Balloon Animals for Very Sad Children

     (MARTY THE CLOWN has just arrived at a birthday party.  CARLY, BILLY, and LARISSA are all sitting in a semi-circle in front of him.)

MARTY:  --And my FAVORITE trick involves balloons.  Can you guess what I can do with balloons?

CARLY:  Scream obscenities into them?

MARTY:  Uh.  No.

CARLY:  That's what I do with socks.  My dad isn't (Air quotes) 'crazy about it' but it's the only thing that keeps me from eating my hair.

MARTY:  I...Okay.  Uh, well, that's--a thing.  But I was going to say--Balloon animals!

BILLY:  What kind of animals?

MARTY:  Any kind you want!

BILLY:  Stingrays?

MARTY:  Uh--sure.  I--Well...

BILLY:  You know, a stingray killed Steve Irwin.

MARTY:  What?

BILLY:  Steve Irwin.  A stingray killed him.

MARTY:  I--I'm confused.

BILLY:  He was the Crocodile Hunter.

MARTY:  I know who Steve Irwin was.

LARISSA:  Can you make Tasmanian Tiger?

MARTY:  Uh--sure?

LARISSA:  No, you can't.  It went extinct in 1936.  It was a marsupial cannibal.

MARTY:  I don't what that is.

LARISSA:  And you call yourself a zoologist?

MARTY:  I don't call myself that.  I call myself a clown.

LARISSA:  Sounds about right to me.

CARLY:  Can you make a zombie?

BILLY:  A zombie's not an animal.

CARLY:  I wish I was a zombie.

BILLY:  You could be a zombie if you wanted to be one, but it still wouldn't make you an animal.

CARLY:  Humans are animals.  We tell ourselves we have souls, but it's just us trying to justify our own existence.

MARTY:  Hey!  Would anybody like a balloon elephant?

LARISSA:  Elephants are going extinct too.

MARTY:  But not...balloon elephants!

LARISSA:  Do you know what poachers do to elephants after they kill them?

BILLY:  I do.  It's grotesque.

MARTY:  So!  Who's birthday is it?

CARLY:  Mine.

MARTY:  God, I was afraid of that.

CARLY:  Another year falling off the rose like a withered petal.

MARTY:  You seem sad.

CARLY:  Only a moron would be happy at a time like this.

BILLY:  Have you looked at air pollution statistics lately?

LARISSA:  I have a mark on my arm that my mom says is a birthmark, but when I touch it, it turns colors.  I've probably been exposed to radioactivity.

MARTY:  It could be a bruise.

LARISSA:  Are you saying I punch myself in the arm a lot just to make myself feel something?  Because if so...who told you?

MARTY:  Do you want to know a song I love?

CARLY:  Do you want to know how my hair tastes?

BILLY:  Can I eat some of your hair?

MARTY:  Nobody's eating anybody's hair.

LARISSA:  We're going to have to eat something when the world's food supply runs low.

CARLY:  When I'm a zombie, I'll eat other people.

MARTY:  You really like zombies, huh?

CARLY:  I like zombies like Gatsby loved Daisy.

BILLY:  My dad was reading Gatsby in our bomb shelter when he had his second stroke.

MARTY:  Are any of you kids on medication, because--?

LARISSA:  I don't believe in medication.

CARLY:  Oh, are you a Christian scientist?  There was a whole thing on NPR about them.

LARISSA:  No, I just love feeling everything that's wrong with me at all times.

BILLY:  Mr. Clown, can you make me a balloon goldfish?

MARTY:  I'm Marty the Clown.  Mr. the Clown is in prison.  But sure I can!

BILLY:  My goldfish died in the fire.

MARTY:  The--you know what?  I don't want to know.

CARLY:  Wasn't that fire ruled...suspicious?

BILLY:  No.  It wasn't.

CARLY:  Oh.

     (A beat.)

BILLY:  Do you have something you want to say, Carly?

CARLY:  No, Billy, do you?

MARTY:  What is this tension?

LARISSA:  Tension will take years off your life.  I wish I were more tense, but the preservatives they put in the peanut butter my mom gives me has essentially liquidated all my muscles.

MARTY:  I should get working on this goldfish.

BILLY:  Make sure you only give him one eye.

CARLY:  How'd he lose the eye, Billy?

BILLY:  WHAT IS YOUR PROBLEM, CARLY?

MARTY:  Kids, does anybody want to play duck, duck, goose?

LARISSA:  Do you have any idea how many diseases a duck carries in its beak?

CARLY:  Ask Billy what happened to his pet duck.

BILLY:  I swear to god, Carly...

MARTY:  I'm really wishing you kids had gotten a pony instead.

     (A beat.)

LARISSA:  We did.

MARTY:  Oh.

     (A beat.)

Well, where is it?

     (All the KIDS look at each other.)

Um...?

CARLY:  Why don't you just make us a nice balloon giraffe.

MARTY:  But where's the--?

CARLY:  Marty.  Just make us...a giraffe.

BILLY:  Yeah, Marty.  Make the giraffe.

MARTY:  But--

LARISSA:  I won't even tell you how many there are left in the wild.

CARLY:  Make it, Marty.

BILLY:  Go ahead.

     (MARTY starts to make the balloon giraffe, and as he does, he whimpers.)

End of Play