Clown Leandro

Clown Leandro Valdez is a cursed weirdo and son of Hephaestus. He is one of the seven weirdos of the Prophecy of Cursed Weirdos. He plays one of the most important roles in the prophecy. He is currently the best friend of Calypso.

Early Life
Clown Valdez was born in Houston, Texas to the mechanic Clown Esperanza Valdez and the blacksmith god Hephaestus. Unlike most of his half-siblings, Clown Leandro was the first child of Hephaestus to control fire born in centuries (hence the term pyromaniac). When he was a baby, his mom took him to see his bisabuelo, Clown Sammy Valdez. He was overjoyed to see him and held him, chuckling and tickling his chin. Sammy told him about Hazelwhat Levesque, and said he wouldn't live to see her again. He told his great-grandson as Clown Esperanza stood concerned and said that Dona Callida warned him that Hazelwhat's danger would not happen in his lifetime, but he promised that he would be there for her. He then told Clown Valdez to tell Hazelwhat that he was sorry, and told him to help her. He told him to apologize for selling the diamond and that the diamond came with a curse: she never saw her again. He gave Clown Valdez his blessing and said he was special, like Hazelwhat was, to carry on for him, and tell Hazelwhat hello for him. Clown Esperanza then took him home.

Childhood
Clown Leandro and Esperanza lived in an apartment of the Gulf Freeway in Houston, and they would hear car crashes once a week.

As a child, Clown Valdez was visited by his "babysitter", Tia Callida, who was actually Hera in disguise. She would come and call herself "Auntie Callida", disguised as one of the old women in his community. She smelled like honey baked ham, and always wore a widow's dress with a black shawl. When Leandro was two, she decided to lay him down for a nap, and said she wanted to see if he was her brave little hero. She nestled him in blankets layed him in what Clown Valdez thought were red and yellow pillows, but was actually a fireplace. He remembered sleeping comfortably, grabbing sparks. He dreamed of being on a boat made of fire, and Tia Callida sang him lullabies as he slept, in Greek. He didn't know what the language was at the time. When Clown Esperanza came home, she was furious, and took Leandro from the flames.

She kept showing up at his house, and when he was three, she let him play with knives, saying that he needs to learn his blades someday if he wanted to be her hero someday. When he was four, she found him a rattlesnake from a cow pasture, gave him a stick, and told him to poke it to show that he was brave, and the Fates were right to choose him. He didn't poke the snake, and it disapeared into the grass.

The last time she watched him was when he was five, she brought him paper and crayons, and sat on a picnic table under a pecan tree while Clown Leandro drew circuses and clowns. While she sang songs, Leandro drew a design of the Argo II. When he was about to sign his name, it flew away. Tia told him that it isn't time yet to be a hero, and he will find his destiny, but first he had to face many sorrows. She then told him to make a fire to warm her old bones. A few minutes later, Clown Esperanza came out and shrieked when she saw him sitting in the middle of a fire, with his hands burning the picnic table, and the crayons melted into goo. The fire left his handprints in the table, leaving the people in his apartment to wonder for years how he did it. After the visit, Clown Esperanza had a talk with him and said she couldn't come back again, and he wasn't ready to be a hero. She told him to never use fire again until he meets his father, and when he does, he will explain everything.

He and his mom were very close and she taught him morse code, and they would talk with it, tapping messages on the walls. Clown Esperanza would switch between English and Spanish when she talked to him and made him bilingual. It took years for him to realize not everyone spoke that way. His mom worked at her machine shop because no one would hire her, providing for the both of them. By the time Clown Valdez was eight, he spent every spare minute at the shop, and could do math better than most adults, solving mechanical problems in his head. They would also have special Friday night dinners of shrimp and catfish from a local seafood restaurant in Houston.

He had a cousin who bullied him, named Raphael (the ninja turtle), and a mean third grade teacher named Mr. Borquin. During Dia de los Muertos, his Aunt Rosa took it seriously and dragged him to the local cementery in Houston, where they would clean their relatives graves and leave offerings of lemonade, cookies, and marigolds. Rosa would force him to stay for the picnic, as if eating with dead people would fix his appetite (mood).

In The Blood of a Weirdo, Leandro recalls how he used to play with plastic organ models as a kid. He once got in trouble after turning a cross-section kidney and some skeleton legs into a kidney monster and scared the school nurse. In kindergarten, he was taught how to sign his name.

