Greetings, folks!
Please remove high heels and any other ridiculous or pointy clothing before sliding.
P.S. WEDGIE WARNING: Slip on a pair of padded pants, unless you don’t mind a really good buttock burn – it’s awfully steep!
P.P.S. If you read ‘buttock burn’ without the edges of your mouth turning up, please skip testing rooms and move straight to treatment rooms, Level 2.
Blue leant over the edge and looked down. The slide was a near vertical drop before it twisted and turned its way down the hillside. At the end, she could see a funny-shaped round building, which looked a lot like a plump baby’s bottom.
‘That’s the Crumpety Worpel down there,’ said Bessie. ‘No steps, I’m afraid.’
Bessie and Blue pulled out two pairs of padded pants from the box and put them on. Bessie tucked her long skirt into the pants as much as she could. Her thin stripy legs were like candy canes poking out of a giant nappy. The two of them resembled overgrown babies. Bessie tried and failed to swallow a laugh. Without thinking, Blue coughed up a fake one as she always did when other people laughed.
‘AR HA HA HAAR!’
Bessie turned to Blue and smiled. ‘No need to pretend for me, luv. I don’t mind that you can’t laugh. Not one bit. And besides, it’ll only confuse things.’
Blue was taken aback. No one had ever told her that they didn’t mind she couldn’t laugh. Usually, people just called her a sourpuss or a grump or a misery guts. Or thought she was too stupid to get the joke. Blue felt a huge sense of relief. Pretending to laugh was exhausting.
‘All right,’ said Blue. ‘And I don’t mind if you do laugh. I love the sound of laughter, even if I can’t join in.’
‘It’s a deal,’ said Bessie, sticking out a jingly-jangly hand. Blue and Bessie shook on it.
Bessie sat down at the top of the giant slide and gestured for Blue to sit in front.
‘Oh, hang on,’ said Bessie. She zipped up her possum pockets. ‘Don’t want Dolly and Makeba falling out. Okay, ready now.’
Bessie wrapped an arm around Blue’s waist and pushed off. It was like dropping off the end of the Earth. They flew down the slide at breakneck speed, then spun and tumbled over each other as they shot round shoelace loops and curly pigtail bends. Eventually, the slide flattened out and they slowed to a stop at the baby’s bottom.
‘That was SO fun!’ said Blue. ‘Can we do that again?’
‘We will,’ said Bessie, ‘when we leave – backwards! It sucks you up and spits you out the top!’ Bessie laughed. She took off the padded pants, straightened her skirt and checked her pocket possums. ‘Will you look at that? They could sleep through anything, those two. Now, how’d you feel about being tickled?’
Blue realised she’d forgotten all about tickling. ‘I can’t remember the last time someone tickled me.’
‘Well, get ready,’ said Bessie, ‘’cause next up is the Tickle Machine. Completely forgot about the Tickle Machine. Wish I’d taken a pee before we left home. There’s no other way in, I’m afraid.’
The Tickle Machine – in case you’ve never had the pleasure – looks a lot like one of those drive-through car washes. Bessie ushered Blue to stand on a pair of large painted feet at the beginning of a long glass corridor. With a jerk, the floor beneath them began to move. They were on a conveyor belt, and coming towards them like giant feather dusters were four cylindrical spinning arms.
‘Oh no!’ shrieked Bessie, as a rotating wall of feathers and electronic fingers swallowed her up.
Seconds later, the Tickle Machine gobbled up Blue. She could no longer see Bessie, but she could hear her squawking with laughter, begging them to turn it off. Blue could feel fingers squeezing her knees and tickling her armpits, feathers softly brushing under her nose and tickling inside her ears. She realised she must have stopped being tickly when she lost her laughter. Blue didn’t feel a thing other than mild irritation and a sneeze coming on.
Eventually, the Tickle Machine spat Blue and Bessie out into the Laughter Clinic lobby.
Bessie straightened up her skew-whiff stripy beanie. A man with a donkey head looked up at them from behind a counter.
‘Good morning, marmaladies. What can we do for you?’ he said, before proceeding to make a honking noise that sounded like an overweight pelican trying to fly. ‘ORONK … ORONK … ORONK. Sorry, marmaladies. There’s something up my nose. Been bothering me all morning.’ He stuck a finger up his rather large donkey nostril and had a poke around.
‘We’re from Dr Boogaloo’s. We’re here for a Laughter Detection Test,’ said Bessie.
‘Not for you, obviously,’ said the man, looking at Bessie and winking, one finger still poking around his nostril. ‘So it must be you,’ he said, looking at Blue while doing an extremely strange, pretend gallop on the spot. ‘Testing Room B, red door – ORONK!’ he honked, pulling his finger out of his nose and pointing up the corridor.
A bulbous blob of green snot the size of an olive flew from his finger and landed SPLATTT on the red door.
‘Yup! That’s the one,’ he said, as the snot olive slid slowly down with a slimy squeak.
‘Thank you,’ said Bessie, turning and leading Blue by the hand up the corridor. ‘Sorry about that,’ she whispered. ‘They have to cater for all types of humour here. Some folks think picking your nose is hysterical.’
Careful to sidestep the snot olive, Blue and Bessie entered Testing Room B.
Inside sat two big armchairs in front of a small stage and screen. Bessie and Blue took a seat. The room was a bit like a tiny cinema, so it made sense when a man came round and offered them both ice-creams.
‘What
