Here's a short piece I wrote in about five minutes when I was really supposed to be writing something else... Long story. Anyway, laugh it up, you know, ha-ha....

**Dedicated to my dear friends Elizabeth, Stephanie, and Bernadette, and all our Strange Shows...... <3 **

"LaaaaaLALALALAlaaaaaLAAAAAAlaaaaaaaa!!!!!" screeched the plastic badminton birdie. He sat on his perch in the tree, looking down at his audience expectantly. They stared back, holding their ears. "Well?" the birdie asked. "Am I your new star?"

The boy and the girl stared blankly back.

"Um, I zink.... how do you say.... well, no." The boy's accent was thickly French. His name was Pierre, one of the hosts of The Very Strange Show, which was soon to have its one-and-only TV appearance in a week.

"Sorry," the girl standing next to him added. Her name was Maggie, and she, too, had an accent, though hers was British. She was Pierre's co-host. "I don't think it's going to work... What was your name again?"

"Bird," the birdie huffed indigantly. "Bird E."

"Well, thank you, Bird E. We'll call if we change our minds." Maggie took a deep breath. "Next!"

Bird E hopped away in a huff as the next character appeared for audition. This person had a mustache ("I like zis guy," Pierre said to Maggie, as he stroked his own curly black mustache with a smile.) and he wore a suit of white-silver armor. His noble steed stood a way off, loaded down with all manner of crazy contraptions. ("I dunno, Pierre," Maggie muttered.)

"If you would allow me," the knight said, "I would like to sing for you."

Maggie and Pierre grimaced in unison. "Uh... Okay."

The knight cleared his throat and began, but as he did he tripped over his own feet and fell face-first in the dirt.

"I like zis guy," Pierre said again.

Maggie sighed. "I don't. Where did the bird go?" They needed a new person to interview for the show by tomorrow, and it wasn't looking good.

"No, no," Pierre protested. "Zis guy has a cool mustache, he is not a silly American--"

"He IS silly."

"No! He is very strange. And it is called Le Very Strange Show, no?"

"Yes, exactly. Becuase you're on it." Maggie rolled her eyes. "It's him or the birdie, and I vote birdie. At least it can stand on its own two... uh..."

"No birdie!" Pierre scowled and crossed his arms.

Maggie got a mischevious grin on her face. "If you don't call the birdie back, I'll call the green mice."

"BIRDIE! BIRDIE!"

"That's better."

THE END