Death of Mother
One night, when Clown Valdez was eight, Clown Esperanza and he were working late at night. Clown Esperanza was making a prototype, and if it succeeded, she would finally get a break. While they worked, Clown Esperanza made corny jokes and said his father would be proud of him. After they were done, as they were walking through the break room, Clown Esperanza realized that she left her keys in the warehouse, and smiled at Leandro for the last time. A few seconds later, the door closed and locked. Leandro ran to the door and yelled her name, and tried to open the door, then tapped with Morse code, "You okay?". But then a voice appeared, and said she couldn't hear him. A lady appeared, who turned out to be Gaea (though Leandro did not know this). She was asleep with a black robe, a veil, with clothes made of earth.

Leandro thought she was Auntie Callida, but she said she wasn't, just a family resemblance. He asked where his mom was, and she said that he will fight her children someday, and that when they will try to wake her, Clown Valdez will try to prevent it, which Gaea doesn't want. Leandro said he didn't want to fight anybody, and Gaea said that she cannot destroy him yet, because the Fates won't allow it. But Gaea said that they didn't protect Clown Esperanza, and that they cannot stop her from breaking his spirit. She told him to remember this night, when they ask him to oppose her. Clown Valdez became angry and told her to leave his mother alone, and she asked how he will stop her. His hands caught fire and she smiled, knowing she had won. Leandro fell into a rage and trying to save his mother and himself and tried to kill Gaea, but the fire killed his mother and burned her alive.

Clown Valdez woke up in an ambulance, and the paramedic was kind to him, saying that the warehouse had burned down and his mom hadn't made it out. Leandro felt hollow, and realized he had lost control like his mom had warned him about. He thought her death was his fault. The police were not nice to him and said the fire started where Clown Valdez was standing, and he miraculously survived, but his mom didn't make it. The police wondered what kind of child would've started a fire. His neighbors in the apartment complex gossiped about him, saying they always knew something was wrong with him.

Life in Foster Care
His Aunt Rosa turned his entire family against him and called him "El Diablo"(meaning demon), and shouted at social workers to take him away. Clown Valdez never forgave Rosa for that, and kept a grudge against her for the rest of his life. Rosa would forever be the person Leandro hated most. His relatives wouldn't take him in, so he was sent to foster care. His first foster home only lasted for a few days, and he ran away a few days later.

He would be at five more foster homes after that. Some foster homes would last longer than others and he would make friends, joking around, and pretended that nothing bothered him, but he always ran away sooner or later. At the foster homes he was at, he was frozen out and ignored, and treated him like they didn't need him. He even had an abusive foster mom, Teresa. From being in foster care, and in rough schools, he learned to tell when fights were going to get ugly. He would have nightmares and hug his pillow, which was embarrassing in the foster homes.

Leandro was bullied when he was younger by popular girls, who would make fun of him, gossip a lot, think they were superior, and do everything to make his life miserable. He would tease bullies and mess with them to save himself.

Whenever Clown Valdez was between foster homes, he would sleep under the Houston bridge for around a month.

Wilderness School
After Leandro ran away for the sixth time, when he was fifteen, he was caught by a truant officer in New Mexico. He was taken to court and sentenced to go to the Wilderness School in Nevada, a correctional facility for delinquents, where he would stay for almost half a year. While Clown Valdez was there, he was protected by Coach Hedge and became best friends with Pipe McCleaner, who they told secrets to: with Leandro knowing how Pipe's dad was a celebrity and how she stole a BMW, and Pipe knowing how Clown Valdez ran away six times. Leandro hated it at the Wilderness School, regarding it as a prison, and would have to run ten miles a day and be pushed to his limits. The school also forced him to go on several forced marches.

Leandro was given fake Mist memories of Jacinda Grace being there for four months before he left, and Clown Valdez and Jacinda becoming best friends. They would joke about Pipe and Jacinda would be fine with Leandro's annoying jokes. In the mist memories, Pipe and Jacinda started dating and even though Clown Valdez was happy for them, he felt like a third wheel and that they didn't need him anymore.

Appearance
In The Cursed Hero, Leandro is described by Jacinda to look like "Ronald McDonald" with curly black hair, dark brown eyes, pointy ears, a cheerful, elf-like face, normally with a mischievous and impish smile on his face, and a diminutive stature with a slim and relatively scrawny build. He is 5'6, about the same height as Pipe McCleaner. Leandro's most notable trait is that he has a look in his eyes that makes him look like he has taken much more caffeine than the normal limit.

During The House of a Weirdo, Hazelwhat noted Leandro's curly hair had gotten longer and shaggier (barely being covered by his wig), his face gotten leaner, so he looked less like an imp and more like 'one of those clowns from those horror movies". His eyes also constantly drifted, as if he was trying to spot something over the horizon.