Confessions of an Imaginary Friend Read online

  “Look,” I explained. “My dog François is a monster. He ate those other books I took out. And I still firmly believe he should be charged the late fees, not me.”

  The librarian yawned, fixed her glasses.

  “You know what, fine,” I said, exasperated. “Old Dewey Decimal and I will just figure it out ourselves.”

  I searched and searched, and on a dusty shelf between a book on unicorns and a guide to the North Pole, I finally found something about imaginary friends.

  imag·i·nary friend

  noun

  : a person whom you like and enjoy being with, but is not real

  : a person who helps or supports someone, existing only in the mind or imagination

  Synonyms

  fanciful amigo, fantastical buddy, fictional chum, invented compadre, mythical confidant, phantom crony, pretend familiar, unreal intimate, theoretical mate [chiefly British], made-up musketeer

  Antonyms

  Existent enemy, factual foe

  Habitat of Imaginary Friends

  Found in trees. Sometimes also in old silent movie theaters, seaside zoos, magic shops, hat shops, time-travel shops, topiary gardens, cowboy boots, castle turrets, comet museums, dog pounds, mermaid ponds, dragon lairs, library stacks (the ones in the back), piles of leaves, piles of pancakes, the belly of a fiddle, the bell of a flower, or in the company of wild herds of typewriters.

  But mostly in trees.

  Migratory Patterns

  Sometimes imaginary friends will have to wander, travel, or roam a great distance before encountering anyone who can see them. When they do, they usually stay for a long while.

  Diet

  Cloud root beer floats and moon grilled cheeses. But their favorite food is stardust.

  Common Activities of Imaginary Friends

  Imaginary friends spend most of their time crouched down, staring into the grass. Closer. Closer. Closer still. There. See? They are forever looking into the nooks and crannies of a thing, whatever the thing may be. Always up very early or very late, going for rides on the backs of whales who deliver the mail; waking up covered in a secret language of hums; writing about the hobbies of feathers; changing shape like a cloud; howling at the moon; being a radioactive night-light in the dark; being a life raft on an ocean of alphabet soup; being great-hearted; being selfless; believing in tall tales, doodlebugs, and doohickeys. Believing. Believing in themselves. Believing in you.

  Chapter Ten

  ME AND MY (NEW) BEST FRIEND

  That imaginary friend book. What a load of nonsense!

  It did, however, give me a few ideas on how to at least pretend I had an imaginary friend of my own.

  So I didn’t look too ridiculous, I only spent time with my new “friend” in private. But I always made sure Fleur was watching. First, I took out a jump rope and started flailing it wildly in the air, pretending my “friend” was holding the other end. Useless. Next my “friend” and I made a milk shake with two straws. Boy, we had some laughs, though I ended up drinking most of the shake. Turns out my new best friend doesn’t care for chocolate. We played board games (I won every game), used the teeter-totter (not a lot of teeter, even less totter), and we even had a rousing round of catch (though it was mostly just me throwing). Maybe imaginary friends lack athletic prowess? I’d have to check back at the library.

  Anyhow, it finally worked, because Fleur took notice, and asked what in the world I was doing.

  “I’m spending some quality time bonding with my new imaginary friend. My imaginary best friend,” I added.

  “I see,” said Fleur. “So what is this friend like?”

  “Like?” I asked, gulping.

  “Yeah, you know,” said Fleur. “What does he look like? What does he like to do? What’s his favorite color and song and hobbies and wishes and dreams?”

  “Right, right.” I nodded. “Well, uh, my friend has got sort of reddish-brownish-lightish-darkish hair. Sometimes he wears shirts. And enjoys many kinds of . . . food.”

  “Jacques, are you making this up?” asked Fleur.

  “No!” I shouted. “He’s definitely a real imaginary friend. Look, I’ve got a picture of him somewhere. I just need to go find it, and then we can discuss this further.”

