The morning after Franklin Delano Roosedog relieved himself on our friends, a damp Poo-go put his also damp slug costume back on and he and Tiny Tirdly started their trek onward through the sweaty fleshtree forest. There seemed to be no danger in sight and Tiny Tirdly skipped along contentedly, stopping now and then to pick the bladderworts and sticky willies that grew everywhere on the matted black hair-covered ground. The sweaty fleshwoods were not so large as they had seemed in the night, and in an hour they had come to the end of it and started down a narrow lane with tall jagged fleshrocks and skinstones.

  They walked down the trail for about an hour, then, after turning a corner around a particularly large fleshrock, the nekroklown and orphan found themselves in a large, impressive throne room. They blinked hard and rubbed their eyes, not comprehending how outside had become inside all of a sudden.

  All four walls of the dark room were taken up by doors of every size and shape imaginable. One of the doors had an elegantly engraved sign that said "Door to Silence". Other signs indicated some doors led to different houses, including a house next to a cemetery, a sweet house of horror, and a house of clocks. In the center of the room were two magnificent thrones built out of of tusks and fangs. On the first sat remark-upon-ably tall, very thin, dark queen examining her scaly hands. On the second throne sat a small, hairy, dumpy queen. Their heads looked like female humanoid’s faces had been stretched over the lizard’s skulls and then stapled into place. Their dark grey crowns were metal with razor-sharp edges. On either side of the thrones were statues of peafowl with large crystal feathers.

  The slender queen stretched out her fingers. "I love this nail polish, its such a deep red. By the way, are we going to the opera this evening dear?"

  "What’s playing?" the shorter queen asked meekly. She had soup stains all over the front of her sweater.

  "I don’t know, I’m not a psychic!" snapped the tall queen, who wore a tight black gown that matched her hair and deep, haunted eyes. "Oh, we have company. Martina! Bring our guests some chairs!

  There were several dour-looking underlings scattered about the door room. They were also lizards, but smaller and with nobody’s face stapled over theirs. A particularly skinny one hastily brought two wooden chairs and Tiny Tirdly and Poo-go sat down.

  "Deodata! Bring me a snack!"

  "Yes, ma’am," said another harried lizard servant, rushing out of the throne room through one of its many doors. The queens eyed Poo-Go and Tiny Tirdly suspiciously, then said:

  "I’m suspi-" she had some phlegm in her throat and cleared it loudly- "REEEAHHH!" Then she continued: I’m suspicious. Are you Swindlers? Thieves? Howlers in the dock? What are you two... things who have come to visit Queen Daria?"

  "And me, Queen Lucia!" added the shabbier queen.

  "I am Poo-Go, a Spij?kenian from the planet Spij?ken. I’m a nekroklown by trade, and this Tiny Tirdly. He’s a little orphan boy."

  What queer beings these lizard queens were, thought Tiny Tirdly. Everything was queer lately, but for some reason or other but Tiny Tirdly felt sure that Poo-Go would protect him.

  The servant named Deodata returned with a tray covered with a grey velvet cloth. Atop it were four plump dead flies. The queen hungrily snatched the tray out of Deodata’s hands and bit the head off a fat fly with her sharp teeth.

  "Mmmm, smothered in the devil’s honey just like I like ‘em!" declared the queen, her mouth full of dead fly head. "Now, while I eat I wish to be amused. You said you are a nekroklown and as a nekroklown it your business to make people laugh. Well, if you can make me laugh I will tell you which door to exit through to continue your journey. If you fail we’ll have you whipped with a cat o’nine tails for five days, then thrust into an inferno."

  "We will savor our conquest and your trauma!" added the other queen.

  The dark queen nodded emphatically at this, then said as she bit off another fly’s head:

  "You may begin now."

  The fat queen folded her hands on her stomach and leaned back. Poo-go's pimply forehead wrinkled anxiously, for the queens looked as if they had never laughed in their lives. But with a wink at Tiny Tirdly the nekroklown began. First he let out an ear splitting screech that so alarmed the Queen Lucia her crown fell off, exposing her balding head. Then Poo-gofferson turned a complete somersault, chair and all! Leaping from the chair he ran across the room on his hands, then cartwheeled back so fast one could not have told whether he was a person or a pinwheel. Next he bent double, seized his ankles with his hands and jumped in this singular position entirely over Tiny Tirdly, landing with a huge wet fart. He gave neat bow before the queens’ thrones.

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  "Did you think that was funny?" puffed the gaunt queen, turning to squarely face the portly queen, who was mopping her brow with a light blue handkerchief.

  "No- no!" stuttered Queen Lucia, in a slightly phlegmy voice. "It quite upset me. Lenza, don’t just stand there like a zombie, where's my crown?" A short hairy lizard recovered the queen's crown. "Now run and fetch me a yorcripper, and make sure its a new one." Lenza scampered away. Lucia said to Daria: I don’t understand why people think nekroklowns are funny."

