Lynndi paced between the kitchen and the dining room, the double doors flung open, twirling her long blond hair as she chatted animatedly with her best friend Cassie on the phone. “You think that’s scary?” she scoffed, “Wait until you hear this!” She launched into her tale just knowing that what she was going to tell Cassie would keep her up that night.
“I had this friend, Jennifer, who went on a trip to Mexico. When she came back, she brought me a present. Nice, right? Wrong.” Lynndi shuddered just thinking about it as she continued dramatically, “She had brought me back this ornate, hand-painted clown puppet! You know I hate clowns–I’m not a freak like my little sister–I don’t know what she was thinking, but I had to act all nice about it, right? I mean, she went to all that trouble, so I put it up in my room for a while on that shelf on my desk. The ugly thing gave me nightmares! Can you imagine having to sleep with a clown puppet just staring and grinning at you like a maniac?” Cassie screeched on the other end of the phone, “No! That sounds awful! Why did you leave it up?! I would have just thrown it away!”
Lynndi proudly laughed, “I know, I kept having flashbacks to that Goosebumps episode with the clown! At least I think it was Goosebumps…anyway, that’s not the really creepy part. I did try to get rid of it—” Cassie interrupted with a surprised shout, “What? Really? What happened?!” Lynndi paused for dramatic effect, then resumed her story after she felt she had created the appropriate amount of suspense, “I put the hideous thing in a bag for donations when my mom was on one of her decluttering tears. You know, since I would feel bad about throwing away an expensive gift…but the puppet showed back up in my bedroom right back where I used to keep it on my shelf! There it was just leering at me again!”
Cassie gasped loudly on the other end of the line as Lynndi glanced over her shoulder as her little sister meandered into the slightly cluttered kitchen for a snack. Ignoring her sister Lynndi went on, knowing she had Cassie hooked now, “I know! So weird! I asked my mom if she put it back, but she said she didn’t do it. The clown just reappeared on its own. So, after that, I kept trying to get rid of the possessed puppet. I tried throwing it away in the kitchen trash; it popped back up on my shelf. I tossed it in my bathroom trash–it came back closer to my bed!”
Lynndi’s sister was still in the kitchen half listening and watching her out of the corner of her eyes as she bustled around prepping her after-school treat as Lynndi continued her dramatics to Cassie, “I lost count of how many times I tried to rid myself of that cursed clown in different trashcans, and I think once I tried to put it out for a garage sale, but it just kept haunting my room until one day it finally didn’t come back. The damage was done though–it still haunts my dreams!” Cassie agreed that she, too, would still have nightmares if it were her. Lynndi, feeling satisfied, began to ask Cassie if she had any stories that could beat that when she heard her sister break out into a fit of giggles as she started to saunter past her from the kitchen with her plate of food. Flipantly, the sister proclaimed, “Lynndi, you’re such an idiot. That was me the whole time.” Lynndi froze, then roared indignantly at her retreating back, “Kylie! That was you?! I’m going to kill you!”