  I ran out of the room, into the bedroom I shared with Fleur, and bolted the door behind me. I had bought myself some time. I sat down at my desk to get to work. I tried to think. I thought some more. Just who was my imaginary friend? But there was nothing. Nada. Blank. It was, I realized, like trying to remember details about a person I’d never even met.

  Chapter Eleven

  A SHORT LIST OF POTENTIAL BEST FRIENDS

  But then a lightbulb went off. I had made it up, the whole thing! So I could just make up any details I wanted about this imaginary imaginary friend. Genius. A foolproof plan. I started to make a list of potential candidates:

  My imaginary friend is a successful tax accountant who is considering opening his own office.

  (Sorry. I can do better.)

  My imaginary friend has a heart made out of a flower. Bees buzz around his head all day long, and he often walks around with his mouth open in the sun or the rain, hoping it will be good for his heart.

  My imaginary friend is a giant. He juggles the earth, along with other planets, and that’s what makes them spin. He doesn’t drop the earth often, but when he does, ceramic teacups from England fall off the globe, or the spots fall off the leopards in Africa.

  My imaginary friend’s father was a big fish who lived in the sea, and his mother was a mermaid and her scales were colored green.

  My imaginary friend looks like a potato and has the same personality.

  Chapter Twelve

  THE GREAT DRAGON HERRING

  Once I’d finally decided on the details of my imaginary friend, I went and found Fleur.

  “Behold!”

  I held up the extremely realistic drawing I had made all by myself.

  “I present . . . the Great Dragon Herring!”

  “Wow,” said Fleur. “That’s amazing.”

  “I know,” I said proudly.

  Fleur paused. “So . . . what is it?”

  “A Great Dragon Herring, of course,” I replied.

  “I get it. It’s part dragon,” said Fleur.

  “And part fish,” I said, finishing the thought.

  “What does it eat?” asked Fleur.

  “It eats cloud root beer floats and moon grilled cheeses and its favorite food is stardust,” I replied.

  “Well, Dad said we’re having meat loaf for dinner,” said Fleur.

  I turned around and pretended to whisper, in deep conversation with a dragon who wasn’t actually there.

  “Yeah,” I said finally. “It’ll eat meat loaf too.”

  We made our way to the kitchen, where our parents were making dinner. There were four places set at the table, as usual.

  “We need to set a fifth place at the table,” said Fleur.

  “For whom?” asked our mother.

  “Jacques has a new imaginary friend,” explained Fleur. “It’s part dragon and part fish, but willing to try your meat loaf.”

  “How flattering,” said our mother. I sensed a hint of sarcasm in her voice.

  Our father stopped stirring a pan on the stove. Our mother sat down, closed her eyes, and rubbed her temple like she was having another one of her migraines.

  “So now Jacques has his own imaginary friend?” asked our mother. “Don’t you think that’s a bit . . . excessive?”

  “Not really,” said Fleur, fetching an extra plate and fork. “Aren’t you always saying to expand our imaginations?”

  At this, our mother pointed a blaming finger at our father. He was, in fact, always saying corny things like that.

  And so, trap
ped by Fleur’s logic, our parents had to squeeze around the table with Fleur, a giant imaginary Dragon Herring, and yours truly. I’ll admit it was a bit cramped.

  After dinner, we went to a movie and Fleur insisted my parents buy an extra ticket for my imaginary friend. That’s when Dad realized he’d already seen the movie, so we got ice-cream cones instead—the whole family, including the Dragon Herring, who, it turned out, had a taste for rocky road. And late that night, when Fleur had a nightmare, we all climbed into our parents’ bed for protection. The Dragon Herring, however, took up too much room, and our father was pushed out of the bed and flopped to the floor. Which is when he started screaming.

  “THAT’S IT! I’ve had it! This is just . . . just . . . too much imagination!” he yelled. He stood in his robe, his hair on end like a madman. “It’s just too many layers,” he continued. “A girl having an imaginary friend is one thing. But an imaginary friend who has his own imaginary friend? No, no, it’s too much. It’s like a nesting doll of imagination! It’s like a painting of a painting! It’s like the wind catching a chill from the wind, or a wave taking a dip in the ocean. It’s like reading a novel that merely describes another novel. It’s like music tapping its foot to a tune and saying ‘Oh! I love this song!’”

