CLOWNS

Diandra

Six years old

DeDe sat on her little white chair in front of her little white desk with her little white mirror reflecting the truth back at her.

She was so ugly…

Her skin was so pale and unmarked…no wonder her mother didn’t want anyone else to find out about her awful condition. While other girls laughed and played, showing off their spectacular rainbow of colors, she had to sit in her room in the dark and secretly watch them as they played in the street. She envied their carefree laughter and wide smiles, their cheeks pink and red…

“Dede! Can you come here for a moment?” her mother’s voice interrupted her reverie.

Diandra sighed and left her seat to find out what her momma wanted now. She closed her door and went to the kitchen. Her mother always seemed to be in the kitchen when she called her. She was constantly cooking something, a recipe book always open…

Dede found her leaning over a pot on the stove, stirring vigorously. As if sensing she was there, she spoke, “I think I might have found something that might help you,” she turned to see her little girl halfway in and out of the doorway, her face half hidden by the casing of bright blue wood.

Her eyes softened under bright blue eyebrows, “Oh, Dede, have you been looking at yourself again?”

Dede stared at her mother, memorizing the blue around her eyes, flanked by yellow spots dotting the pink landscape of her cheeks.

She was so beautiful! Why couldn’t she have even just a smattering of her mother’s beauty? Even just one blue eye or just a dot or two…they didn’t even have to be yellow…

Her mother turned, pulled her concoction off the stove and then pulled a blue chair out from her yellow table.

She tilted her head and sighed, “Come sit down, pumpkin.”

Dede hesitated, although she knew her mother loved her very much, she still knew down deep inside she must be so disappointed in her. She must be so sad that Dede’s father had left after she was born leaving her to raise such an ugly child.

“Dede,” her mother’s soft voice interrupted her misery.

Dede crept forward, her lips drooping with sadness. She took the seat her mother had pulled out for her and looked down as her mother took the blue seat next to her.

Dede waited for the same words she had heard a thousand times.

“It doesn’t matter that your hair is really brown or that your lips are just pinkish. You are beautiful to me…always…” the familiar soft voice that sang countless lullabies to her since she was a baby, rang truthful.

Dede looked up, “But I’m not beautiful Momma. I don’t have pretty purple stripes or spots or anything that the other girls have. I see the…”

“Dede, there is nothing wrong with being different…”

Dede felt her eyes water as she met her mother’s eyes, “Then why do I have to put fake stuff on my face? And color my hair?” She tugged on her currently shining pink hair, “Why can’t I go to school with the other girls?”

Momma licked her lips, “You know why, Diandra…” Momma always called her by her real name when she was going to repeat the same old, same old, “Others cannot accept you, but that is not your problem, that is theirs. And besides, I can teach you just fine here, where you’re safe.”

Dede jumped out of her seat, “But I don’t want to be here all the time!” She gestured her hand towards the bright sunshine coming in through a small yellow framed window, “I want to go outside and play with everyone else!”

“Diandra…” her mother’s voice changed into her stern grown up tone.

DeDe shook her head, “No, Momma, you don’t know what they will think! I bet they WILL like me even if I’m ugly…”

Momma stood up and for the first time, her stunning happy face darkened, “Do you know what will happen if they found out about you, Diandra?”

DeDe froze, not recognizing the person standing stiffly in the bright yellow and blue kitchen.

Blue eyebrows slammed down across blue eyes, “They will take you away, Diandra. They will take you away from me and we will never see each other again.”

DeDe in all her six whole years of life couldn’t understand…someone must know she had been born…her father knew…before he left…according to her mother…

She pursed her little six-year-old, plain pink lips, “But Father…”

“Yes, he knew, but he left. I was terrified that he was going to tell someone…”

“But what about the hospital…” Dede knew her mother’s unreasonable reasoning had to be a lie…

“By the grace of the Almighty Clown, one nurse gave me the makeup to fix you until you came home. If she hadn’t, they would have taken you then!” her mother’s voice began to rise…it always did when she spoke of the Almighty.

“But…”

“Diandra! Please! Just do what you are told and believe what I am telling you! I can’t lose you like…” her mother stopped short of what she was going to say.

But Dede knew…and she didn’t blame her Momma…or her father…it wasn’t their fault she had been born plain ugly…

“I’m sorry, Dede, I shouldn’t have…”

A firm knock reverberated through the house.

Both Dede and her mother froze.

No one ever knocked on their door. No children or adults…nobody…

Momma’s eyes filled with a different color then…the color of panic, if panic had a color…it was a dark, dark blue…

Dede didn’t even know she was holding her breath until she felt herself getting dizzy. She blew out her lungs and gasped for more.

