Confessions of an Imaginary Friend Page 4

  Chapter Twenty-five

  THE LIGHT OF THE MOON

  “As some of you probably noticed,” said Stinky Sock, “we have a new member of our group. His name is Jacques Papier. Jacques, would you like to tell us why you’re here?”

  “Well,” I said, “I’m not actually here. That’s why I’m . . . here.”

  “Whoa,” said The Everything. “Deep.”

  “I guess the thing is,” I began, “I’m kind of wondering, what’s the point of me at all? I mean, I’ve lived my whole eight years thinking that I was a real person. And then I learned the truth. And now that I’ve thought about it, I realize that I don’t want to be someone’s imaginary brother. I think I want to be real.”

  The Everything reached over and patted my hand.

  “Just because you’re not ‘real’ doesn’t mean you’re not real.” The Everything pointed to his own giant chest, where a heart would be if he had one. In his case, he was pointing to an old milk carton.

  “I think it’s like the earth and the moon,” I explained. “The light of the moon is an illusion. It’s actually just reflecting light from the sun, bouncing it back like a mirror. We’re like that moon, and without the people who imagined us, it’s all darkness. Is that what you want? Because I don’t. I want more. I want to be free.”

  Chapter Twenty-six

  OOGLY BOOGLY

  After the meeting, I stood alone eating a stale cookie, drinking a cup of grape juice, and trying to digest what I’d heard and, perhaps even more so, what I myself had said. I was so absorbed in thought, I hardly noticed when a dark storm cloud passed over and left me shrouded in shadow.

  “Greetings,” said a voice like a rusty bicycle.

  I looked up. I tried to swallow my cookie, but my throat had become terribly dry. I coughed, crumbs scattering onto the shadowy figure in front of me. He brushed them away with no small amount of disdain.

  “I’m the Oogly Boogly,” he said. The rusty bicycle voice, I noted, also had a British accent.

  The Oogly Boogly was hard to describe. Not because I lack the vocabulary, but because he wasn’t any one thing. His body actually came and went into focus like he was made of smoke—one minute he had warts like rotten crab apples, and then he changed and had spiders crawling from his ears. It looked as if his nose hairs were home to slugs, slime, and snails, but then he changed again, and had howling eyes, crow-beak teeth, and a beard of thunderclouds below.

  “What are you?” I asked. “Are you really someone’s imaginary friend?” I found it hard to believe that anyone would imagine him on purpose. Compared to this guy, François the evil wiener dog looked about as intimidating as a bowl of cold soup.

  “Oh, you know me,” said the Oogly Boogly, moving his face a bit too close for comfort. “I’m the Monster in the Closet. Some call me the Creature Under the Bed. Other times, I become the Thing That Goes Bump in the Night. I’m really not a bad bloke, honest. I’m just imagined that way.”

  “Did you say bloke?” I asked.

  “Why,” he said, a bit nervous. “Isn’t that the right word?”

  All of a sudden, his voice was sounding different.

  “Are you doing a fake British accent?” I asked.

  “Maybe . . .” replied the Oogly Boogly. “I thought it would be scarier.”

  “I guess it’s kind of scary,” I said. “Scary how bad it is.”

  The Oogly Boogly and I stood and stared at each other in silence for a moment.

  “Oh, look at the time,” I said. “Well, pleasure talking, must be going, got a Bundt cake baking in the oven back home . . .”

  The Oogly Boogly put out a murky foot to stop me.

  “It sounded in the meeting like you’re looking for something,” he said. “A thing that the sweet, naive members of this group just can’t offer you.”

  “And you can?” I asked.

  “I can,” he said, tapping my nose, causing a chill down my spine. “I know how to be free. I know how to become real. I’ll tell you, but it comes at a price.”

  “I don’t really have any money,” I explained. “Or an allowance or a job . . .”

  “What about that?” he asked, pointing to my pocket.

  I reached inside and took out the compass that had been given to Fleur by Maurice the Magnificent.

  Since it was broken anyhow, I handed him the useless compass.

  Sure, I thought. Whatever, weirdo, just tell me before I die of the creeps.

  So the Oogly Boogly did just that. He leaned in and whispered his cobweb-covered secrets into my ear.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  A MAP OF ME

  That evening, when Fleur finally found me, I was on the floor of our bedroom, crayons all over my lap like oversized sprinkles on a Jacques Papier sundae.

  “Whatcha drawing?” she asked.

  Spread across the floor was the Map of Us we’d been constructing. I had, however, added an island off the coast. It wasn’t too big, but not too small, and had a certain air of brilliance about it.

  “I’ve decided,” I said, “that I need my own island. An Island of I, if you will. An Island of Me.”

  “But there’s nothing on it,” said Fleur.

  On that point, she was right.

  “Well, I don’t know what’s there yet,” I explained. “I can make out a few shadowy things, but nothing specific. That’s the best part about my island. Anything is possible there. Heck, maybe there are Dragon Herrings. Maybe there’s stardust, and cloud root beer floats, and meat loaf for us to eat.”