  Perhaps we had finally pushed our father too far.

  But I couldn’t think about that. All I could think about was what he’d said first.

  An imaginary friend who has his own imaginary friend.

  I had no idea what he meant by that, but was starting to get an uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach.

  Chapter Thirteen

  THE ROLLER-SKATING COWGIRL

  The sun was setting as I sipped the last drops from the bottom of my juice box. I finished, crumpled the box, and tossed it in the pile behind the swing set with the rest.

  I sat without swinging. My head hung heavy with troubles and sugar, like a cowboy’s after a long night riding the range.

  “How many of those you had, pardner?”

  I looked up to see a girl my age dressed in cowgirl gear. Instead of boots she wore roller skates with spurs on the sides.

  “What’s it to you?” I grumbled.

  “This seat taken?” she asked, motioning to the other swing. “Would you like to talk about whatever’s giving you the blues, buckaroo?”

  “No,” I replied. “I most certainly do not want to talk about my sister. I don’t want to chat about how she has an imaginary friend that she never even told me existed. And I definitely don’t want to discuss how they’re probably off having a tea party or getting matching tattoos as we speak.”

  “Ah,” said the skating cowgirl. “Imaginary problems. Those are the worst.”

  “Sure,” I said, stabbing a plastic straw into the opening of another juice box. “Go ahead. Mock my pain.”

  “I’m not,” said the girl. “See that gal over there? The one in the cowboy hat, spinning on the merry-go-round?”

  I looked over and saw the girl. The merry-go-round slowed to a stop, the gears clinking like the last notes of a music box.

  “Well, the thing is . . . the truth of the matter, if you must know, is that . . .”

  And then she said the words that changed everything, that etched in my heart like carvings on the trunk of a tree:

  “I am her imaginary friend.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  HOWL, CRICKET, SING

  The cowgirl’s words leaped around my head, bouncing like crickets in a field when a person walked too close.

  “You’re imaginary?” I asked.

  “Yes, very much so,” replied the girl.

  “Baloney,” I replied.

  “Believe me or don’t. Doesn’t matter to me,” said the girl.

  I narrowed my eyes.

  “Suppose,” I said, “we pretend for a moment that I believe you. Fine. You’re an imaginary roller-skating cowgirl. But then, the question remains—why in the world can I see you?”

  The girl wheeled her skates back and forth below the swing for a moment, deep in thought. The leaves on the trees splashed us in light and shadow.

  “How do I put this delicately?” she said. “You’ve heard dogs howling before, right? And crickets cricketing? And birds singing?”

  “Of course.”

  “Well, you and I have no idea what the crickets or the dogs or the birds are saying to one another. However, two little birds could duet all day, and two crickets can understand each other’s chirps. And why is that?”

  “Because they’re the same,” I replied.

  “The same! Exactly!”

  I stared at the girl in the skates. I shook my head.

  “Oh dear.” She sighed. “You really, truly don’t know, do you?”

  “Know what?” I asked. “That you’re a crazy person? Yes, I do know that.”

  “Let me ask you,” said the cowgirl. “Do you have to just take whatever desk is empty at school? Avoid cars? Bikes? Does anyone other than your sister ever talk to you? Do you sometimes feel like you’re, I don’t know, invisible?”

  “Everyone feels like that sometimes,” I said, my voice becoming small. “Right . . . ?”

  And with that, I rose from my swing and hurried away from the park.

  Chapter Fifteen

  DANCING DUST

  I spent the next day moping on my top bunk. I looked around the room. The sun was rising, and pillars of light streamed inside. The beams, filled with dancing dust, attached the two windows to the floor. For some reason, the idea struck me that maybe these were the real things that kept our house from falling down. Not the beams or the nails, but something else. Something that couldn’t be seen with the eyes, but was there underneath everything.

