Johnny Kazoo

Johny wiped sweat from his brow. Perhaps this batch would be it? Just a little more heat. After the strange liquid came to a boil, he pulled it from the stove and pushed it into the ice box. "Don't fall." He whispered over and over again as he cleaned up the barn he used as a workshop. He had been trying to make a horse hoof free gelatin for the past ten years. His first experiments were burned into the barn floor. One in particular had melted through metal pot and left a large hole that took him weeks to carefully scoop out the liquid with a glass cup. It was the only thing that held it without melting. Now it was just a hole that threatened to trip him is he wasn't paying attention.

He paused from his cleaning and gave ThunderCleft a pat. ThunderCleft was an old race horse, but he was able to save him from the gelatin factories of Gel'no. He had purchased the barn himself with the proceeds from his attraction. His parents had been against the purchase, but what was a single horse and a run down barn compared to what they got on a daily basis.

ThunderCleft pawed at the ground as Johny gave him one last pat and a kiss on his velvety muzzle. "I'll be back tonight with popcorn," the horse huffed, "Fine, also a caramel apple. It's not good for you, but I'll let it slide. You're too old for it to matter."

He double checked that his ice box was properly hidden under a couple bales of hay. Once satisfied, Johny left the barn to do his afternoon show. It wasn't his idea, but at some point he had shown a knack for the instrument and eventually his parents had found a way to profit from it.

Twelve years later Johny was 16 and still doing three shows a day with Tuesdays and Wednesdays off. He went to the large, maroon, tent that took up most of his family's property, and slipped into his room. It was decorated with photos of him doing his act at increasingly younger ages. He didn't like seeing it all the time. His parents had insisted it would be good motivation and inspiration.

Sure he was good, but he didn't think that it would still be a viable means of life twelve years later. But everyday, three times a day the tent filled up with paying spectators to see his stupid parlor trick.

The bell by his door jingled. He had five minutes. He took a breath and grabbed his case. It was just another day in his life. The world may be a stage, but his stage was inside maroon cloth walls.

He stood by the curtain until he was cued in by his father Richardo. Richardo had embraced the large, waxed mustached stereotype of ring leaders. He had even bought himself a good suit, a top hat and greased his hair with shoe polish to look the part.

His mother, Licia, used to do tricks with Helga the elephant. After the elephant had died of dysentery a few years ago his mother bought a seal named Simon. Currently Licia was trying to teach Simon to juggle. Though more often than not, Simon had a problem with dehydration. "He acts so impatient when I try to fill his pool," Licia once said when Johnny asked why Simon didn't have water.

So it was alone that Johny stepped into the ring. Announced by a name he had heard so many times that it might as well have been his legal name.

Johny Kazoo.

Johny Kazoo stopped at a stand and rested his case on it. He didn't say anything, he didn't have to. The audience was enraptured by the scrawny boy with wispy hair and pale skin. He opened the case and pulled out the first instrument.

Despite how much he hated his shtick, he always admired this instrument. It had been a gift from the great Boozdoole himself, the inventor of kazoos. It was different that other kazoos. It was much larger, with several holes that helped him do his performance without the strange garden hose kazoo Johnny made when he was younger.