Momma gestured wildly towards her bedroom, “Go, now! And don’t make a sound.”

No arguing now…Dede ran for her small bedroom and closed the door tightly. Her breath came in short gasps as she tried to fill her lungs quietly as she leaned up against the green wood. Then she turned and placed her small ear against it, straining to hear who had come to their home.

Was it one of the children who played so happily outside? Maybe someone saw her through her little window, and they were inviting her to come out to play. Dede’s heart raced as she thought about that dream for the thousandth time.

Oh, how wonderful if a little girl just like her (but much prettier of course) had come to their door and wanted Dede to come out to play! They could play with their hoops (Momma had bought her a pretty red and blue striped one) and they would laugh as they threw it high in the sky and then they could come back to her house and enjoy milk and home baked chocolate chip cookies that Momma just pulled out of their blue oven…or they could…

Her mother’s muffled voice was loud and cheery as she greeted the little girl…

The voice that answered was not the voice of a little girl that was soon to be her first friend…

It sounded like a man…

OH! My Gosh! It was her father! He had finally come home! He missed them both and wanted to be a Daddy after all! He didn’t care that his daughter wasn’t pretty…he would love her anyway…and Momma would be so happy! They could be a family and then when they walked outside as a family, other little girls would see them, and they would want to be her friend because her Daddy was the best Daddy and loved her so much, he came back…

Dede swallowed her shout of happiness and quickly opened her door, ready to jump into her Daddy’s arms.

“Ms. Jolikins, we have had a report that you have a child that you are not sending to school,” the voice wasn’t happy, but sounded very stern.

Dede froze as she listened to the stranger address her Momma in a very serious voice, “We don’t have to tell you that you are required to enroll all children into the education program.”

Dede heard her mother stutter, “Of course, sir, but I had sent the necessary papers to the Clown Education Board and outlined that I would be instructing my daughter at home.”

Dede held her breath as she waited for the man to admit there had been a mistake and everything was fine…it had to be fine…

“We received no such application, Ms. Jolikins. We would like to come in and discuss the alternative education and we can perhaps fill out the appropriate application should it be warranted,” a second deep voice joined the first one.

There were two??

“Of course, Mr…” Dede heard her mother’s voice rise as if she hoped Dede was listening.

“Fisher, and this is my colleague, Mr. Karr.”

Dede felt her heart tumble upside down before settling in for a hard thumping against her chest. As she heard her mother welcome the strangers into her home, Dede backed up quietly until she met the hard surface of her door.

As she turned, she heard the first man that was now in their small livingroom, “And of course, we would like to meet your child.”

Dede was impressed with the way her Momma replied with barely a hint of breathless shakiness, “But of course.”

Dede dove into her room and closed her door with the softest of whispers. But of course, it didn’t matter since they obviously knew she was there. But how did they know? Who told them? Was it one of the children outside that might have glimpsed her homely naked face? Or could it have finally been her father? Would he really want to see her taken away? Or maybe he wanted to return to her Momma, but didn’t want her there…

Dede’s eyes flew around the room looking for somewhere to hide. But what good would that do? She had a feeling that they wouldn’t stop looking until they found her.

Then they would take her away…

What would happen to her?

What would happen to Momma?

Dede’s eyes lit upon the jars of colored makeup that her mother had bought her ages ago hoping that it would cheer her up if she could make herself look like everyone else. She had tried, but she wasn’t very good at it. She had looked absolutely horrid and cried when her mother wanted to see what she did…which made the itchy goo half-melt off her face.

She hadn’t wanted to try again, and her mother never made mention of it again, after all, she never went outside anyway…so why bother?

As she raced over to her little white chair, she wished she had taken more time to make it work. If she could just put on enough so the men would believe she was just like them, then everything would go back to normal…unless they saw no reason she couldn’t go to public clown school…then she would have to coat her face everyday and hope that no one could see it wasn’t real…that she wasn’t real…

She knew from her mother that everyone was colored over their entire body, but since there was no time to pull that miracle off, Dede ran to her closet and chose clothes that would cover most of her small body. A long-sleeved purple sweater along with baggy green pants and pink speckled socks were thrown on in record time. Then she sat down on her little white chair and quickly uncapped the largest jar of white facial makeup and began to spread the mixture over her entire face and down over her neck, under the collar of her sweater. After all, they wouldn’t ask her to lift up her clothing. If she did a good enough job, they wouldn’t notice anything at all except a small shy girl with beautiful fashion sense.

