6

“Help me.” The voice seemed to come from someone right next to me.

I looked up and expected to see the clown, his face in my face, globules of spit glowing on his red smile. But when I turned around, I saw it was a little girl, eyes ringed in red, her nose dripping.

“Please,” she sniffled.

I sat up and looked around. The room was filled with clowns, all right, but they weren’t live clowns. Clown masks, clown heads, clown statues, clown signs, clown posters, everything and anything imaginable to do with clowns, lined the walls. I was in some nightmarish clown den. My heart started pounding.

“I’m lost,” the little girl whispered. And then she scampered away into the shadows.

“Wait!” I cried, scrambling to my feet.

She ducked behind a clown statue and peered out at me. As I stepped toward her, she darted away again.

“I’ll help you,” I said. “But you have to come out!”

I wove my way between the statues, looking for her. I heard a tiny giggle behind me. The little girl had her arms wrapped around a giant clown doll. She peeked around its head, giggled again, and crawled under the row of shelves, dragging the doll behind her.

I was starting to feel frustrated, my nerves on edge. I decided to try something. I walked toward the door. “I’m leaving now!” I called.

“No! Stay!” she cried. She let go of the clown doll, barreled toward me, and clutched my leg.

I pried her fingers off my leg and grabbed her hand. “Let’s go find your parents,” I suggested.

“OK,” she whispered.

Then, from the corner of my eye, I saw something move. My stomach twisting, I scanned the rows of clown faces. All fake.

My gaze stopped on one mask. Its eyes glowed, looking eerily human. And then the eyes blinked.

“Who’s there?” I shouted. I took a step closer to the mask. The eyes stared straight ahead, not blinking.

I must be seeing things, I told myself. First a hundred live clowns. Now a mask with human eyes. I scooted the little girl out the door and slammed it shut behind us.

Outside, the sun was peeking through the clouds and casting a ray of light on the gravel path. I was starting to feel a bit better. At least I wasn’t out here alone.

“What’s your name?” I asked the little girl.

“I’m Lucy, and I’m lost,” she said.

“I’m Josh, and I’m lost too,” I told her, smiling.

Lucy didn’t smile. She just stared at me with her round, dark eyes. “I didn’t want to leave him behind,” she said.

“Who?”

“The clown.”

I gulped. “The . . . doll?”

“He’s not a doll. He’s real.”

Real? I looked back at the storage shed. Goosebumps ran up my arms. Was the kidnapper clown in there? Maybe he’d been about to kidnap Lucy when I showed up.

“Come on,” I hissed, breaking into a jog. Lucy ran alongside me. Her legs pumped to keep up. Then she wrestled her hand from mine and came to a full stop.

“I don’t want to be lost!” she wailed.

“We can make this an adventure!” I panted. “And then we can tell our friends all about it.”

“I want my mom!” Lucy screamed.

I patted her shoulder as she cried. “We won’t find her unless you go with me,” I told her. I pointed down the path that wound through the buildings, away from the clown shed. “Let’s go this way.”

I tried to sound confident, but I was suddenly even more afraid. Now I felt responsible for Lucy. I had another person depending on me. What if I couldn’t get us out of here, and the kidnapper clown found us?

“So, how old are you, Lucy?” I asked as we walked, trying to sound cheerful.

“Five.”

“And what do you like to do?”

“Nothing,” she said. Then her lips started trembling. “I d-don’t like being scared,” she stuttered.

“I know,” I said.

“You!” she said, suddenly sounding angry. “You’re big! I bet you’re not scared of anything!”

“I am,” I admitted. “I’m scared of clo—” I started to say. Then I stopped. I didn’t want to give her a clown phobia too. “Clams! I’m scared of clams.”

Lucy giggled. “Clams?”

“Yes. They’re just so . . . clammy!”

Pretty soon we were both laughing. Through our laughter, I thought I heard another deep laugh booming from the trees. But when I looked, no one was there.