You know, when we’re kids we believe in a lot of things that we lose faith in as we get older. Santa brings toys to good girls and boys. A wish on a star or a turkey bone will come true if you believe and don’t tell anyone. Basically the overarching theme is good things should happen to good people and bad things should happen to bad people. The only problem with this theory, is who is there to make sure that good people are protected and bad people punished? And how does that individual, while giving out rewards and punishments, remain perfectly good and balanced themselves? Is it even possible to be all good and all virtue? Who else would be qualified to judge but someone perfect? I don’t know, even now. I’m just asking, but maybe after I tell you about my experience during the summer of 1994, you’ll have a better idea than me.

When I was little and I lived in town, all the kids in my area used to play at the park by the woods. Dunwich was a small town and nobody worried about their kids playing unsupervised back then. Well to be honest, some parents worried, but most of them would let you go out with your friends so long as you were back before dinner. The park was just a few blocks from my house and it sat near the edge of town by Black Creek which wound back behind the Southern side of Dunwich.
I was a bit of a Tom-boy back then. Girls my age never seemed to do anything fun, but the boys were always up to something exciting and as soon as they saw I could keep up, I was invited to join in. I was the “cool girl” as they put it; the one without cooties. The boys and I used to swim along the creek during the summer and catch Crawdaddies. The water wasn’t too deep and it was always within sight of the park, so no one worried about any of us drowning or anything. Honestly, I don’t think there was a spot all along Black Creek deep enough for someone to drown in.
Just past the creek there were some woods that we all used to call the Rustling Acres because of how the leaves would rustle when the wind came through and each fall, those leaves would be blown across the creek to the park where we would pile them as high as we could and jump into them from the merry-go-round. I liked to pretend that there were fairies riding them across the creek , which to them, would be like a giant river.
Sometimes my friends and I would wander the Rustling Acres together. We were in the last year of elementary school and about to start middle school the following year. It was a scary time for us, but exciting too. Middle school meant you were half way to being a grown up, after all. I was already beginning to get taller and Jim, Andy and Chris were beginning to fear that I could wind up developing cooties despite having previously decided that I was safe because I didn’t wear dresses. That being the case, it was fun to chase them around since my legs were now longer than theirs by an inch or two and we all laughed as we dodged in and out of the trees.
Even being taller by a little bit, I was still awkward and gangly and I had a hard time catching up with the boys most of the time. That evening, instead of spreading the dreaded cooties, we were pretending that I was on fire and anyone I touched would be on fire too. Then I said that trees I touched should be on fire, so they couldn’t keep running around me and hiding behind the same ones. I was hoping to chase them into the small valley further down where they’d have to run back uphill to escape and I might tag one or all of them at last. It was getting a little dark though and I regretted my new rule after just a few minutes because Jim, Andy and Chris all vanished down the hill and I couldn’t see them any more.
I started calling out to them, but instead of hearing them call back to me, I heard something else. It was music. I wondered if one of them had brought a ham radio or something and had accidentally turned it on. Following the sound, I continued down the hill into the little valley in the Rustling Acres. Near the bottom was a big tree stump in a clearing. The music was coming from just behind it and I immediately started to feel a little scared, so I stopped just before the bottom of the decline.
I noticed the boys a moment later, hiding behind a few trees on the other side, all of them staring towards the stump with fearful expressions. I waved to them, but Andy shook his head at me and motioned for me to go around instead of going straight through, past the stump. I went around the long way and as I came around to their side, I saw what they were staring at. There was a small jack-in-the-box sitting directly in front of the stump, the crank rotating slowly as it played it’s metallic tune. Behind it, there was a wide opening in the stump that seemed to go down into a tunnel or warren under the ground. Above the opening was a carved wooden sign that said Ms. Funnybutton.
None of us said a word as we watched the toy and waited for the inevitable pop at the end of the song. When it came around, we all cringed, ready to jump but then it just stopped. The boys all looked at each other, then at me as if to ask if I knew what this was. I shrugged back at them and was about to suggest we all go back to the park when a pair of yellow gloved hands shot out from the opening in the stump, taking hold of the toy. We all jumped at once, but the hands simply shook the box a couple times, then slapped it on the top and set it back down before retreating back into the hole. A moment later, the song started up again, finishing with a pop that flipped over the top and sent a colorful toy jester springing out. It bounced up and down and side to side before it finally hung limp. I noticed the boys were already backing up the hill and I did the same. Everyone knew, even back then that clowns and all things associated with clowns are evil. I hadn’t read IT, but my instincts told me that the owner of those yellow gloved hands was bad and that we didn’t want to meet him.
