Samuel had never seen a female clown before,⁵³ but then he had only been to the circus once in his life. Samuel didn’t care much for the circus, or clowns. He wasn’t scared of clowns; he just didn’t think they were amusing.⁵⁴

The dwarfs wandered over to join him.

“They’re not going to get many laughs looking like that,” said Dozy.

“Never liked clowns,” said Angry. “They always seem to be trying too hard.”

“What do you call the gooey red stuff between a circus elephant’s toes?” asked Jolly.

“I don’t know,” said Samuel.

“A slow clown,” said Jolly. “Get it? A slow clown.”

The female clown turned her head slowly in Jolly’s direction. Her fingers tested the air. The bald clown opened his mouth and licked his lips, and the clown with the fuzzy wig put his hand inside his jacket and squeezed the bulb on his plastic flower. A jet of liquid shot from it, which just missed Angry. It sizzled when it hit the floor, and began burning a hole in the carpet. The others immediately stepped out of range, but instead of joining them Angry began shouting at the clowns.

“Losers!” he said. “I’ve seen funnier dead people.”

The flower-wearing dwarf tried again, firing a stream of acid in Angry’s direction. Again it landed on the carpet and began eating its way through.

“How do you get a clown off your porch?” called Angry. “You pay him for the pizza.”

By now the bewigged clown was growling and spraying a constant stream of acid at Angry as he circled the trio. The others tried to snatch at him with their fingers, but he was too fast.

“What are you doing?” cried Samuel. “You’re going to get hurt!”

The smell of burning carpet and wood was very strong now, and a near-perfect acid-drenched circle was sizzling at the feet of the clowns. The liquid stopped pumping. The clown’s supply of acid was exhausted. He looked at the flower in disgust before deciding to take care of Angry and the others personally. He took one step forward. The other clowns did the same.

The ceiling collapsed, taking the three clowns with it and leaving only a hole where they had previously stood. Carefully, Samuel and the dwarfs peered over the edge at the floor below. The clowns had shattered on impact, like china dolls. The ceiling had also landed on Miss Muffet’s giant spider: they could see the tips of eight legs sticking out from under the mass of wood and plaster, and its insides were leaking out. Lucy’s boot might not have been strong enough to crush one of the smaller spiders, but three clowns and a heavy ceiling seemed to have done the trick for the big one.

“Like I told you,” said Angry, “I never liked clowns. Never had much time for spiders either.”

Miss Muffet appeared beside the remains of her spider. She glared up at them.

“Bad!” she said, pointing a web-covered finger at them. “Very bad!”