The Clown Statue

I babysat for a family out in Newport Beach for most of one summer. Rich people. The kind of house with more rooms than people — hallways that went nowhere, and you could hear your own footsteps echoing off the marble in the foyer.

Two kids. Good kids. Fell asleep fast, never gave me trouble. The parents were nice enough, always paid cash, always on time. They had one rule: once the kids were down, I stayed in the den and watched TV there. Didn't wander the house. The dad told me straight the first night — the alarm was finicky, too many rooms, just stay put. Fair enough. Rich people's houses creeped me out anyway.

So this one Friday night — I remember it was a Friday because there was nothing on — I got both kids into bed by nine, went down to the den, kicked my shoes off, and grabbed a beer from their fridge. They always told me to help myself. I was seventeen. Don't judge me.

I put on some reality show and tried to zone out. But there was this thing in the corner of the room.

A clown statue. Life-size. Standing by the bookshelf, just... grinning.

I tried to ignore it. Told myself it was some rich-people art thing, a decorator's idea of whimsy. But every time I looked away from the TV, there it was — that painted smile, those eyes. It felt closer than before. Which was stupid. Statues don't move.

Except I kept checking. That's the thing about being scared — you don't look away, you look more. Every commercial break I'd glance over, just to make sure it was still in the corner. Still a statue. Still not... whatever my brain was cooking up.

After about an hour I couldn't take it. I called the dad's cell.

"Hey," I said, trying to sound casual, like I wasn't a seventeen-year-old girl freaked out by a lawn ornament. "Kids are down, everything's fine. But is it okay if I watch TV in a different room? This clown statue in the den is really creeping me out."

Silence. Not the normal kind. The kind where you can hear someone's breathing change.

Then his voice came back — flat, serious, nothing like the friendly dad who paid me in cash at the door: "Get the kids. Go next door. Call 911."

"What? What's going on?"

"Just do it. Go next door, call the police, then call me back."

My hands were shaking so bad I nearly dropped the phone. I ran upstairs, woke both kids — groggy, confused, asking why — and half-carried the little one next door. The neighbors were home, thank god. I called 911 from their kitchen with both kids clinging to me.

While we waited for the sirens, I called the dad back.

"Okay. We're next door. Police are coming. Now tell me what's going on."

Another pause. Then: "We don't have a clown statue."

And then he told me the rest. For weeks, both kids had been complaining about a clown watching them while they slept. Standing in their doorway. Just watching. He and his wife figured it was nightmares — kids, imagination, whatever. They never told me. Why would they? They didn't believe it themselves.

I sat in that neighbor's kitchen and stared at nothing while red and blue lights washed across the windows. And all I could think about was that grin in the corner of the den. That painted, frozen grin. And how many times I'd looked away from the TV that night.