Then, the sagging jester did something odd...it farted. Just a little squeaky toot seemed to emit from it’s rear end with a tiny puff of green smoke and everything before it was sucked back into it’s box and the top snapped shut. I was still scared, but I heard Chris start to laugh, followed by Andy and Jim. I mean, I knew farts were funny and probably funnier to boys since they seem to fart so much more than girls, but I wasn’t quite comfortable enough to laugh just yet. But it was the laughter that drew out the thing in the stump.
At first, all I could see was a pair of eyes. They weren’t red, or black or any creepy, scary color either. One was bright blue and the other brilliant green, glittering with their happy colors and it was easy to see even before they came out of the dark that they were happy by the way they were tilted up at the outer corners. There was a soft clapping and then a fluffy mass of bright red frizzy hair came slowly out of the dark, topped with a big yellow bow. It wasn’t a clown...or, well it was a clown, but it was a lady clown. She was skinny, or sort of skinny. She wore a little t-shirt with broad rainbow stripes and little fuzzy balls for buttons. A pair of orange suspenders held up a pair of baggy red pants with yellow stripes at the bottom and a huge yellow button in the middle of the waist and she wore a huge classic pair of bright red clown shoes. The boys backed further up the hill, Andy the only one brave enough to say anything as she crawled out of the stump and picked up the box in one of her gloved hands.
“Who are you?” he demanded, “You some kind of weirdo?”
The lady gave us all a big smile, which was exaggerated further by the bright red lip stick that was painted a little wider than her actual mouth into an exaggerated grin. There was a round red clown nose over her nose, as well as a yellow star painted over her right eye. All of her exposed skin was ghostly white and strangely, it didn’t look like paint. She stood up and tossed the box into the air with a cheerful sort of carelessness, then looked back at us, allowing it to fall...except it didn’t. I was so distracted with being afraid of who she was and what she might do to us that I almost missed it, but sure enough, the box never fell. It just, disappeared.
“Where’d it go?” Chris muttered.
The lady clown made a silly shrugging gesture with both hands flopping out, then pretended to think, tapping her chin with her finger. Then, Andy gave a shout as the end of pop goes the weasel played and the jester shot out from the box which was now sitting just behind him.
The clown lady clapped her hands and mimicked laughter as she pointed at Andy, who looked a little mad.
“Very funny,” he said.
She folded her arms over her chest and wobbled her head back and forth with a mock angry expression in reply, which got both Chris and Jim to laugh. This got Andy even madder.
“Nice trick,” he said, picking up the box, “Lets see you make it disappear this time.”
He threw it directly at her. Chris tried to stop him, but the box flew from his hand and sailed down the hill towards her. My eyes widened as I thought it would hit her directly in the face, ending the strange performance and starting an actual confrontation with the crazy woman, but as the box came down she quickly turned and stuck out her rear then made a loud farting sound that somehow blew the box away at the last moment, sending it tumbling along the ground.
“Holy shit, that’s awesome!” Jim laughed out loud.
She turned back around, eyes lit up as she put her hands to her mouth in mock embarrassment. I laughed at that and she turned to look at me. It was strange, but at that moment when her blue and green eyes locked onto mine, I stopped being afraid. It wasn’t just that she was being funny. She was sort of pretty, too. She had these big fluffy red eye lashes and dimples in both cheeks and even in her chin that all made her look even more cheerful. I think we all started to get a little closer then, all at once. I mean, she didn’t seem threatening really. Sure, we were all just kids and she was taller than us, but she didn’t look dangerous and she didn’t have any sort of weapon. She was a lady, so what harm could she really do? And besides, everyone knows that pretty ladies don’t hurt little kids. Andy was the only one who stayed back.
“Come on, Andy? What are you scared of?” Chris asked as he and Jim joined me moving closer.
“I’m not scared of anything,” Andy snapped, “Why are you going over to that weirdo? She’s probably on drugs or something.”
The clown lady made a show of gasping in disbelief at the accusation, opening her mouth and covering her chest with one hand as if to ask, “Who, me?” She followed this with a brief pantomime of smoking, drinking and shooting a needle into her arm before stumbling back and performing a perfect flop onto her back as if she was dead. I thought it was funny, as did Jim and Chris, but Andy was still holding out, folding his arms just as she had when she was mocking him earlier.
“She’s not on drugs,” Jim said, “She’s just funny.”
“Then what’s she doing out here, then?” Andy asked defiantly.
“How should I know?”
She sat back up at this, crossing her legs with her big ridiculous shoes sticking out to either side. She pretended to think hard again as the boys continued to argue.
I had to admit, Andy made a good point. Normal people didn’t live in holes in the middle of the woods. Even clowns had to live in real houses.
“Do you live out here?” I asked hesitantly, as I came a bit closer.
She turned to me and shook her head no, with a big smile.
“Then why are you here?” I asked, noticing the boys had stopped to listen.
She stood up, causing me to recoil slightly, then she gestured to the clearing around her with both arms and broadly wafted air towards her face taking in a deep breath and opening her mouth as though she were sighing with satisfaction.
“Who are you?” Chris asked.
She tapped her head, then strolled comically towards the stump with her arms swinging. She stopped in front of it and gestured to the sign in front of the stump.
“Ms. Funnybutton?” I said, more as a question.
She nodded her head yes, did a little jig in the dirt, then posed with her hands and one foot cocked out as if to say, tad-ah!
“What kind of name is that?” Andy asked.
She pointed to her nose.
“A clown name!” I laughed, “Are you a real clown then?”
She nodded her head yes, smiling proudly.
