Somewhere, in the outskirts of a Dutch city, a circus performance ends, with standing ovations from the audience.
Walking away from the circus tent, laughing as they can still hear the children inside cheering, the clown and the acrobat return to their trailer home.
"That was quite a show, eh Adriaan," the clown says.
"Yeah, Bassie, the children weren't bored for one second," the acrobat, Adriaan, replies.
"What'll we do next time?" the clown, Bassie, asks. "Oh, I got a great idea. We can sing a song about that Arabic spell, that I learned from a Chinaman in Africa."
"Really?" Adriaan responds. "Somehow, I doubt that."
"HEY!"
Bassie raises his brow, smiling, while Adriaan frowns, as they turn to who just shouted at them.
They see a young boy, running up to them, carrying a newspaper. "Aren't you guys Bassie and Adriaan?"
"Yes?" Adriaan replies.
"Yeah," Bassie says. "I'm Bassie, and this is Adriaan. And together we are..."
Adriaan rolls his eyes, as the clown starts singing their theme song. "That's quite enough."
"Groovy!" the kid cries. "I've read all about how you two caught those scary thieves, in the newspaper!"
As the kid spoke, he held up the paper, showing a picture of the clown and acrobat, smiling to the camera, while a small group of people in trench coats can be seen in the background, shouting at the two. The headline reads CIRCUS DUO SAVES THE DAY.
"Hey, Adriaan!" Bassie exclaims. "See that! We're in the paper!"
"Calm down," Adriaan laughs. "I can see it, too."
"Can I get your autograph?" the kid asks, while holding up a ballpoint pen.
[note: the Dutch word for "autograph" literally translates into English as "hand drawing"]
"Oh?" Bassie frowns. "Sure, if that's what you want."
He takes the ballpoint, places his hand on the paper, and starts drawing around his hand.
"Hey!" Adriaan stops him. "What are you doing?"
"Now, I'm giving the kid exactly what he asks," Bassie replies.
"That's not what he means," Adriaan says, taking the ballpoint out of the hands of the clown, and writing his own signature on the paper. "THIS is what he meant."
"Ooohhh..." Bassie moans. "Why didn't he just say so..."
Somewhat disappointed at that, Bassie writes his autograph on the paper.
"Thanks a lot!" the kid cheers, as he starts running.
In his rush, though, the kids fails to notice that some pages fall out of the paper.
Noticing this immediately, the clown hurries after him. "Hey, boy! You dropped some..."
Unfortunately, the kid has already disappeared around a corner.
The acrobat sighs. "Well, what happened, happened."
With that said, Adriaan picks up the pages that were dropped.
"What are you doing?" Bassie says. "Let the street cleaners pick that up."
"Bassie," Adriaan groans. "Just because it's his job, doesn't mean we should make it harder on him."
The clown pauses to think about that. "Oh, you're right."
With the pages in hand, the clown and acrobat return to their home.
On their way, Bassie looks at the pages.
His eyes fall on a page with foreign news.
"Adriaan," he starts.
"Yes, Bassie?"
"It says here," Bassie explains, "that something happened in Haddonfield, during a Halloween celebration. What's Halloween? Do they say hello to weens? What are weens anyway?"
Adriaan cackles. "No, Halloween is a special time of year."
"Oh?" Bassie questions. "You mean like christmas?"
"Mmm..." Adriaan replies. "Sort of. But instead of decorating everything with colorful and pleasant things, on Halloween, they use all sorts of scary things. Like skeletons, ghosts, bats."
Bassie shivers at the thought. "We don't even do that here, and I'm already scared."
"Then you should do what everyone else does on Halloween," Adriaan suggests. "Dress up as a monster, to scare away all other monsters."
"Really?" Bassie asks. "Is that how it works."
Adriaan shrugs. "That's the tradition."
"That sounds like fun," Bassie says. "Dressing up as a monster, to scare away all others. Hey..."
Having found inspiration, Bassie looks away.
"This I wanna see on the inside of my eyes," he says, before he closes his eyes, and lets his mind wander...
A dark street, with cobwebbed trees, bats flying all over, and a dense fog covering the ground.
In this street, Bassie is walking, having traded his trademark red jacket and green shorts, for a purple jacket, and purple shorts.
Several small people, wearing hooded robes run past him.
"Hey kids! How are you?"
Then to his left he sees a pale man with sharp teeth, and a red-and-black cape.
"Oh, hello, Mister Count," Bassie says.
The Count smiles, and extends his hand.
Bassie shakes it, while also drawing attention to something that is on his lapel. "Here, wanna smell my flower?"
Frowning, the Count takes a closer look.
Unknown to him, however, Bassie squeezes something, which makes water spurt from the flower.
The Count, feeling the water sprayed all over his face, screams in agony, and runs away.
"Now, it's only a flower, dude," Bassie says.
The Count does not seem to care, as he runs around the corner, away from the clown.
Bassie shrugs. "Must be allergic."
He turns away, and spots a tall man, with sewing scars on his face, holding up a small stick, which he looks at with a confused face.
"Oh, you need a light?" Bassie asks, while taking out a lighter, and holding it close to the stick.
The scarred man yells at the sight of the lit up lighter, and runs away from the clown.
"Now..." Bassie says. "Somebody's a little thin-skinned."
Hearing a howl, Bassie laughs. "Ah, my good friend, Woof."
Walking toward the source of the howl, he finds himself a hairy man, with a tail.
"Hey there," Bassie greets the wolf. "How's it going?"
