Excerpt:

The man in the jester ensemble sauntered into the store, momentarily pausing in mid stride to lift a gloved hand to his ear and flick one of the bells on his hat in answer to the tone from the door. If he had walked into any store other than the toy store, his flamboyance might have made him several enemies within those first few seconds. As it was, everyone including the cashiers and manager-in-name-only assumed he had some sort of sales-related purpose.

The man sprung from one foot to the other through the aisles. With his jingle bell topped scepter, he daintily poked at some of the prices on the toys, then tapped his chin with it as if in thought. Skipping through the store, he passed a giant metal cage the held dozens of giant plastic balls. He knocked three times on the cage with his jingle bell scepter and the balls went bouncing away like freed animals, not in the direction gravity sent them, but down six different aisles nearby. The man in the jester suit followed a pink ball and a purple one down into an aisle where two boys where analyzing the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles action figures. When the balls came to them, they promptly dropped the turtles and picked up the balls.

"Aren't they marvelous?" the jester asked them in a lilting, singsong voice. "So large, and colorful, and bouncy. So many games to think of," he sung, and it had all the power of Saturday morning cartoon advertisements.

The two boys nodded, and grinned. As badly as they had ever wanted Cinnamon Toast Crunch or a new racecar playset, it was not near as much as they now wanted to play with the giant plastic balls.

"Now you know where those balls came from, don't you? I bet you saw them when you came in. Why don't you bring the balls back there and play?" Then he tousled the boys hair and bounded away to another aisle.

In the next aisle, there were three children who had been looking at board games. The man in the jester suit smiled broadly at them. "Playing a game on a board when you could play a game with a ball? Preposterous!" And then he sent them to the ball cage. For the next few minutes or so, he walked through the toy store, finding the balls and the children they had bounced to, and sending off any who hadn't already went to the ball cage on their own.

The last one was a little girl with a sniffly nose. "Watch this trick," he told her, then pulled a three foot long, completely dry paisley handkerchief out of his mouth and handed it to her. "Now what is this you're playing with?" The girl held up a pink My Little Pony with yellow hair. "How pretty, but preposterous! Wouldn't you rather be a toy than play with a toy?" Then he pointed to the ball cage and sent her away with the green ball that had rolled towards her. It was almost as tall as she was.

At this point, all at once, many parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, older brothers, older sisters, aunts, uncles, babysitters, and family friends had converged at the help desk to report their children missing. All the adults in the store, it seemed. All but the employees, and two others, who met at the ball cage, where dozens of children stood dribbling their large balls in sync with each other, and shrieking with delight as if this were the greatest game ever created.

One of the two was the man in the jester suit. He walked up to the other, a man in a renaissance style brocaded black coat, puffy black pantaloons with orange stripes, a white shirt with a ruffled cravat, fancy white dress socks, black dress shoes. He also wore a black tri-corned hat with a small pinwheel on top, and a pin that said "I like big booty, but dubloons are nice too. He held a white teacup with scalloped edges. Steam rose up out of the cup, and the white tag of a teabag dangled over the side. He drew a rapier with a black blade, a black handle, and a tiger eye in the hilt. None of the children so much as looked up. "Who are you, and what are you doing with this children?"

"I'm bringing them for my daughters to play with," said the man in the jester suit.

"Ah, good, good. That's fine, because I think I'm your daughters' uncle," replied the man in the renaissance get-up, lowering his rapier and sheathing it.

"Marvelous! And which uncle might you be?" drawled the jester, clapping his fingers together.

"Uncle Captain Earl Grey of the Teatime," the man said, taking a bow. "And which father might you be?"

"Marvelous and well met, Uncle Captain Earl Grey of the Teatime," said the man in the jester suit, also taking a bow, but a bow which was deeper, snappier, and more flamboyant than Captain Earl Grey's had been. My daughters, methinks, call me Papa. I am Mike, or The Harlequin Masque, for short."

Captain Earl Grey took a sip of the tea, then exhaled loudly filling the air in the immediate vicinity with the smell of oranges and strongly brewed black tea. "Then merrily we have met, Mike. My porcelain teacup is parked outside. Shall we set sail to see your lovely girls, waiting on the shore?"

"Excellent idea. How auspicious that I have met my daughter's uncle," answered the Harlequin Masque. Then he clapped his hands. "Come along children."

The bouncing balls fled back into the ball cage, and the children crammed in behind them. Captain Earl Grey of The Teatime and The Harlequin Masque strolled out throught the automatic doors in the front, the wails of people searching for their children being shut into the store as the automatic doors shut behind them. The ball cage, due to it's twenty foot height, hopped out of the store through the loading dock in the back. Captain Earl Grey of The Teatime and The Harlequin Masque strolled out throught the automatic doors in the front, the wails of people searching for their children being shut into the store as the automatic doors shut behind them.