“It’s still a stupid name even for a clown,” Andy said, “What’s funny about a button?”
The clown lady looked back to him and the boys with her eyebrows raised, then looked down to the yellow button on her pants. She pointed to the button, then shook her head.
“No buttons?” I asked, “What do you mean?”
She held out her hands towards us as she continued to shake her head, then she held up a finger for us to wait. Then she raised her finger with an ah ha expression and held out her fist towards Andy. He refused to touch it, so she turned it over and opened it to reveal a bright blue handkerchief.
“Wow, great trick,” Andy muttered.
The clown lady rolled her eyes, still smiling as she closed her fist, pushing the handkerchief up until one corner was sticking out. She offered the end to Andy, but when he refused again, she offered it to Jim. Jim looked to Andy, then Chris before shrugging and grabbing the end. He pulled it and as it slid out of her hand another handkerchief of bright orange appeared tied to the end of it. She slapped her cheek in mock surprise, then nodded for him to keep pulling. Jim was grinning now as he started pulling back away from her, then finally tugging hand over hand until he’d somehow gotten ten or more feet of silk handkerchiefs from her gloved hand.
It was a simple trick, I thought, but I’d only seen it done when the clown was wearing sleeves and her arms were bare. She couldn’t possibly have packed all of that inside of a single glove, could she? Even Andy looked impressed at this point, but the trick wasn’t finished. The clown lady walked over to Jim, who was no longer afraid and gathered up her handkerchief rope, then walked back to her place in front of the stump. We were all fairly close now, I having come over to stand next to the boys with all of us less than ten feet away from her. She held up the gathered rope and dangled one end over her opened mouth, then began to chomp in an exaggerated away, swallowing the handkerchiefs one by one as she pulled them through her raised hand. She turned to us as the last bright blue cloth vanished between her lips and made a loud gulp, tilting her head back.
“Dude, gross!” Chris exclaimed with disbelief, “That’s not a trick! Why did you do that?”
She held up her finger again, nodding her head with her brow furrowed in concentration, then she reached down and pulled up the bottom of her shirt, showing her flat white stomach and began to roll her belly, shifting her hips and chest from side to side. She was exceptionally good at it, maybe even as good as a real belly dancer, I thought. She did this for a minute or so before suddenly pushing her stomach out, holding her sides with both hands and puffing out her cheeks.
“What are you doing?” I asked with a small giggle.
“She’s probably got a stomach ache now,” Andy remarked.
“No, she’s just digesting it,” Jim said.
“What would be the magic in that?” I asked with a snicker.
“Look at that!” Chris pointed as a small bright blue corner of cloth seemed to poke out from her belly button.
She smiled brightly gesturing to me with one hand and pointing to her belly.
“I’m not touching that!” I laughed.
She pouted, then looked over to the boys. Andy and Jim backed up, but Chris took a step forwards and reached towards her stomach. He delicately gripped the end of the cloth and pulled and just like before, an entire multicolored rope of tied handkerchiefs began to slip out from her belly button!
She clapped both hands on her cheeks in mock surprise as before while Jim took the rope of handkerchiefs and turned, hoisting the end over his shoulder as though it weighed a ton and marching away from her down the bottom of the clearing like he was pulling a sled behind him. She tilted her head back as he went, making funny faces and pretending as though he were pulling her intestines out. He kept pulling and the rope kept coming, somehow twice as long as before.
“This is crazy!” Jim laughed, “It’s like she’s really magic!”
“How are you doing that?” Chris asked.
The clown lady smiled down at Chris and shook her head, putting a finger to her lips, then tapping her nose. Then, she made a gasping expression and Jim was suddenly halted in his tracks as the rope suddenly became taught and he nearly fell backwards. She clapped her hands, waving to him and gesturing for him to drop the rope. He did and then, to everyone’s surprise, she took a deep breath, making a ridiculous silly face as she lifted her chest and sucked in her stomach and the rope of silk handkerchiefs was rapidly slurped back into her belly button like a spaghetti noodle, ending with a small smack at the end. She made a mock sigh, letting her stomach bulge and patting it comically, which had us all staring until we saw her belly button actually open up and give a tiny burp.
She covered her mouth and her belly at the same time, pretending to be embarrassed and we all laughed, including Andy. Then, she jumped, pointing to her wrist then back to the setting sun. I was the first to shout my dismay as I realized how late it was getting.
“I gotta get home!” I exclaimed, “My mom’s gonna kill me if I’m late!”
“Shit! I gotta go, too!” Andy added.
“Wait!” Jim protested, “Are you gonna stay out here all night, Ma’am?”
He looked at the clown lady and we all followed his gaze. She seemed for the first time to show genuine emotion as she favored us with a gentle smile. She waved one hand dismissively, then pointed back to her hold in the stump.
“You’re going to sleep in that stump?” Andy asked.
She nodded happily, placing her hands together and resting her head against them as though she were sleeping. She gave us all a thumbs up.
“Aren’t you lonely out here?” Chris asked.
She tapped her chin thoughtfully, but then lifted her shoulders and shook her head, gesturing to us, then hugging herself and smiling at the sky.
“Does that mean we’ll see you again?” I asked.
She nodded, then bowed deeply before us, before blowing each of us a kiss. She backed towards the entrance to her hole and as if reminding us of who she was, she gestured to the sign bearing her name. Then she waved goodbye and like a chipmunk, suddenly shot back into the opening, vanishing from sight.

