SABATTUS - When Mike Blais drew eyebrows on Beverly Coursey's face with a Sharpie, teachers gasped, bleachers of kids laughed and the school principal fleetingly questioned her clown makeover.

Blais' goading didn't help. Before he started to paint her face with his fingers, he showed Sabattus Primary School youngsters a little tub of white grease paint, offered a "don't try this at home" and teased:

"Don't tell anybody, but I've got the (makeup) that stays on for a whole week."

Students had been learning a little about clowns and the circus all week. Friday brought the surprise visit of two master Kora clowns and makeovers for Coursey and first-grade teacher Jessica Gurney.

Blais, a.k.a Bow the clown, and Paul Boudreau, a.k.a. Dusty, stayed out of the makeup the whole time. Boudreau asked the group how many people were afraid of clowns and more than a dozen hands, including one teacher's, shot up.

There's a name for it, he said: coulrophobia. He teaches a little about it in clown college, and the fear is growing.

"Parents let (kids) watch these movies like 'It' and everything else," Blais said after.

When they're in costume and anyone seems reluctant, clowns stay back, wave, look friendly, he said. The frightened children "get a little braver, a little braver, the next thing you know they're eating out of your hand."

Friday was about showing kids that there are real, nothing-to-be-afraid-of people under the costumes - and about getting a good laugh.

"Mrs. Coursey, honk your nose!" one girl shouted when the principal was all clown from tiny hat to extra-wide toe.

"Honk!" she said, laughing.

Boudreau and Blais, both former North American clown champs, will be in full dress at the Kora Temple Shrine Circus on Saturday at the Colisee. The biggest cheer of the morning: When they announced each student in the gym got a free ticket.

The pair taught Coursey and Gurney a skit before they left. The women pretended to settle in on an invisible bench and tumbled when Boudreau told them the bench wasn't really there.

"When they fell on their butts was so funny," said second-grader Michaela Gervais.