  "It’s beyond me. The phenomena of clowns’ popularity is an aenigma," answered Daria, then she said to Poo-Go: "Let’s do double elimination. I’ll give you two last chances to make me laugh. Go ahead, amuse me. Try jokes this time. Make me laugh or it’s massacre time. I’ll strangle you like I would a black cat, or cut off your heads and stack them one on top of the other. Straight up murder rock." She had finished her flies-in-honey and let out a huge belch.

  "But please, spare the orphan boy, Daria,” said Queen Lucia. “You know what they say, don’t torture a duckling." The thin dark queen grunted.

  The nekroklown stared at this two of the apocalypse, a puzzled expression on his round, lumpy face. Finally, he decided to take a gamble. He cleared his throat and giggled:

  “Two queezimps were walking down a dirt road. They come across a brick. One queezimp says to the other, ‘I bet you five videotapes I can throw that brick in the air and it won’t come down’. The other queezimp takes the bet. The first queezimp throws the brick up in the air, and it falls right back down to the ground. Now one queezimp owes the other five videotapes.

  They walk a little farther down the road, and come across another brick. This time the first queezimp says “I bet you TWENTY videotapes I can throw that brick in the air and it won’t come down’. The other queezimp is confused, but takes the bet. And the same thing happens: Brick goes up, brick comes down. Now one queezimp owes the other one twentyfive videotapes.

  So they keep walking, and come upon a third brick. The first queezimp wants to do the bet again, this time for FIFTY videotapes. His friend tries to talk him out of it- he feels guilty for taking all his friend’s videotapes. But the first queezimp insists and his friend finally gives in. So the gambling queezimp picks up the third brick, throws it up in the air, and it doesn’t come down.” He stopped giggling and coughed. There was silence from the queens. Daria tapped her pointy fingernails on the arm of her throne.

  “Joke number two,” Poo-Go giggled. “A man and a woman are on an airship. The man is smoking a huge cigar, and the woman is holding a small dog. The small dog starts coughing and the woman asks the man to put his cigar out. He refuses. After a few minutes the dog is coughing even harder. Again the woman asks the man to put out the cigar, again he refuses. Eventually the dog is coughing so hard its eyes are bugging out, but the man refuses to stop smoking his cigar.

  So the woman grabs the cigar, opens a window of the plane, and throws it out. And the man, in a fit of rage, picks up the dog and throws IT out the window. Then the man and woman looked out the window and see the dog clinging to the wing of the airship. And do you know what’s in its mouth?”

  “The cigar?” asked Queen Lucia.

  “No, the brick.”

  Neither queen reacted, except that Queen Daria arched one eyebrow.

  "Well," said the gaunt lizard queen sullenly. "Do you think that's funny?" Again she turned to the squat hairy queen, who shook her head emphatically.

  "Well, I thought it was funny!" said Tiny Tirdly, jumping out of his chair. He looked indignantly from queen to queen.

  "Are you completely unsane?" snarled the queen. "If it’s so funny, why didn’t you laugh?"

  Poor Tiny Tirdly couldn't explain that laughing was a hard matter for an orphan, so he sat down rather suddenly, while Poo-go began looking all around as if he were hunting for something. He searched on each step leading to the queens’ thrones, then he looked into his Daria’s lap and, finally, running around to the back peered under the hairy queen’s collar.

  "What's the matter?" asked her shabby majesty irritably. "What are you looking for now?"

  "My joke," sighed the nekroklown, "I'm looking for my poor little joke. It was lost on you."

  ""You are a dunce," said Queen Daria, sternly. "You haven't made me laugh, not once! I think you have a cat in your brain! Guards!" She clapped twice. “Seize him!" Nothing happened. “Ugh, I’ll go get the guards!" Glaring scornfully at the two intruders, she swept out of the throne room.

  "Last chance," whispered Poo-go, winking at Tiny Tirdly. Rushing forward impetuously he flung up his hand. "Could your majesty tell me the fastest word that rhyme with toboggan?" he asked pleadingly.

  Immediately the diminutive, hirsute queen's face lit up with pleasure. She closed her eyes and began to drum with one hand on the arm of her tusk throne. If there was one thing she adored it was rhyming.

  She mumbled hurriedly under her breath, "Chochoggin, fofoggin, dodoggon, lologgin, blobbloggan. Ah, I have it- the fastest word that rhymes with tobaggan is blobbloggan!" She opened her eyes and looked around triumphantly, but the nekroklown and orphan were nowhere to be seen. In fact they had run as soon as the queen's eyes closed. Lenza had returned with the new yorcripper and Lucia swatted it out of her hands in anger.

  Poo-Go and Tiny Tirdly had run through the door closest to them. The duo ran down a hallway and up to another door, this one made of petrified poo, and tried to open it to no avail. There was a molybdenum bell on the wall next to the poo door and Poo-go rang it quickly. For a moment nothing at all happened. Then the door knob changed into claws, seized the two in a terrible clutch, and dragged them through the keyhole with a loud, wet “SCHLLUUUUURP!" Yes, it really did!