* * *

I did make it home on time for dinner, so there wasn’t any trouble that came from our strange meeting with the clown woman who lived in the stump. At least, there wasn’t any trouble that night. I didn’t tell my mom or dad about it though. I’m not sure why. I suppose even if I had, at that age it would have just sounded like a game my friends and I had played with our imaginations. We did that too, after all. I mean, I had just been setting the entire woods ablaze chasing my friends before we met her, so it wasn’t really that outlandish an idea that my parents might think I was making up stories had I told them about a pretty lady clown with a magic belly button.
None of us had any idea what to think of her. Jim and Chris insisted she was magic. Andy still said she was creepy, but I was beginning to guess that he secretly liked her. I personally thought she could be something like a fairy or a wood nymph, though I barely knew what those were supposed to be. I just knew that they were magic. Of course, we went directly to the same spot the very next afternoon and she came out, just as before, delighted to see us. She entertained us for hours, this time pulling full sized hula hoops out from her pants somehow and teaching us to use them. She could start hula hooping around her waist, put her arms in and whirl it up her torso to her neck, then back down to her feet and whirl it around one ankle while hopping over it with her other foot. Even wearing clown shoes!

When we came to see her the following weekend, she pulled out a bunch of balloons and blew them up with her belly button! She made us balloon animals! She could do any kind, too. She made me a giraffe, Jim an elephant, Chris a frog and even Andy accepted a tiger. The best part was, they all made noises like the real animals! At least, we thought they did, until we realized that she was actually making the noises with her belly button! I would open up and roar like a lion, then trumpet like an elephant. She even did this trick when she saw a fly and pointed it out to us, then suddenly a small sticky tongue shot out from her belly button and yanked the fly back inside before making a little ribbit sound like a frog! Then she patted her stomach and it made a tiny burp and she jumped as if it had startled her and we all laughed until we were red in the face. When we were done playing with her that evening, we all agreed that we shouldn’t take the balloons home. We didn’t want our parents thinking that some kidnapper was wandering near the park, luring kids with balloons or candy like in the movies.
Ms. Funnybutton, which was what we called her now, became the best part of the week for all of us. But she was also our best kept secret. The four of us made a pact out there in the woods, that none of us would tell anyone about her. It was obvious that grown ups wouldn’t understand how great she was. They’d probably send the police out to make her leave and ruin everything. Other kids would just come out and make a crowd, then blab to the grown ups and make the same thing happen. So, it had to be just us and she didn’t seem to mind the idea when we explained it to her. She just smiled and nodded happily like she always did, then blew us kisses and scampered back into her hole.

For several months, the four of us went to visit Ms. Funnybutton every weekend. We’d wait for the other kids to leave the park, then take our shoes off and wade across the creek and run through the woods to her stump in the clearing. She was always smiling, always happy to see us and her smile was infectious. After a while, her tricks didn’t seem so much strange, but more miraculous. I began to think of her like a superhero and whenever any of us had some small problem, we’d try to imagine how Ms. Funnybutton would just clap her hands and pull the solution from one of her gloves or her baggy pants, or right out of her belly button.
But there are problems in every life that magic can’t fix and while the four of us were happy running around in the woods and playing with our magical friend, our experiences in the rest of the world were often far less wonderful. Andy had always been small for his age. In fact, he was the smallest in our fifth grade class, including all the girls and as we started middle school he quickly became a favorite target for bullies. The boys on the football and wrestling teams would follow him around in the hallway and wait behind him whenever he went to his locker, then push him inside as soon as he opened it. I tried once or twice to stop them, but there wasn’t much I could do but let him out once they left. A couple times, I got shoved or tripped for my trouble.
The worst of all these jerks was Jason Sorenson. He was in the eighth grade, but not for the first time and stood a full head taller than me and everyone else in school. Poor Andy barely came up to the bottom of his chest and he loved pointing that out, walking up and resting his elbow on Andy’s head as he talked to his friends, pretending that he didn’t notice him...just to humiliate him. If Andy moved or tried to push him off, he’d slap him, or shove him. One time he even picked him up, carried him to the garbage and dropped him in, dusting his hands off as he spun around and declared the trash had been taken out.
I mean, obviously we told on him. And yea, he got in trouble sometimes. Once the police even came and talked to him. This big, mean looking officer, who towered even over Jason, came in and interrogated him in the Principal’s office for like an hour. Jason actually looked like he’d been crying when he came out and I thought that maybe he’d learned his lesson. If only he had. That Friday afternoon when we were walking home from the park together, he and a few of his friends jumped out and his friends held me and Chris and Jim as Jason pushed Andy down and beat him until he was bleeding. It was the most scared I’ve ever been in my entire life. He just kept hitting him until even his friends who were holding us let go and ran over to pull him off.
They just left us at the side of the road by the park with Andy barely able to cry with his lip split top and bottom and one of his eyes already swelling up. Jim and Chris lifted him up between them and I told them I would run to the pay phone and call his parents. They helped him over to a bench as I ran, but just as I got to the phone and started fishing in my pockets for a quarter I caught a flash of yellow from the corner of my eye. I turned and looked towards the woods and to my surprise, Ms. Funnybutton was there, at the very edge of the woods, waving both hands frantically in the air to get my attention.
I waved back and she immediately pointed towards the boys and gestured for us to come over. I was a bit confused, since none of us had ever seen her outside of her clearing and neither had any of us seen her except for on Saturday or Sunday. But the way she was waving her arms seemed so frantic that I dropped the phone and ran immediately back to the boys.
“Look!” I shouted, pointing towards the woods.
They all looked and saw that our friend was beckoning them to her.
“I think she wants to help,” I said between ragged breaths.
“What can she do?” Chris asked, puzzled.
“What can’t she do?” Jim retorted quickly, “Come on! Help me!”
The two of them put Andy’s arms over their shoulder and I took his book bag along with mine as we all hurried through the park and over the creek. Ms. Funnybutton continued waving us on as we entered the woods and we followed her all the way to her clearing where she stopped near her stump and gestured for us to lay Andy down in front of her. Andy was barely sensible to what was happening, his bloody lips quivering as he was laid down on the ground.
“Wha...what are you guys doing?” he cried, “I wanna go home!”
“It’s okay,” I insisted, “Look, she’s here!”
He cringed as he turned his head and his expression changed when he looked up to see Ms. Funnybutton smiling down at him. She made a pout, frowning at him and holding both hands over her chest as she tilted her head to one side to express her sympathy. Then she knelt down in front of him.
“Wait,” Andy said, suddenly sounding a bit frightened, “What’s she doing?”
She bent over him and to all of our surprise, she gave him a tender kiss right over his swollen eye. Then she sat up and smiled. I could hardly believe my eyes as I watched the swelling almost instantly go down, the scuff marks vanishing at the same time while Andy’s lips seemed to zip back together. Andy’s eyes widened as they were once more able to open freely and he sat up, sniffing and wiping the tears from his bloodied cheeks. Ms. Funnybutton lifted her shirt a bit and pulled a bright red silk handkerchief from her belly button, offering it to him. Andy smiled and started to laugh as she pouted her lips and made a tiny squeaky little fart noise.
“Thank you,” Andy said, taking the handkerchief.
He wiped his face with it, then looked up at her and after a long moment threw his arms around her waist and buried his face against her. He sobbed and she patted his head gently as we all looked on with unmasked wonder.