  I stayed there thinking until day turned to night. I looked out at the deep blue sky and the dots of starlight. I stayed there until Fleur went to bed in her bottom bunk.

  “Fleur, what do you think stars are made from?”

  “Dunno,” she said, starting to doze.

  Maybe we’re made of the same things as stars, and stars are made of the same stuff as us. Made from all the things that are lost, and all the things that don’t belong.

  Our mother came to tuck us in. She turned on the night-light and came over to the bunk beds.

  “Good night,” she said, brushing Fleur’s hair back from her face. “Sleep tight, don’t let the bedbugs bite.”

  “Now say it to Jacques,” said Fleur.

  “Good night, Jacques. Sleep tight.”

  “And the bugs,” protested Fleur.

  “Right.” Our mother smiled. “Listen up, bedbugs. No biting Jacques.”

  Then she pulled the covers tight around Fleur’s chin. She tucked in the edges and kissed her forehead.

  “I love you, Fleur.”

  Fleur closed her eyes. “Now say it to Jacques.”

  “I love you, Jacques,” she said, then got up and walked out, leaving a thin frame of light glowing around the closed door.

  Chapter Sixteen

  EVERYONE (STILL) HATES JACQUES PAPIER

  I decided to experiment.

  On Monday I stood in the middle of the kickball field during a game, among the smell of long grass and the taste of gnats. I sang—no joke—one hundred and seventy-four verses of “John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt.” Nobody noticed. Not even the gnats.

  On Tuesday I tap-danced on my teacher’s desk during a geography lesson. She just kept teaching about fjords. Fjords!

  On Wednesday I bet the cafeteria crowd I could eat an entire tray full of individual cups of butterscotch pudding for lunch. “Hey,” I hollered. “I bet I can eat the most butterscotch pudding!” Nobody took the challenge. I won by default.

  On Thursday, I stood outside the dining room and watched my family eat dinner. Dad put out a plate of chicken surprise
for me and everything. He said (for Fleur’s benefit, I assume), “Now Jacques, eat up. It’s your favorite.”

  “Jacques isn’t even there,” said Fleur.

  “Of course he is,” clucked our mother. “He’s sitting right there, like always. Isn’t he?”

  And so, by Friday, I had Jingleheimer-induced laryngitis, bug bites, a stomachache, and a plethora of useless information about fjords. I began to wonder: Do I even like chicken surprise? Do I?

  That’s when I, Jacques Papier, normally calm, collected, and in need of no assistance, started to officially panic.

  EDITORIAL NOTE:

  In light of recent developments, I have decided to temporarily retitle that last chapter. Here is the revision. Thank you for understanding.

  Chapter Sixteen

  EVERYONE (STILL) HATES JACQUES PAPIER

  Chapter Sixteen

  MAYBE NO ONE HATES JACQUES PAPIER

  (BECAUSE MAYBE NO ONE IS AWARE HE EXISTS)

  Chapter Seventeen

  THE TIDE’S ROLLING IN

  “Y’all came back again, I see.” It was the cowgirl in skates. She once again sat beside me on the swings in the park.

  “I have no desire to speak to you. If it weren’t for you,” I explained, “I would have gone on in blissful ignorance. Now I’m questioning everything. I don’t know up from down! My life is more dismal than a wiener dog’s!”

  I knew I was being a tad dramatic, but it felt good to have someone to blame.

  “So you understand now?” asked the cowgirl. “What you are?”

  “But I have a bed,” I protested. “I have a place at the table. I have a seat in the car.”

  The girl just nodded, allowing the thoughts to tumble out of me like fireflies from a jar, all lit up and glowing mad.

  “I have pictures I drew on the fridge. Though, I suppose Fleur always helped with those. Wait! Yes. Every year I have a birthday party. Of course, we are twins, so it’s always Fleur’s party as well. And we do always share a cake . . .”