The hairy man growls at the clown.
"You're bored?" Bassie replies. "Well, here. I've got something for you, that should cheer you up."
He searches his pockets for a few seconds, before finding it, and showing it to the hairy man.
"Here," he says. "A silver ring."
The hairy man grunts at that, and runs away.
The clown stammers his words at that. "Wh... wha... what's wrong with everybody? Why are they running away?"
He shrugs it off, and turns around.
Doing so, he finds there is someone standing behind him. Someone who wears black overalls, with a black frilled shirt, whose face is covered with chalk powder, and whose hair is messed up.
"Oh, hey, Adriaan," Bassie says. "What're you doing, scaring everybody?"
The man, referred to as Adriaan, raises a knife, and swings it toward Bassie.
"Hey, dude!" Bassie shouts. "That's life-threatening!"
Adriaan appears not to care, as he makes another swing.
"Oh, he's in one of his moods now..." Bassie responds, and starts running.
He runs toward the end of the street, but finds that Adriaan is standing there, waiting for him.
Turning around, he doubles back, only to find that Adriaan, somehow, found his way on that end of the street as well.
Bassie, out of breath, takes a quick look around.
Behind him, he sees a lawn, with a house on the other side, where the door is open.
"So, eh," he says. "That's lucky."
He runs toward the house, and enters through the door.
Inside, he is spooked at the sight of a white sheet, which is suspended in mid-air, causing him to run up the stairs.
Following him, is Adriaan, who punches the sheet.
What he does not realize, is that the sheet covered a boxing ball, which bounces on the ground, and goes straight up again, hitting Adriaan.
He steps back for a moment, only grab the boxing ball, and toss it out of the house.
Bassie reaches the top of the stairs, but as he turns left, he stubs his toe against the side of the stairs, slowing him down a little.
As he recovers, he sees Adriaan marching up the stairs, slowly.
"Hey, dude, what's with the chagrin?" Bassie asks him. "Why don't you stop to smell the flowers?"
As soon as he said it, he sprays water from his flower again.
The water hits Adriaan in his face, making him pause briefly.
Bassie changes his facial expression from a smile, into horror, before he continues his run, and Adriaan follows.
Around the corner, Bassie encounters a rectangular slab, with words on it.
"Huh?" he says, as he starts reading it. "Yu... die... tuh... Me..."
He hears the footsteps of Adriaan approach him, interrupting his reading.
Deciding to no longer waste time, he knocks over the slab, and continues running.
Adriaan arrives, but trips over the slab.
After some seconds of recovery, he looks up, and shifts his head. But no matter where he looks, he cannot find the clown.
He grunts to himself as he rises up.
He enters the master bedroom, which at first glance appears empty.
There is an open window, leading to the balcony.
Adriaan tilts his head. Could the clown have jumped? No, he would have heard a thud.
He sinks down, and looks under the bed.
Nothing. Not even a speck of dust.
This leaves him with only one possibility.
He sets his sights on the closet, and approaches it. Slowly, without making much sound.
Carefully, he places his hands on the closet doors, waits a few seconds, to give the one inside a false sense of security, then opens the door.
Behind it, he can see the clown, squatted down, eyes tightly shut, and his fingers in his ears.
Adriaan raises his left hand, and taps Bassie on the shoulder.
As though waking up, Bassie widens his eyes, and looks up.
"Uh..." he mumbles, before he grabs hold of Adriaan his knife, as one would when shaking hands.
"Nice to meet you," he says. "I'm Bassie the Clown. Heh-heh."
Adriaan yanks his knife out of the hand, and raises it.
Panic setting in with the clown, he decides one last trick, where he points up to the ceiling, behind Adriaan. "There! A dead bird!"
Wanting to know what that is about, Adriaan turns around to look.
Thus distracted, the clown gives Adriaan a push.
Feeling himself thrust backward, and with no way of stopping himself, Adriaan keeps running, until he hits the side of the balcony, levers over it, and falls to the ground.
Bassie watched, eyes wide with fear, but not until he hears the thud does he leave the closet, and looks.
At the bottom, below the balcony, he can see the now motionless body of Adriaan.
Letting out a relieved exhale, Bassie leaves the room.
He makes it out of the house, and walks to the spot where Adriaan fell.
As soon as he arrives, however, Bassie gasps, as he finds nobody there. Adriaan is gone.
"What's going on here?" he hears a voice shout. "What's with all the noise?"
Bassie turns, and spots the neighbor, looking angry.
"Call the police!" he says. "Tell them he's missing!"
"Is this some kind of Halloween prank?" the neighbor asks. "Coz I'm not in the mood for jokes!"
Bassie gives the neighbor a stern look. "I am hired to make the jokes here!"
He runs off with this.
Having done dreaming, Bassie opens his eyes. "Boy, was that suspenseful."
Adriaan frowns at his words. "What was suspenseful?"
Bassie is about to reply, but changes his mind. "Never mind. I just dreamed a little."
"You dreamed," Adriaan responds, dryly. "Now, dreamer, it's time to wake up. We've got some work to do."
"Oh yeah," Bassie replies. "We've got some cream cakes to eat."
He starts away, but Adriaan grabs him by his collar, and pulls him back.
"I was thinking of helping our friends here at the circus," Adriaan replies.
Bassie sighs. "Yeah, that too. But I like my idea about eating cream cakes better."
Adriaan rolls his eyes, and grabs Bassie by his bowtie. "Come on, let's help out."