We stayed for a short while that night as Ms. Funnybutton performed yet another miracle. When Andy was done crying, she gently pushed him away and gestured for him to take off his bloodied t-shirt. When he did, she took it from him and without giving us the usual set up, tilted her head back and stuffed the garment into her mouth, swallowing it one long gulp that sent a big bulge sliding down her slender throat. Then she lifted her shirt and performed a slow, almost hypnotic sequence of complex looking belly rolls ending as she had with her rope trick by pushing out her belly, grasping her sides with both hands and thrusting her hips towards Andy. Right in front of his eyes, the corner of his t-shirt reappeared from inside her belly button and Ms. Funnybutton nodded for him to take it. Andy took the corner with two fingers and pulled and out slid his t-shirt, clean and fresh as though it had just been washed. Andy laughed as he put it on and held the collar up to his nose.
“It even smells good!” he laughed.
She put a finger to her lips, then tapped her nose. Then, she looked up to the rest of us and gave a low bow before blowing us all kisses and waving goodbye. We all waved back and left for home. I was practically bursting as I went to sleep that night. It was like a dream. It was a wonderful dream where magic was real and good things happened to good people.

* * *

Naturally, we spent most of the weekend playing out at the park and as soon as we could sneak away without being seen, out in the woods with Ms. Funnybutton. When we arrived on Saturday afternoon, the very first thing she did was point at Andy and curl her finger up repeatedly, calling him over to her. For the first time, Andy went right up to her without hesitation and she bent over him, taking his face between her yellow gloves and looking him over before nodding with approval that he seemed alright. Then, she kissed him right on the nose! Andy took a step back and she turned to one side, looking over her shoulder at him, giving a flirty finger wave and blinking her fluffy red lashes at him. He turned red as a tomato and we laughed hysterically as he quickly ran back to the group.
We played tag with her in the clearing and she made such a show of clomping after us in her gigantic shoes but never quite catching up until she pretended to be out of breath. Then, all of us believing she really was exhausted, we stopped running and turned around only to be surprised as she pulled a silk handkerchief rope out and swirled it over her head like a lasso before tossing it over us and pulling it tight, catching us all together. We all giggled as she pulled us to her then ran circles around us, tying us up in a big bundle then stepping up to each one of us and deliberately touching us on the top of the head. Then she danced around, pumping her fists in the air, celebrating her victory.
On Sunday afternoon, we all played tug-o-war and she held out against us for a few minutes before flopping forward dramatically and letting us drag her through the leaves. Then, when we had a rematch, she pretended to struggle as before, straining with both hands in various positions, holding the rope over one shoulder, wrapping it around her legs, then her waist and even trying to hold it in her teeth. Finally, she did the ah-ha face and pushed one end of the silk handkerchief rope into her belly button and with a sly grin in our direction, took a deep breath, sucked in her stomach and began to slurp the rope into her dragging us all towards her. When we were finally pulled over the line, we fell forward and the rope left our hands, vanishing into her belly button which gave a little gulp and the customary burp. She slapped her side and did a little victory dance as we giggled and the boys whined that she was cheating.

None of us wanted to go back to school on Monday, but there was no avoiding it. While Ms. Funnybutton had saved the day by magically healing Andy’s wounds and cleaning his clothes, she had also removed all evidence of the savage assault Jason had committed against him. Because of that, we couldn’t report what had happened. In some ways, that was a relief. If tattling on Jason in school had provoked him to that sort of violence, what would he do if we got him arrested? I had no doubt in my mind, even then, that he would have killed Andy if his friends hadn’t stopped him. Still, those same friends were sitting with him at lunch, talking as if nothing had happened that Friday.
When Jason saw Andy, his eyes practically jumped out of his head. He started pointing across the lunch room towards our table, frantically conversing with his friends, both of whom seemed intimidated by his outbursts, muttering responses with their eyes looking away. He finally shook his head, then gave us a crooked smile that made my stomach turn. He nodded his head as he continued to smile that sick smile, as though he were assuring himself of what he was planning to do.
He followed Andy to his locker after lunch and confronted us all by himself. His friends had stopped further down the hallway and one of them called after him but he didn’t seem to hear him.
“So what’d you do, fag? You wearing your mommies makeup? Huh? Did you’re girlfriend give you stitches?”
Andy’s eyes were already watering. Chris, Jim and me stood in front of him, but none of us looked very confident.
“What are you talking about?” Jim asked defiantly, “Are you saying something happened to him?”
“Shut up, queer!” Jason shoved Jim back violently, but the rest of us caught him and he regained his balance.
“I must have gone too easy on you. Look at all of you fucking fags, walking around with those smug fucking looks on your shit faces. What are you looking at, slut?” he turned and stared directly at me, “Think you’re hot shit? Fucking flat chested bitch?”
“At least I’m not a stupid loser who gets held back a grade!” I shouted.