After the white, she took a large orange pencil and drew a thick line around one eyebrow, down the side of her nose and back around until it completed the circle. Diandra frowned as she noticed it wasn’t quite what she was hoping for. It was a little lopsided…

She sighed and figured it would improve if she just colored it in…

It didn’t…in fact it looked even more lopsided…maybe if she added some…petals?

After all, flowers were seldom perfect…

Yes, that would work.

Dede added small round petals to the large orange circle and had to admit it looked okay…now for the other eye…

She had just gotten the large orange orb drawn when she got distracted by the small pot of bright pink that set next to the orange. Pink was always cheery…maybe she should at least get some on her cheeks…she didn’t know when the fateful knock was going to come to her door…

No sooner did she dab two small pink lopsided circles on the apples of her cheeks when there was a knock on her bedroom door.

Dede felt her heart begin to race as she knew time was up and she still hadn’t finished the flower on her other eye and her lips were still white…She grabbed a light blue stick of makeup and quickly started to outline her naked lips…

“Dede? Are you asleep?” her Mommas voice spoke through the closed door along with another light tap.

She heard a murmur of voices outside, both her momma’s and the other deep male tone saying something in return.

Her mother spoke louder, “I don’t want to wake my daughter if she is asleep. She has such a hard time with her sleep since her father’s been gone.”

Was she supposed to crawl into bed and pull the covers over her head and pretend she was asleep?

As she stood up, the door to her room began to open. Dede panicked and quickly scooped her selection of face paints into the drawer of her desk.

She heard voices behind her, “Oh I am sorry, honey, did we wake you?” her mother’s voice almost cracked as she spoke.

Dede turned and smiled.

Immediately, she saw the two tall men recoil as they saw her face for the first time. Dede didn’t know if that was a good thing or not. Did they notice what a bad job she did, one orange flower looking thing around one eye and a plain orange circle around the other?

Her smile faltered slightly, and it turned into a blue grimace. Dede couldn’t tell who was more horrified, the men or her Momma.

Oh gosh, they were going to take her…they could see she wasn’t one of them…

Dede’s eyes started to water…

The man with yellow hair and small stripes of purple around his eyes was the first to recover his voice, “Okay, Ms. Jolikins, I understand your desire to tutor your daughter from home. Perhaps we can move to the livingroom and we will help you re-submit your documentation?”

Her Momma finally unfroze and quickly grabbed the handle on her door, “Of course, I can certainly re-submit the application.” As she carefully closed Dede’s door, Dede couldn’t miss the shiver shaking the other stranger before she was left alone.

Was it okay?

Did she do okay?

Dede looked at her little mirror and felt her skin shudder as she saw the lopsided mess that was her face…what started out as a dream of beauty to make her Momma proud turned into something that wasn’t much better than her original face…

Well, if the two men believed it, then it was worth it…

Her skin began to itch as the makeup dried into her pores. She wanted to grab something and wipe away the offending cream, but she didn’t dare…not until her Momma came back into her room and let her know it was okay…and it had to be okay…

~*~

Dede sat in her chair counting the multi-colored spots on her wall while she waited for her Momma. She knew how many there were…she had counted them a million times as she sat inside listening to the world outside. Her Momma knew she did this and once in awhile would add a few extra, just to surprise her…although counting dots was still boring…

Her door swung wide and suddenly she was swept up into warm loving arms, “Oh, Dede, what a smart girl you are!”

Dede struggled, she really needed to get her makeup off before she scratched her skin open, “Momma, I have to clean this off! It’s itchy!”

“Oh, of course, little one!” Her Momma took her into their little purple bathroom and began to run water into the little purple sink while she fished a facecloth from a yellow cabinet next to it.

She began to scrub, “You did amazing, I was hoping you would be in bed covered up to your ears and they wouldn’t ask me to wake you.”

Dede spit out between mouthfuls of cloth, “So this was better?”

Her Momma began to cry, “Yes, Dede, this was better.”

“But I couldn’t get it perfect, and I didn’t have time to make the second flower…”

Her Momma started scrubbing around her eyes, “Which was even better! I think the only thing they hate worse than no color is lopsided color!”

Dede was silent as she waited until her Momma finished washing the rest of the color off her face. When she at last felt her unblemished skin was finally clean again, she stared at the only person in her world, “Why would they hate me?”

Momma tilted her head, realizing what she had said, “Because they are idiots. They only want to see perfect color and for once I am glad that they are idiots…it means they won’t be bothering us for a long, long while.”

Momma suddenly began to tickle her, “Now why don’t we get some ice cream and celebrate!”

And because Dede was six years old and she knew that everything was just fine and she was getting ice cream (Yay!), she laughed and let her Momma carry her to their perfect little blue and yellow kitchen and didn’t give those idiot men another thought.