Peter Tork was whistling. It was going to be a good day. Amy was at home, maybe washing dishes, or washing TV, or taking a nap. She would have a nice dinner ready for him when he got home, and later they would read the latest Monkee sex story she had written and then go to bed and cuddle. How he loved that. Right now she was working on a Monkee ghost story! The thought sent chills up his spine. He had gotten rid of the coffee table because she had made it seem so scary that he couldn't look at it without fear anymore. That's how good a writer she was. Tonight he hoped she would have written more of the sex scenes though.

He walked up to the Pad and opened the door. "Amy! It's Peter Tork! I'm home!"

No answer! She probably just didn't hear him. So he walked into the kitchen and fixed himself a peanut butter and grape jelly sandwich and he would have had some milk with that except they were out of milk. Maybe Amy had gone to the store to get some. He walked into the living room and stopped.

The coffee table was back.

And there were three evil clowns standing there, with their evil clown faces looking at him. One began slowly smacking a tambourine and grinned evilly at him.

Peter screamed and dropped his sandwich.

The nearest clown dove over the coffee table and caught the sandwich with one gloved hand. He smiled evilly and stuffed the entire sandwich into his now gaping maw. Two chews and it was swallowed whole. Grape jelly oozed down his white chin and splatted on the floor.

Peter was terrified. He took a step backward and they advanced toward him. What did they want? What could he do? They moved closer, coming from all three directions.

The escape routes were now blocked. Peter panicked and he turned and raced toward the bedroom. Where was Amy? She'd know what to do. She'd teach those clowns a lesson and rescue him at the same time.

The clowns clomped up the stairs, their big shoes making a lot of racket and actually shaking the whole house. Peter slammed the door closed and crawled under the bed. Maybe they wouldn't find him and then they would leave and everything would be okay again.

He'd just be real quiet and wait. After they left, he'd come out of hiding and tip-toe downstairs then make another sandwich. As he was picturing himself spreading the peanut butter on the bread with a really blunt butter knife, he suddenly felt a hand wrap itself around his ankle.

Peter struggled, valiantly grabbing the undersides of the bedsprings, but the hand was stronger and he was pulled closer to the edge of the bed. All he could see were clown legs and shoes waiting for him. A huge feeling of dread swept over him and he feared he would never see Amy again and that meant no more sex scenes.

Adrenaline surging, Peter found strength that he never knew he possessed. He frantically used his free foot to kick the clown's hand--one mighty kick, another kick, yet another--and he was free! He scrambled from the other side of the bed and flew out of the room.

At first, he ran with such blind panic that all he could hear were his own footsteps, his own breathing, and the blood that rushed through his ears. Gradually, however, he realized that he heard nothing more than that. No one was following him. He ducked just inside the bathroom door and listened.

Nothing. All was silent. There was not even the ominous rattle of a tambourine.

Where were the clowns?

Licking his lips nervously, he peered into the hallway. It was growing dark now, and he noticed that there were no lights on in the house. That was odd, because Davy kept his lava lamp going all the time, day and night, and he should be able to see at least that reddish glow emanating from the bedroom he had just fled. He had been too frightened before to pay any attention at all to his surroundings, but now he wished that he had looked more closely. Was the lava lamp turned off? Was it gone? Where could it be?

Finally, the house grew pitch dark, and he knew that he couldn't hide here any longer. Amy would have been back from the store by now if that's where she had really gone, so it was possible that she had never left the house. If she was here, maybe she was in trouble. He was the only one who could save her.

But, where were the clowns? There ought to be clowns somewhere nearby... Hadn't he just run away from those clowns? Where were they? Could they have.... left?

But why? Why leave and turn off all the lights when Peter was hiding in the bathroom? It made no sense.... unless.... unless..... it was Clown Logic.

Peter Tork had read something about Clown Logic in the Journal of Musician Philosophy. Yes, he had to think, had to remember.... lives, his mainly, could depend on his remembering an article he'd only read the first page of and hadn't understood at all.

But he would try. As he crept down the dark hallway, the main points of Clown Logic ricocheted around his swirling brain:

The universe makes perfect sense;

Reality is really in order;

But only Clowns can understand this.

And he was being visited by clowns, pursued, tormented, and frightened by a trio of heavily made up men. What might this mean? Peter Tork hadn't a clue.

Suddenly!!! The lights came on!!!! Peter Tork screamed. Clown Logic was forgotten. Fuck the Clowns.