Jason’s face twisted and he cocked back his shoulder, raising his fist when suddenly a large gnarled hand clamped over his.
“Jason,” Principal Christiansen said in his deep voice.
“Get the fuck off me!” Jason shouted, jerking free and pushing past us.
“Jason Sorenson, you get back over here, now!” the Principal bellowed, stomping after him.
But Jason ran straight down the hallway and out the doors into the parking lot. The Principal stopped just before the doors, watching him as he slapped cars and broke an antennae then continued on across the street.
“You, all of you,” he said, pointing to us, “My office, now.”
We followed the burly man back to the main office, all of us practically quaking with fear. However, when he sat us all down together, his expression softened and he asked us to explain what was going on and reassured us that we weren’t in any trouble. So, we told him. We told him everything. Well, we didn’t tell him what day Andy had been beaten up, since his lack of even a light bruise anywhere on his face would make that seem like a lie. We told him how Jason and his friends had been bullying him though and also that we were afraid of what he might do. Principal Christiansen told us not to worry. He said he was going to call the police and Jason’s parents and that he wasn’t going to be allowed at school anymore.
I wish I could say we all felt better when we were done talking with him, but we didn’t. Jason could probably be arrested, that wasn’t hard to believe. Maybe he’d get sent off to juvie and we could forget about him for a few years. But the way he’d looked when I insulted him. His eyes had seemed so wild...so deranged. He’d looked the same way when he’d beaten Andy.

The rest of the week crawled by. Jason hadn’t gone home that day and his parents were apparently raising hell at the police station, demanding they commit all their officers to search for him. They apparently thought he had just run away and that he could be lost in the woods or injured by the road somewhere.
Maybe it makes me a bad person for saying this, but I was hoping that was the case. I was hoping that maybe he was lost, or that maybe he’d hitchhiked out of town. Any way that he could be gone forever and out of our lives was fine with me. Jason was a bad person and bad people deserved bad things to happen to them.
By the time Saturday came around we were all so paranoid that it was a question whether or not we should try to go see Ms. Funnybutton at all while he was at large. Common sense said no, but when all of us thought of what she’d done for Andy and then imagined her coming out of her stump and not finding us, we decided it was worth the risk. Besides, as Jim always said, she could do anything. If we were with her, that was the safest place in the world to be.
Our parents were all a little hesitant to let us go to the park at first, since Jason had gone missing, but we reassured them with the fact that the four of us would be together and at the park we’d be within a short distance to the pay phone if there was an emergency. They finally relented, since the park was usually busy on Saturdays anyways, but all insisted on us being back earlier than usual.

Contrary to what we had argued to our parents, the park was not busy. In fact, that Saturday afternoon, the park was empty and the four of us felt a little wary as we came up the sidewalk to see the old merry-go-round slowly rotating next to the creaking swing set. We shuffled past the spring horses and made our way across the creek and into the woods as usual.
“Does it seem quiet to you guys?” Chris asked as we headed down towards the stump.
“Yea,” Andy whispered.
“That’s because no one’s at the park today,” I said, as we came around and all of us peered into the opening of our friend’s little home.
We waited a few minutes, but nothing happened.
“Where is she?” Jim asked.
“How should I know?” Chris replied.
“What if...” Andy whispered, his eyes growing wide with concern, “What if Jason came here?”
“He doesn’t know about this place,” I said.
“Yea and he couldn’t do anything to her,” Jim added, “Ms. Funnybutton would kick his ass!”
“WHO, would kick WHO’s ass?” a loud voice shouted from a ways behind us.

