My blood turned even colder in my veins than it already was at the sight of the three-foot-tall cardboard cutout of Count von Count from Sesame Street, standing beside the head of my bed, looking as comfortable in his surroundings as if he lived there. He was purple and Muppety, with wide unseeing eyes and a permanent grin splitting his face. He stood with one three-finger hand extended in front of him, as though he’d been in the middle of counting something important when they’d captured his likeness. For all I knew, he had been. I hadn’t seen Sesame Street since the late 1970s. Did Count von
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