EMILY LOPUCH
The Clown

The pink stucco building stands removed from BJ's and a strip mall just enough to give it an aloof air. It's so hot the atmosphere oozes like an enormous shimmering slug across the pavement. Mom cuts the engine to our green Izuzu Trooper and swings me from my car seat with a practiced motion. I eye the building suspiciouslyÑit's the exact same color as my hand-me-down Pepto-Bismol pink foam sandals with cutout flowers across the toe strap.

We're going to see someone called The Dentist and I'm not stupidÑMom has this look in her eyeÑthat same "please don't freak" look she gets when we go to The Doctor.

I scuff my feet as the building grows before me.

Bad, I think. Bad, bad, very bad.

A blast of sterile air whooshes my breath out and my feet hit carpet. It's cold here and mom leaves me in an uncomfortable plastic chair while she goes to fill out forms. I dangle my legs and admire the butterfly tattoo on the back of my hand. I'm halfway through picking off one of its wings when I see him: taller than my father at six-foot-two, the clown towers over the door leading to the back of the building. His green balloon pants and purple-spotted shirt shine like only plastic can, his hard and staring face grinning at me behind a red bulbous nose. Light shines along his lower lip like a thin gloss of saliva.

He looks hungry.

I watch him furtively, trying not to be obvious. The longer I stare, the more he seems to twitch. I look away to the window and from the corner of my eye I can see him breathing. No, I think. Not real. I close my eyes.

"Ahhhhhhhh," sighs the clown.

By the time Mom cups my shoulder and slides into the seat beside me the clown seems seconds away from lunging across three rows of chairs to latch his teeth into my neck. Mom follows my gaze, mistaking my expression.

"Oh!" she cries. "Do you want a balloon, cupcake?"

She stands up and walks into the clown's shadow, gesturing at the quarter slot in its abdomen.

"No," I whisper, "no, no, noÑ"

"Emily Lopuch?"

The nasal voice belongs to a woman with a clipboard and short fluffy hair, standing in the doorway beside the clown. Mom motions to me from where she's standing. Over her shoulder, the clown's smile is huge. I want to warn her but I'm frozen, horrified. Why has she turned her back on it?

"Emily, let's go!" Mom's finger is tapping against her arm so I peel sweaty legs from chair, sandals scuffing against carpet. One eye trained on the clown, his plastic hair a rainbow nimbus around his head, I tiptoe past Mom and through the door Fluffy-Hair holds open.

To my utter dismay, it begins to glide shut with Mom on the other side.

"Mom?" I ask in a high voice, "Mom?"

To my great relief she catches the door and begins to follow us into the hallway. Fluffy-Hair turns to face her.

"I'm sorry, Mrs. Lopuch," she sniffs. "The Dentist asks that parents please wait in the waiting room."

Mom retreats a step and looks at me in apology.

"You'll be fine," she says.

Fine, of course, is universal code for Not Fine, and as I follow Fluffy-Hair down the hall the lights grow dimmer, the hum of a drill the only noise.

"EeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeÑ"

I want to bolt. Run back down the hall and into Mom's arms, but that's what the clown is hoping. I'm not stupidÑI know its waiting. Hungry. So I follow Fluffy-Hair into a room off the hallway and allow her to lift me into a reclining plastic seat. The door clicks shut.

I am trapped.

Left alone to wait for The Dentist, I take inventory of the room. A large glass lamp bigger than my head is suspended on a rod above the chair, a table on wheels is covered with gleaming tools that wink under the lights. They look sharp. Dangerous.

The door creaks open behind me. The Dentist's dark shadow wavers on the wall.

"Hello!" he cries, popping his head around my headrest. A red rubber ball is affixed to his nose and he waggles his eyebrows, grinning with shiny white teeth.

I try to scream but my tongue is so dry it sticks to the roof of my mouth.

"What have we here?" he coos. "EmilyÑthat's a pretty name, isn't it?"

My face is dully reflected in the red ball of his nose. Is he going to eat me now? Now that Mom is safely detained in the waiting room with The Dentist's clown friend?

He has flipped on the light above me and it's blinding. I watch his back as he pokes around at the tools on the table. The make a sound like wind chimes. He selects a tool, cracks his fingers, turns around.

A white mask is tied just below his eyes and white rubber gloves adorn his hands, just like the ones the clown was wearing.

"Open wide," he says.

I watch those terrible rubber fingers for as long as I can, cringing when they slide between my lips. The Dentist leans forward.

SNAP!

My new front teeth crunch down on his fingers and I hear a scream like a siren wail. I'm so surprised I don't let go at first, holding on as he jerks his hand this way and that, shredding his rubber glove into my mouth.

The taste is what finally does it: iron and latex down the back of my throat. I let go. The Dentist jumps back, eyeing me from a safe distance, clutching his injured hand to his chest. A smear of red stains his white jacket. He stares at me. I stare at him.

A sharp knock comes from the door. The shadow on the wall belongs to a person I know, her hands smooth my hair, wipe my cheeks.

Mom is kneeling on the floor beside me, smiling.

She is the most beautiful person in the world.