We all spun around. A cold shiver ran down my back as I saw Jason Sorenson stalking down the hill towards us. He was filthy. His clothes were torn and dirt was smeared across his face. His dark hair was sticking up in the back and his eyes were absolutely feral. A smile crossed his lips and we all huddled around Andy together as he approached.
“Fucking finally, you fags all come out to your little love nest,” he sneered, “You know how fucking long I’ve been waiting for you? I’ve been coming here every day all fucking week because I know you queers come here to play doctor together.”
“We’re not scared of you,” Jim whispered.
“Oh? Not scared?” Jason shoved Jim back against us, “You think all you together could put a scratch on me?”
We backed towards the stump and all I could think of was, where is she? Why isn’t she here? Then Jason suddenly lunged forward and grabbed me by my shirt.
“So who gets to be the patient? Or do those three just run the train on your slut ass every day?”
“Hey, let go of her!” Andy shouted, rushing forward and throwing himself against Jason.
Jim and Chris joined in and in a moment, all of us were wrestling with the boy. Both Jim and Chris held onto his arms, while Andy clung to his right leg, all while I desperately tried to pull myself free from his grip. The four of us together seemed to have the upper hand for a half a minute as he cursed and struggled to shake free, but at last his strength and size won out and he got his right arm away, punching Jim in the face, sending him falling backwards, then returning and knocking Chris down as well. He stomped on Andy’s arm, causing him to scream out loud, then turned and slapped me full in the mouth hard enough to make me see stars.
“You fucking faggot pricks!” he half screamed, his voice squeaking, “I’ll fucking kill you! I’ll fucking gut you like fucking shit pigs!”
He threw me down and stood over me, raising his fist to deliver what to my mind could be a fatal blow, when suddenly a loud clap came from just behind him. Jason turned around and then fell backwards, scrambling off of me.
“What the fuck! What the fuck!” he shouted.
Standing right there in front of him was Ms. Funnybutton. Her lips were pursed and she wagged a finger at him, shaking her head disapprovingly. Her shirt was pulled up and tied in a knot just beneath her chest, showing her bare stomach and Jason’s expression went through a rapid metamorphosis as he went from shock, to fear, confusion and slight arousal as his eyes wandered over her figure.
“The fuck?” he smiled, “You out here teaching these fags how to screw?”
Ms. Funny button clapped a hand over her cheek, her mouth gaping in shock, then shook her head. She held out a finger to him, then pointed down at her stomach where the small corner of a bright blue handkerchief was sticking out from her belly button.
“What the fuck?” he laughed.
She reached down and pulled at the handkerchief, drawing out a long rope, which she looped several times in her hand till she had a few feet of slack.
“How the fuck? What’s that? Some gay magic trick?” he asked, “You know, I can pull something out of my pants and show you some magic.”
Ms. Funnybutton ignored his comments, letting a loop of the rope dangle then starting to swing it around like a cowgirl swinging her own umbilical chord. Jason just watched her, shaking his head and laughing until she tossed the loop over his head and it fell to his feet. He looked down just as she yanked it tight and his feet were pulled together and he toppled over backwards.
“Shit!” he cursed, “What you doing, bitch!”
She pulled again as he attempted to get get back up, causing him to flop on his back. Then, she started to drag him back towards her stump, away from the rest of us.
“Hey! Let me go! What the fuck?” Jason cried, turning and clawing at the dirt, trying to find something to hold on to, “What is this?”
Then, she waved to get his attention with one hand. When he looked up at her, she took a deep breath, lifting her chest and sucking in her stomach. Then, slowly but surely, the rope started sliding back into her belly button. Jason watched in disbelief at first, unable to understand what was happening right in front of him. It wasn’t until he felt himself being dragged towards her that he started to shout again. He screamed and cursed, but Ms. Funnybutton kept sucking and as she did, she pulled another rope out from one of her hands and snapped it like a whip at his face, the end wrapping around his mouth like a gag.
None of us looked away. I don’t think any of us were frightened by what we saw. After all, she’d done this trick before. She breathed in and out, each time, her rib cage lifted, her belly would pull back towards her spine and the rope would slide back into her navel until Jason was dragged right up to her. Then, his shoes were pulled up against her stomach and her belly button just stretched around them and they were pulled in with the rope. Jason let out a muffled scream behind his gag, but the rope around his mouth wound tighter and traveled down around his chest like a serpent, binding his arms against his sides. Ms. Funnybutton was still smiling and she closed her eyes, taking another deep breath as her bellybutton sucked in Jason’s legs.
We all stayed quiet. Andy, Jim, Chris and me watched with something bordering between morbid fascination and outright joy. Jason wriggled like a worm as his legs seemed to vanish into nothing. Ms. Funnybutton’s stomach stretched wider as her belly button opened up to swallow him, but her sides and back didn’t bulge with the shape of kicking legs within. It was as if he were being melted instantly as soon as he passed the event horizon. Like he was being folded up like paper.
As her navel stretched around his hips and his hands went in, Jason started to cry. He cried like a little boy, like he’d made Andy cry. He cried and he screamed as he was drawn in to his chest and he thrashed and swung his head back and forth until the infinitely pliable lips of her belly button were wrapped around his neck, and only his head was still sticking out from the middle of Ms. Funnybutton’s belly. She stopped pulling and looked down at him with her clownish grin. He twisted his head around to look at us. His eyes glistening with tears as he struggled to get words out around his gag.
“Pllsss….hlp...meeee!” he squeaked.
None of us said a word. Ms. Funnybutton looked up at us and gave a cheerful grin, then laid a hand over Jason’s head and pushed. His final screams were cut short as her bellybutton slipped over the crown of his head and the orifice squeezed shut with a small tuft of dark hair sticking out like a feather. She clapped her hands happily, raising her arms and posing in front of us, rolling her belly and shifting her hips from side to side before finally sucking in her stomach one last time with a sudden expression of what I could only guess was extreme satisfaction. The tuft of hair vanished within the tight folds of her navel and she took in a huge breath, letting out a long silent sigh as she patted and rubbed her stomach. Then, as expected, her belly button let out a loud belch.
Ms. Tummy button untied the knot in her shirt and pulled it back down, brushing out the wrinkles, then went over to each of us to help us up and dust us off. I think we were in something like shock. Andy flinched when she took his face in her hands as she had the previous day, but allowed her to look at his arm. Before she let us go that afternoon, she gave us each a kiss on the forehead, which as before made all of our cuts and bruises close and took away all of our pain. Then, she lined us all up in front of her and gave us a serious look. She pointed to her stomach, then looked all around her and put a finger to her lips. We all nodded our understanding. Then she bowed, blew us our kisses and waved goodbye as she scrambled back into her hole.
We all walked home together, stopping at each house until I was the last one, walking the few remaining blocks to my house alone. I felt weird as I went to bed that night. Not bad. Not horrified. Just...weird. The police ended up asking for volunteers to search for Jason the following week. Fliers went up in town and a few of our teachers talked about it at school and asked if any of us knew anything about it. We said we didn’t. We lied, not just because our story was silly and unbelievable, but because none of us were really sorry about what happened. Jason was a bad person and a bad thing happened to him. I don’t really know exactly what happened to him. None of us knew. She could have taken him away somewhere into her magical world beyond the stump, or she could have packed him into her belly like a sardine and digested him. It didn’t matter to us. Ms. Funnybutton had saved our lives, of that we were all certain. How she did it was irrelevant.

