inside the badger's mouth.
I put them on over the foam eyes.
I keep sunglasses in every jacket I own, and Barnaby the Badger had a jacket.
Then I walked down the center aisle waving at every parent I passed, slowly, one at a time.
The parents on both sides began to laugh.
That was beat one, getting their eyes off row F.
Beat two was keeping them on me.
I turned into row E and said, "Pardon me, pardon me, badger coming through."
The head was wider than the row.
I got stuck at the knees of a man in a golf shirt.
So I shook his hand, and then his wife's hand, and then the hand of the woman behind them.
It took three parents and the vice principal to pull me out.
While they pulled, every phone in the left section was pointed at a stuck badger.
Out of the corner of the foam eye I saw Mom stand up and get her arm around my sister.
She slid her along the wall to the side door, and the door closed behind them.
Beat three was the big one.
I climbed the stage steps and took the handheld microphone from the emcee.
"Ladies and gentlemen," I said, "the badger has lost his car keys."
The room laughed.
"If anyone is holding them, come quietly and nobody gets hurt."
The room laughed harder, and the emcee wiped his eyes.
Behind me the piano bench creaked.
My brother had stood up.
He leaned to the second microphone and said very politely, "That's okay, everyone. I'll do it another time."
Then he walked off the stage.
The man with the clipboard capped his pen, picked up his coat, and left through the lobby doors.
In the gym bag under my seat, my phone buzzed twice.
I could not answer it, because I was a seven-foot badger with no thumbs.
In the lobby, Mom came through the doors with my sister's cardigan over her arm.
She took the badger's ears in both hands and pulled the head off me.
She did it in front of the vice principal, six parents and every phone in the lobby.
My hair was soaked.
"Do you have any idea what you just did?" Mom said.
"June was having..."
"Colin has worked for this for two years!"
Her voice cracked in the middle.
"Do you ever think, Bobby? Do you ever once think?"
June stood a little behind her with her arms folded tight and stared at the carpet.
I waited for her to say something.
She looked at the carpet.
Dad walked over with Colin beside him, and Colin already had his coat on.
"It's fine," Colin said, and he touched Mom's arm. "Really. Bobby was only trying to help. I'm fine."
He sounded like he had practiced it.
Dad did not look at me.
He took a folded letter out of his jacket.
"I'm sending this to the academy on Monday, Colin," he said. "My friend heard enough tonight to know you're worth the slot."
Mom said, "Gordon, thank you," and wiped her face.
The slot was the one recommendation Dad got to send this year.
He had promised it to me in August, in the kitchen, with his hand on my shoulder.
"That's my slot," I said.
Dad finally looked at me.
"You've had your stage for the night, Bobby."
I went to the gym bag by the door.
Under my phone, which showed two new messages I did not open, was the form Dad had given me that summer.
His signature was already on it.
I held it out.
"Here," I said. "It's signed. Give it to whoever you want."
Nobody took it, so Colin did.
I took the sunglasses off, folded them, and put them in my pocket.
"Next time you need a clown," I said, "find someone else."
I walked out past forty phones, and every one of them was still recording.
Nobody called after me.
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