  “How are you going to get there?” asked Fleur. “It’s hard to get to an island. You need a boat, or a plane, or a submarine.”

  “There’s a way,” I said. “The Oogly Boogly told me how to be free.”

  Fleur pouted. “I don’t even know who that is,” she said. “And how are you not free?”

  It was, I knew, a very philosophical question—one I’d thought about long and hard.

  “Think of it this way,” I said. “If I’m a genie, then you are the lamp. I am the barnacle to your whale, the character to your novel, the tides pulled by your moon. I’m your puppet. I am nothing more than a specimen in the Museum of Fleur’s Imagination.”

  “Well, I don’t think of you that way,” said Fleur.

  “I know,” I said. “Because you’re the best sister ever. But I’m not the best brother. I’m just a part of you. And all I know is that I see people at the movies or at the grocery store, and I think about how all of them have their own epic story that swirls around them, full of their own dreams, and hopes, and fears, and allergies, and weird phobias. I don’t have any of that.”

  “Oh,” said Fleur. “Do you want me to imagine you differently?”

  “Actually,” I said softly, “the Oogly Boogly gave me the scissors, and I want you to cut my strings. I want to be set free.”

  “But how?” she asked.

  And then, I shared the Oogly Boogly’s secret with Fleur.

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  A LIST OF WHAT I, JACQUES PAPIER, PLANNED TO DO WITH MY FREEDOM

  Soon I would navigate the seas like a pirate, my ship a sea turtle with sails, my crew comprised of swordfish and marlins.

  I would join the circus, and eat cotton candy for every meal. I’d teach the lion to jump through a ring of fire, and then I’d jump through myself, scorching my freckles a deeper orange red.

  I would learn Greek, and Latin, and at least three languages I would invent myself.

  I would fly around the world, and build castles out of snow with working lights inside that turn on at night and guide everyone home.

  I would become a famed pastry chef, specializing in mud pies, dandelion donuts, and cakes decorated with moss.

  I would see people, even when they were invisible.

  I would w
alk around the world.

  And my hair would grow long.

  And birds would nest in my beard.

  And I would get scars.

  And smile wrinkles around my eyes.

  I would have birthdays.

  And get older.

  And celebrate seasons.

  I would finally be alive with a capital A.

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  BOOT-SCOOTIN’ BUCKAROO

  When I found Cowgirl she was in her stocking feet near the park. She kneeled over, revved one roller skate in each hand on the sidewalk like toy cars, and then pushed them forward in a sad, slanted road race.

  “Weeeeeee . . .” she said with zero enthusiasm. “Giddy-up.”

  “Hey. Where’s your kid?” I asked.

  “Oh,” said Cowgirl with a blush and a shrug. “She had some party-sleepover-cool-kids-truth-or-dare thing. I stayed here. No big deal.”

  “Anyhoo,” I said in reply, “let me tell you what’s been going on with me. I’ve been doing a lot of soul searching, thinking things like Who is Jacques Papier? What is Jacques Papier? What does Jacques Papier want? What does Jacques Papier need? What will make Jacques Papier happy?”

  “Wow,” said Cowgirl.

  “I know,” I replied. “Deep stuff, right?”

  “I meant, ‘Wow, there sure is a lot of Jacques Papier in those questions,’” she replied.

  “Right,” I said, “well, I’ve made a decision. I’m leaving to find out the answers to those questions.”

  “Wait,” said Cowgirl, “before you boot-scoot away, buckaroo, there’s something important you need to know—”

  “Silence!” I said forcefully, putting my hand up to her. “I don’t want to hear any of your reasons for staying. I just came to say good-bye. And thanks. You told me the truth when nobody else would.”

  “Hold on . . . wait a second . . .” said Cowgirl.

  But her words didn’t reach me. Like tumbleweed moving on, I was already gone.

  Chapter Thirty

  TINY THINGS

  After much thinking about the Oogly Boogly’s secret, Fleur came and found me reading a book beneath the porch light. I knew by her face that she’d nearly made her decision.

  “If I do it,” she asked, “what will happen? Will you disappear, or be different, or something even worse?”

  “I’m not sure,” I said. It was the truth. I liked the words free and real, but they didn’t exactly tell the full story of what was to come.

  “Maybe,” I said, “I’ll be able to do whatever I want whenever I want, just like you.”

  “I don’t get to do whatever I want,” said Fleur. “Like right now. I don’t want things to change. But they have. They will. What if you forget all about me? What if you never come back?”

  “That won’t happen,” I said. “I’ll never forget you. I’ll come back.”

  I pointed to her chest.

  “You know what’s in there? A little tree the size of a twig with a J and an F carved in the side.”

  “What do you mean?” said Fleur. “Like a medical condition?”

  I laughed. “I mean metaphorically speaking. And there are also two little bunk beds made of matchsticks and twine. And a flea-sized François. And all our puppets, and pancake breakfasts, and hiding places, and secrets, and snores.”