Even still, after that day, we visited our friend less and less. As we got older and started high school and then college, we forgot. Well...Jim, Chris and Andy forgot. I guess I thought I had too. I thought so, until just the other night. I was visiting home for spring break. It was nice out, so I decided to take a walk to the park. The place was a bit run down these days. The merry-go-round had been removed, replaced by a plastic dome in the approximate shape of a dinosaur for kids to crawl on I guess. The pay phone was gone. I suppose everyone has cell phones now. I sat on the benches by the creek and watched the water, thinking about my friends and how they’d all moved away, one by one.
It should have startled me, but it didn’t. The flash of bright yellow as that hand waved to me from the wood line. I shouldn’t have taken my shoes off and waded across the creek, but I did. I walked through the tall grass and passed under the trees, weaving around rocky hillocks and picking through the underbrush until I saw a small valley beneath me where there was a clearing. In the clearing, was a stump. My heart started to pound and I didn’t know why. I went down there, twigs snapping beneath my feet, each sharp sound making me jump a little until I came the long way around to where I could see the other side of the stump. There was no opening.
I let out a deep sigh, shaking my head and staring up at the sky through the canopy overhead. I let out a quick laugh in spite of myself, then laughed a bit louder. Then I heard a cracking sound and looked down to see a small crack widening at the center of the stump until it split open and a yellow glove reached out. A pair of bright eyes, one blue and one green flashed in the darkness within and then a frizzy mass of red hair slowly emerged. Ms. Funnybutton crawled out on all fours, head facing down and I felt my chest tighten, tears welling up in the corners of my eyes. I couldn’t move. My legs were shaking so hard, in fact, that I thought I might fall forward and tumble right down to her.
She looked up at last, her eyes twinkling, her dimpled smile stretching wide across her face. She stood up. She looked the same. It was as if she hadn’t aged a day. Not that I could have guessed her age to begin with since she wore clown makeup, but if her shape was any measure, she couldn’t have been any older than twenty. I hadn’t really noticed as a child, but what I had taken to be skinny (compared to my mother, who was always heavy) was actually a curvy, voluptuous body with large round breasts and wide hips. Her shirt was pulled up, showing her slightly muscular belly and at the center of it, her impossibly deep, magical belly button.
She waved at me and I, out of reflex, waved back. Then, she held out a finger to me, her eyes lighting up as she prepared to show me a new trick. She beckoned me over and my legs took me to her, till I was practically within arms reach. She gestured for me to sit down and I did. Then she pointed at me, then tapped the side of her head as if urging me to think. Without any further cue, she looked down at her stomach and pushed it out towards me. Then I heard something. It wasn’t music. It wasn’t a fart, or a burp, or the imitation of some animal call. It was quiet at first, but when she started rolling her belly it grew louder until I was absolutely certain I could heard the sound of a teenage boy screaming. I fell backwards as she placed her hands on her sides and massaged her stomach as she continued to roll her abdominal muscles and a shape began to move beneath her skin. Her belly button opened up and what was pushed out from that opening was the face of Jason Sorenson. He screamed at me, eyes bloodshot and bulging. He looked exactly the same as he had the day she had devoured him in front of me and my friends. Ms. Funnybutton made a giggling gesture, pointing down at the poor tortured thing inside of her, shaking her shoulders and covering a smirk. Then she lifted her chest, sucked in her belly and I watched as Jason’s face slowly sunk back into her ghostly white flesh, her navel clenched shut and she started to dance. She moved slowly and sensually, rolling her belly and shifting her hips, her arms twisting like snakes. She just kept smiling that clown smile as she slowly shimmied her way back to her stump. Then she bowed before me, blew me a kiss and waved goodbye.

I don’t think I’ll tell Andy, Jim and Chris about what I saw. They’ve all moved on with their lives and probably couldn’t be bothered to think about it anyways. Besides, Jason Sorenson was a bad person and bad people deserve bad endings. Ms. Funnybutton protected me and my friends when we were innocent and in danger. That should mean that she’s good. I mean, why else would she befriend us and help us like that? If she were bad, then there would be lots of missing kids. But there aren’t. There’s just the one. There’s just one boy, trapped inside her belly, screaming forever.
I don’t know if the thing in the woods beyond Black Creek is good or evil. She appeared during a pivotal time in my life and because of her, I’m still here. But if you could have seen the sick pleasure expressed by her rictus smile as Jason Sorenson was sucked down into her belly button and if you could have heard the way he screamed when I saw his young face again ten years later, you might wonder too, whether it’s still safe for children to play in the park.

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