“Here, take a look” Leonard offered.

The pages were scattered, old and they had a crisp to them as Sara felt them in her hands. The pictures were sketches, mostly of clowns that were evil looking.

“Does this mean anything to you?”

Sara didn't reply immediately, studying the pictures intently. Clowns... Mark mentioned a circus. And a clown. Do those clowns look like the same clown?

Sara looked over the images:

The clowns were drawn in a stick figure format. Their eyes were in large and they had frowns on their faces as if they were about to commit some kind of mischievous act. After thinking for a bit, it was clear that these clowns were indeed the same exact clowns that Mark had mentioned or at least they fit the description.

"...Cherrywinks," Sara muttered after a pause, then looked to see if that got a reaction out of robot boy.

"Yes..." Leonard said. He was taking off the costume now, a look of total shock on his face.

"Cherry..winks" He repeated, voice distant. "In the dream a clown came to me and said those words. I think it was his name."

"Do you know anything about that? Anything about 'Cherry-winks?" Leonard asked

Sara could tell him a bunch of things, of course, but she feels a momentary reluctance to share. They're all muscling in on her secrets. "Well, do you?" she turns to ask Jimmy. It's only fair if she wants to know what he knows first, right?

The kid looked away as if he was embarrassed not scared.

“Yeah well I usually don’t talk about my drawings because Mommy said I shouldn’t. The school guidance counselor says that I’m not allowed to draw my dreams because they aren’t app...app... ‘appropriate.’ That means they make the other kids sad. But yeah I can tell you if you want. But you have to promise not to make fun of me and not to be a tattle tail and tell on me.”

The girl turns back to Leonard. "I won't tell on you," Sara promises, after a few more seconds of vacillation. No promises about not making fun though. "I... know something about it too," she makes a further reluctant admission. "It's the clown from the monster circus, right?"

Leonard looked up, doe-eyed at Sara. "How...how did you know?"

"...You know Mark?" Sara asked, squinting at Leonard as if she thought he might try to hide it.

"Who's mark?" Leonard asked. "I don't know any Mark. I just try to draw what I see in my dreams. Why? is the Clown's name Mark? I don't know any Clown I've ever heard named Mark." Leonard said.

"Hmmm...maybe my dream wasn't like, so important then?"

"He's just some kid. He knows this stuff too," Sara admitted reluctantly. "He's the one who saw me. I didn't see clowns, but I saw other stuff."

"What do you think of this?" Leonard asked, placing a piece of paper in front of Sara. It was another Clown drawing, but with faded pencil marks.




"Does this look like something this kid Mark might have saw?"

"That's just a clown... Doesn't look like a monster clown or anything." Nevertheless, Sara squinted to see if she may be missing something.

"But is it something Mark saw?" Leonard pressed.

"I guess?" Sara shrugged, after a pause in which she tried to remember what he actually said about Cherrywinks. "He said the clown was chasing his friends around in a snowstorm."

"What about this?" Leonard asked, shoving another piece of paper in front of Sara. "I showed this to Shawn. Do you know Shawn? He's a really cool kid that lives on Main Street. I think he's a new friend of mine."

"And what'd he say?" Sara asked, not answering his question. She squinted at the writing, moving her lips as she read it to herself.

"He said they were really cool. And he wanted to know about my dreams and drawings and what they meant. So I told him that they meant that there's an adult in the neighborhood that really isn't an adult, but is secretly and evil clown. Kind of like the one's in these drawings. But don't tell anyone that, because if you do then I'll get in trouble with Mommy. She said I cant' speak about this to anyone or make any dream drawings anymore. But I know its true that one of the neighbors on Rodeo Drive or on Main Street is really an evil clown. I think Shawn was like, interested in finding out who it was."

"...So which one was it?" Sara frowned.

“What? What do you mean?” Leonard asked

"Do you know which adult it is?" Sara clarified. "Or do you at least suspect someone...?"

"Oh. Oh no, its nothing like that. All I did was kind of like draw it. I hadn't really thought about who it might be. I guess most of my time was just kind of like, trying to get the drawing right. Just, and...Oh yeah and trying to hide my drawings."

"See Mommy...well...she doesn't like it. She thinks that I'm going to cause trouble because I told Mrs. Barlow that the drawings were real. Because they are! It's like Bwahhh! They're real. I know that's what I dreamed of and I know its what it happened because I drew it right when I got up."

"So its like when you get up and then you draw, is better than if you wait. Because if you wait then the memories of a dream go away and then you can't remember what happened. That's how I know its real. Because I did that the first few times and I didn't remember anything cause I tried to draw it a few hours later."

"Who do you think it could be?"

"I'm new here," Sara shrugged, going through her mental library of local adults. Who was that lady... with the pants...? Stalling for time, she turned to Jimmy again. "Do you know who might be an evil clown?"

“Absolutely! I had a dream and I wrote it down in a drawing. It’s one of the adults in either rodeo drive or main street.” Leonard said there was no sarcasm in his voice. But rather, boyhood innocence.