Mr. Tickle and the Juggler is a story from the 2000 Annual.
Plot[]
When Mr. Tickle tickle's someone, anything can happen and usually does. One instance was when the circus came to town. It started out like any ordinary day: Mr. Tickle stretched his arms into the kitchen, made himself breakfast, and brought it to his bed, all without leaving his bed! The next thing that happened was the postman arriving with a letter for Mr. Tickle. Mr. Tickle stretched both of his arms through his bedroom window, took the letter from the postman with his right hand, and tickled the postman with his left hand. The first tickle of the day!
Mr. Tickle opened a letter to find it was an invitation from Little Miss Somersault to come to the circus at 2 o'clock. Mr. Tickle met up with Little Miss Somersault at 2 o'clock precisely and they sat in the front row to watch the show. But if you're someone like Mr. Tickle, sitting still for long periods of time is not easy. The moment the lights went out and the show began, Mr. Tickle tickled both Little Miss Twins! The juggler then came into the center ring juggling hoops, hats, eggs, elephants, coconuts, conkers (horse chestnuts), lollies, lemons, shoes, sausages, bananas, and balls. Mr. Tickle tried to resist the urge to tickle, but he couldn't stop himself and tickled the juggler under his arms!
This led to the following chain reaction: four big bouncy balls began bouncing and rolling all over the arena! Ball number one rolled along the tightrope, caused the tightrope walker to trip over it, slid down the giraffe's neck and somersaulted to the ground! Ball number two bounced on an elephant's bottom and knocked the trapeze artist off the trapeze. The elephant, fortunately, caught the acrobat with their trunk and held him in the air. Ball number three landed in a magicians hat and two rabbits, a budgerigar, and a bouquet of flowers to escape from the hat. The last ball bounced off Mr. Lazy's tummy; Little Miss Tidy tried to catch the ball but it bounced out of her bag. Mr. Rush tried to catch the last ball as well but he tripped over his own feet and landed in the middle of the ring!
The show seemed to have ended just as it started when a clown came out riding a unicycle. The clown managed to avoid Mr. Rush but he crashed into the poll that held up the circus tent! The whole circus came crashing down on top of everyone! What a butterfly effect: tickle the juggler and the whole circus collapses on top of you. There is a happy ending though. Feeling guilty for all the chaos he caused, Mr. Tickle used his long, stretchy arms to lift the tent back up! The show was able to resume and Mr. Tickle couldn't ruin it any further by tickling anyone.
List of Characters[]
- Mr. Tickle
- Postman (does not speak)
- Little Miss Somersault
- Juggler
- Ringmaster
- Rabbit
- Elephant
- Giraffe
- Clowns
- Acrobat
- Little Miss Tidy
- Mr. Rush
- Little Miss Twins
- Mr. Lazy
- Mr. Worry (cameo)
- Little Miss Giggles (coloured in Little Miss Trouble's colours) (cameo)
- Mr. Daydream (cameo)
- Little Miss Late (cameo)
- Mr. Wrong (cameo)
- Mr. Happy (cameo)
- Mr. Nosey (cameo)
- Little Miss Chatterbox (cameo)
- Mr. Slow (cameo)
- Mr. Greedy (cameo)
- Little Miss Naughty (cameo)
- Mr. Bump (cameo)
- Mr. Noisy (cameo)