Mike Nesmith, his hand frozen on the light switch, screamed.

Davy Jones, directly behind Mike Nesmith, and Mickey Dolenz, directly behind Davy Jones, screamed. It was as if the entire band was screaming.

Suddenly, they stopped screaming. And the quiet was quite deafening.

"Guys! Where are you been? Where are the clowns?" Peter Tork asked fearingly.

"Sshh" said Mike, their leader. He got down on his hands and knees and the rest of the fellows got down on their hands and knees and crawled after him back into the bathroom where Peter had been hiding until a few minutes ago when he'd decided to leave the bathroom and crawl down the hall and meet up with the other Monkees and crawl back to the bathroom, which is where they were now. Once inside they shut the door and looked at each other and didn't say anything because they were so scared!

All of a suddenly there was noise outside the door. BOOM! CRASH! JINGLE! (that was the tambourine). The big noise was followed by evil clown laughter. Suddenly the door was ripped open! And the three evil clowns stood there, grinning evilly, with sharp knives (the kind you use to cut your steak with, not the kind you use to make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with, unless all the butter knives are dirty and you don't feel like washing one, but Peter was very neat and there were always clean butter knives at the Pad) in their evil gloved clown hands.

"What do you want from us???" shouted Mike Nesmith! The other Monkees clung to each other and whimpered. Where was Amy? Thought Peter.

"We want you to DIE!!!" the clowns said together, as if they were in unison. They shuffled their clown shoes closer and raised the pointy knives. "After today, the world will never hear your music again and the Beatles will forever rule the charts! I have a message from John Lennon for you: DIE, BRIAN WILSON!!!"" and he pointed the knife right at Micky~!!!

"But I'm NOT Brian Wilson!" screamed Micky, squinching his eyes shut.

"Uh, you're not?" the clown was confused and looked at his two clown henchmen in confusion. "aren't you guys the Beach Boys?"

"No, man, we're the Monkees!" they said back.

"Monkees, monkees..." the head clown pulled out a long tattered list from his clown pocket and scanned it. "Nope, not here. Are you sure you aren't the Beach Boys? Maybe you're the Byrds, or the Grateful Dead."

"no, no, we're the Monkees! Why are you trying to kill us?" asked Davy, crying (he was already in the bathroom, remember).

"We're not trying to kill YOU, you stupid midget. The Beatles gave us this list and told us to kill everyone on it, but you're not on the list. I guess they didn't think you'd have a hit this year. Aw, damn,' the clown said, looking disappointed.

"You mean we can't kill them?" one of the other clowns asked. "I really wanted to kill somebody today."

"Hey," the other clown said, the one who hadn't talked yet. "The little one is English, maybe he's Mick Jagger or Eric Burdon or Dave Clark or Petula Clark!"

"No I'm Davy Jones!" he screamed!

"Oh," all three clowns said. Then they looked at each other. "Let's kill them anyway!!!!"

But just then all of a sudden Amy unexpectedly turned up! "Drop those knives, mutants," she said in a low dangerous voice, pointing a great big squirt bottle of seltzer right at them. The clowns looked at her in horror, dropped the knives and the tambourine and ran out of the house and into their clown car, which was parked right outside the Pad. It had "Acme Clown Assassins" written right on the side, which was how Amy knew there was trouble inside. She'd gone to the store to get the seltzer to defend herself and save the Monkees!

"Amy how did you know what is happening?" Peter asked wonderingly.

"I saw their clown car, which was parked right outside the Pad. It had "Acme Clown Assassins" written right on the side, which was how I knew there was trouble inside. I went to the store to get the seltzer to defend myself and save you!" she cried.

"Hooray for Amy!" said Mike, wiping his face with his hat.

"How can we ever thank you?" asked Micky, putting his arms around Davy, who was still sobbing.

"Well boys, you know I'm writing a Monkee ghost story. And I want to write in some sex scenes. But it's hard to write about something if you haven't done it..." she bent down and picked up the tambourine.

The four Monkees started to get scared all over again (but excited too, cause Amy always wrote the best sex scenes!).

"I want all of you to march down into the living room, bend over, and drop those pants! I want to find out what it's like to spank somebody with a tambourine and you guys are it! So MOVE IT! NOW!"

She smiled to herself as she whacked the tambourine against her hand. The clowns had been expensive, but it would be worth it to see those four naked butts just waiting for the tambourine to come whistling through the air at them. It was a good day to spank.

THE END!