OVKOR
Film and Entertainment

~ Chapter 1 ~
~ Clown Face ~

She was wearing a frown and a gaudy necklace of cheap large fluoro-pink beads. She had lipstick smudged across her cheek and held the red cosmetic up in the air claiming: “Me pretty: me lipstick. You not pretty: you not lipstick.”
Kitty Rain West put her hands on her hips but said nothing, preferring to quietly assess the situation, at least to begin with.
“Ah what?” Jane West said.
“Me pretty: me lipstick. See, me lipstick. You not pretty: not lipstick. You not lipstick.”
The first time it was a little funny—this green-eyed squirt of a kid, all gaudy and looking like a dolled-up lollipop. But the second time she said it, Kitty Rain was a bit cross.
“I'm not lipstick,” Kitty replied. “At least you got that right. But I'll have you know that I am pretty. And,” she added, “little Miss Clown Face, you need to learn some manners.”
Kitty's sister Jane giggled. “Yes Miss Clown Face, go home.”
“Did we come into the wrong house?” Kitty asked, looking around.
Jane slumped onto a chair.
“Nope,” Jane told her. “This is home.”
Kitty slumped beside her and the two sisters looked at the lipstick-painted child before them. The little girl frowned even more.
“You no pretty.”
“We are pretty,” Kitty and Jane said together and in a tone of utter impatience.
The little clown-faced girl stopped frowning and started to cry instead.
“Clown Face is crying,” Jane announced.
“Who are you?” Kitty asked her, softening a bit and then said to her sister, “Maybe she's lost.”
“Maybe someone sent her away because she was so annoying,” Jane added.
“But they gave her some lipstick as a parting gift,” Kitty laughed.
“You not lipstick,” the child said through sobs.
“Yes I'm not lipstick! And I don't like lipstick. Lipstick is for actresses and clowns,” Kitty told her flatly. Then she added: “Oh but it's a pretty colour isn't it.”
The little girl smiled somewhat. “Pretty, pretty lipstick.”
“Mmm, yes well, pretty colour,” Kitty responded.
“Who is she?” Jane asked.
“What's your name?” Kitty asked.
“Me, me. Nadi. Me Nadi,” the girl said, still holding her lipstick. “Me pretty.”
“Pretty Nadi,” Kitty said. “What's that you have? No, not the lipstick. The other thing, that purse. I've seen it before.”
“Where's your mummy? Are you lost?" Jane asked her.
“Where's our mum for that matter?” Kitty said.
“I'll go find Mum and tell her about the lipstick clown.”
“Nadi,” Kitty corrected.
“Well you started it,”Jane countered.
“No, she did,” Kitty said, pointing to the young child.
“No point. Rude point. Chop finga-finga off. Chop off, off! Rude, rude,” the girl yelled and ran away from Kitty and Jane.
Kitty chased her lazily through the house while Jane searched for their mother. The two sisters crossed paths in their pursuits.
“Mama, mama,” the lipstick girl yelled as she threw the lipstick and purse on the floor.
“This is seriously annoying,” Jane told her sister.
“At least we know she has a mother,” Kitty said as she stopped to pick up the purse. She let the child continue running back and forth around the house while briefly regarding the small purse.
The clown hollered with rounded lips like a back-and-forth ball-game clown from a carnival.
“Noisy clown,” Jane said.
“Perhaps we should be more loving,” Kitty reasoned out loud. “Jane, I think God wants us both to be more loving.”
“Why?” Jane shouted as she tried to grab the running child but missed.
The little girl dodged Jane's arm and yelled again, much louder than Jane. Jane gave up.
“Because,” Kitty told her, “even clowns need love.”
“Ha! All I want is to go to bed. I don't even want dinner. I don't want to be loving. I want to go to sleep. How am I going to sleep with this noisy thing! I'm so tired.”
“Yes me too. Actually I need a massage. I think I injured my shoulder doing all that scything.”
“Ha. You just don't want to clear any more fields,” Jane accused her sister.
“You are correct,” Kitty said. “I don't want to clear any fields again. Not ever!”
“Well there's still more cleanup to do at the Drevorn property.”
“Next week. Now is for resting,” Kitty said. “Well, after we return this girl to her mother.”
The back door opened and in came the little girl's mother with Kitty's and Jane's mother: it was Aunty Flo with Penny Meredith West.
“Aunty Flo!” Kitty said, surprised.
“Oh, this is your Nadi! Nadine!” Jane exclaimed.
“Well of course she's mine,” said Florence Shelber. “I'm not giving her away.”
Kitty and Jane looked at each other with relief.
Their Aunty was a robust woman with heavy make-up and a contagious smile that lit up the room. She gave the girls a big hug.
“This would be your lipstick then,” Jane said as she picked up the rouge from the floor.
“And she had your purse. I just remembered it—from years ago,” Kitty said as she ran her fingers over the small accessory.
“Ah, yes, the lipstick is mine,” the lady chortled. “But I gave her my purse on her birthday.”
“You hand-embroidered this yourself didn't you Aunty?” Kitty asked.
The red velvet purse had white embroidered flowers all over it and was edged with crocheted burgundy thread around the top flap. A white flower-shaped button was the clasp.
“Mama, mama,” the little girl jumped up and down seeking attention.
“So what's all the fuss with Nadine?” Aunty Flo asked.
“Oh well—” Kitty said.
“Um um,” Jane added.
“Well we were discussing lipstick with Nadine,” Kitty reasoned.
Jane coughed slightly.
“Mmm, she got it a tad messy, I think,” Aunty Flo mentioned.
“Ah ha yeah,” Jane said. “Um, then Kitty pointed at her and Nadine said she'd chop her finger off or something.”
“Then she ran about the house,” Kitty said.
“Oh,” Aunty Flo said with comprehension, “so that's it. That's just Leroy. He says don't point or he'll chop your finger off. Uncle's big on manners, you know."
"Yes Aunty Flo. We were talking to Nadine about pointing and manners," Jane offered.
“Not really,” Kitty said while frowning at Jane and changed the subject. “Actually I was trying to remember about the purse. I knew I had seen it before.”
“Yes, you watched me make it. Do you remember?”
“Vaguely. I tried to make one like it but I couldn't—never could.”
“Well, we all have different gifts, don't we,” their mother said. “Your gifts are from God and Florence is excellent with crafts.”
“I watched you for hours, but you got it all done in one afternoon,” Kitty reminisced.
“Well what was I doing while you were crocheting and stuff?” Jane asked.
“Playing guitar,” Kitty, Penny, and Aunty Flo chorused together.
“Play tar, play tar, play tar.” Little Nadine jumped up and down immensely excited.
Kitty smiled at Nadine. “If you play in tar, you are going to look even more like a clown,” Kitty said emphatically.
They all laughed.