  “I don’t snore,” said Fleur. But she still smiled. She’d always liked tiny, beautiful things like dollhouse furniture, or mouse houses, or small favors when nobody was looking. I liked the idea as well, though I wasn’t quite sure it was true. The Oogly Boogly hadn’t told me what would happen next; he had only told me how to be free. Life after that looked like a locked door leading to a part of the map that I had never explored.

  “I’m ready,” I told Fleur, squeezing her hand, closing my eyes.

  She smiled a sad smile.

  She closed her eyes too.

  And then, Fleur did the tiny, beautiful thing of imagining with all her might that I was free.

  Chapter Thirty-one

  SAILING AWAY

  Once upon a time there was a boy who didn’t really exist. He lived in a house where anything was possible and everywhere was waiting to be discovered. A hedgerow was a castle. A stick a sword. Dandelion seeds the dust needed for magic.

  Once there was a boy, and he had a sister, and they were best friends. They made up endless maps together—he would be captain of the forest and she would be navigator. They made up songs about birds flying backward, about notes lost in bottles, about caterpillars pining to be butterflies. In the glowing late summer light, they carved two initials, one J and one F, into the side of a tree. They gathered magic in their small hands, tumbled home each evening, and fell asleep with leaves of grass in their hair.

  The boy wished to be something else, but what, he did not know. Perhaps a pirate, a clown, a magician. He wanted freedom to shape him the way he was meant to be shaped.

  Once there was a boy who didn’t really exist. Except he did, to one person—a little girl. And when he left to be free, it was only because she allowed it. The boy promised to never forget her—not because he was particularly stubborn, or prone to guilt. He knew it was just plain impossible. Even when winter came, and the light was blunt enough to erase anything, he’d remember. And when the leaves turned black beneath the snow, and when the initials in the tree grew faint over the years. Even when those initials were nearly invisible, and the tree was chopped down to be made into a boat, he would remember.

  Once there was a boy who sailed away, unsure what future lay ahead on those dark, unknown waters.

  Chapter Thirty-two

  DARK

  When I opened my eyes, all was dark.

  Can an imaginary thing die? I wondered.

  Am I in a coma?

  Or is this what it feels like to be real?

  At first, in the dark, I thought I heard the sound of Fleur calling my name, but it sounded far, far away like an echo, and faded until I could hear nothing at all. I closed my eyes, and then I opened them, but the dark was just the same. Hours passed. At least I think they did; I had no way of really knowing. It may have been days. Or weeks. Or months. For all I knew, I had lived a whole lifetime there in that darkest dark.

  And the worst part was that there was nothing for me to do but think. And remember.

  I thought about our house. It’s a funny thing, a house, the way you memorize every creaky floorboard, every pencil line on the wall measuring height, until it all becomes a part of you without you even noticing. I was sure that even in the deep dark, if I were home, I could still find every wall switch and bring back the light.

  I thought about François. I thought about his growls, and nips, and how soft his floppy ears felt when he was snoring and I would sneak a quick pat. What is it with pets? Even the worst ones worm their way into your heart, curl up on a pillow in a slant of warm sunlight, and never leave.

  I thought about the way things sounded from a distance—the hum of my father’s lawn mower in the summer, the ticking of clocks, the sizzling pans and clicking spoons in the kitchen. I remembered the sound of my parents’ voices through the floorboards, like a radio station that didn’t quite come in. I could tell worry or joy by their two tones. I thought the sound made a force field around our house, and it always made me feel safe.

  And most of all, I remembered the light. I saw the moonlight in our room, the shapes of the sleeping furniture, and the shadow puppets we’d make on the wall. I saw the goldenrod glow on autumn afternoons after school. I saw my mother’s curtains, and how their shadows looked like a maze or a puzzle to solve. I saw the light in Fleur’s eyes, the color like a pond, with shafts of blue and green; a place where you’d expect a fish to break the surface and leap out at any moment. Have you noticed how a person’s eyes get brighter when they talk about somethin
g they love? Fleur’s eyes lit up like that when she would tell someone about me.

  I thought about light.

  And missed it.

  And wished for it.

  Until finally, one day, it came back.

  Chapter Thirty-three

  FREEDOM?

  Finally, I thought, this is what it feels like to be free! The sun was on my face, the wind in my hair. (Except it didn’t exactly seem like freedom since I was, technically, tied with heavy rope to the trunk of a large tree.)

  “Um, hello?” I said.

  “Did I say you could speak?” asked an angry voice.

  This, I thought in my delusion, was a good sign: Someone could hear me speak! The only other real person who had ever heard me was Fleur. Therefore, I rationalized, I must now be real to everyone.

  From behind the tree stepped a boy, no older than me, with a piece of wood in his hand that he held like a sword.

  “I’m the hero,” he said. “And you are my prisoner.”

  “Well a how-do-you-do to you too,” I replied. “May I ask how I got here?”

  “Probably as a stowaway on a ship after you stole a treasure.”

  “No,” I said. “I don’t mean how did my character get here in your little make-believe game. I mean how did I, Jacques Papier, get here in actual real life?”