Confessions of an Imaginary Friend Read online

  “Hey,” said the boy, his voice now that of a regular, slightly annoyed, eight-year-old. “You can’t speak unless I want you to. I imagined you.”

  And then he hit me with a blow, more painful than any from a wooden sword.

  “You,” he said, “are my new imaginary friend.”

  Chapter Thirty-four

  THE DUM-DUM BANDITS

  And so, it seemed, there had been some grave mistake: I had been set free by Fleur only to be imagined by someone else. And that someone, it turned out, was a particularly deranged individual named Pierre.

  On Monday Pierre decided we were bank robbers. First he imagined me as his horse, but I protested so much after changing shape into a horse, he finally compromised and allowed me to be an outlaw like him, complete with snakeskin boots and bandannas over our faces. The only problem was that when we went to rob the bank, the woman inside thought Pierre was “just the most precious thing” (her words, not mine), and handed him a lollipop. Pierre proceeded to grab the entire jar of those tiny lollipops and run from the bank, hooting and hollering, making finger-gun motions into the air.

  Our “grand heist” aside, I highly doubt the Dum-Dum Bandits will make the evening news.

  On Tuesday Pierre said we were pilots, and imagined us in cheesy matching flight suits and helmets. Then he decided our plane was going down fast, and we’d have to eject. Except our plane was a tree, and Pierre-the-genius forgot to imagine we had parachutes, so now we have matching bandages on our heads.

  On Wednesday Pierre decided we were zookeepers. We stalked an escaped tiger for about half the day, but it turned out it was just a skittish stray cat from the neighborhood. And let me tell you, Pierre’s water gun did the opposite of tranquilizing that wild beast. Of course Pierre dodged the feline rebuttal, but my good ole pal imagined that I was not so lucky. My entire body is now covered in scratches except the part that was already bandaged.

  Maybe tomorrow Pierre would imagine me as someone who dies from rabies.

  On Thursday, we played storybook and (of course) Pierre got to be the valiant prince. What was I? you ask. The dragon? The knight? Maybe a delightful court jester with zero chance of being maimed or injured? No. Pierre imagined me as the damsel in distress. Me! A damsel! And he couldn’t imagine me as a bold, brilliant warrior princess with martial arts skills. Noooooo. He had to belittle my womanly strength along with everything else. Well, my dress may have been frilly and covered in heart-shaped jewels, and my hair may have been prohibitively long, but I was no damsel in distress. I was formulating a plan. Also, as luck would have it, Pierre got called in to dinner by his mom before we got to the part where I was awoken with true love’s stinky kiss. Let’s just say “Prince Pierre” needs a royal lesson in oral hygiene.

  As you can imagine, by Friday, I’d had all I could take. While Pierre was asleep, I gathered up my crown and lacy petticoats, and made my way off into the night.

  Chapter Thirty-five

  I QUIT!

  “Hubba, hubba,” said Stinky Sock, winking at me when I walked into the Imaginaries Anonymous meeting.

  “There’s a free seat next to me, Princess,” chimed in Mr. Pitiful.

  “I’m not a princess!” I shouted, slumping into the chair, straightening my dress. “I’m a damsel in distress.”

  “Jacques?” asked Stinky Sock, his woolen mouth agape. “Is that you?!”

  “Yes, of course it’s me,” I said, burying my face in my hands. “And I quit! Can I do that?” I asked, looking up. “Can you quit an imaginary job?”

  “Well,” said Mr. Pitiful, “you probably can if you get approval, but you’ll have to do a lot of paperwork.”

  “Seriously,” I continued. “All jokes aside, you guys have to help me. Nobody told me that freedom means being imagined by some new kid. And to make matters worse, I’m ninety-nine percent sure that this Pierre kid is the most wanted of the wanteds on America’s Most Wanted.”

  “Well, what did you put on your form?” asked Mr. Pitiful. “You must have written something wacky to get placed with such a wacko.”

  “Form?” I asked. “What form?”

  “The placement form,” he continued. “At the reassignment office.”

  “WHAT REASSIGNMENT OFFICE?!” I shouted.

  The Everything looked around at the other imaginaries, pointed at me, and smiled his chess-piece-and-soda-can smile.

  “It’s like he’s from another planet,” he teased. “Oh sorry,” he added. “I meant she.”

  “Everyone knows if you’re set free, you have to get reassigned,” explained Stinky Sock. “Or else you’ll be trapped in dark limbo, and then at the whim of anyone who imagines you as anything they can think of, like some sort of imaginary Silly Putty. Like a paper doll cut into any shape. Like steel forged by the hand of the Great Imaginer. Like—”

  “Okay, okay,” I said. “Write your epic poem on your own time. And for the record, guys, all this information would have been very useful to me before I convinced Fleur to set me free.” I stood up, readjusting my petticoats with as much pride as I could muster.

  “Now, where is this office?” I asked, shaking my golden locks. “My feet are killing me and I simply must get out of these heels.”

  Chapter Thirty-six

  THE REASSIGNMENT FORM

  PERSONAL DATA

  Surname: Papier

  First Name: Jacques

  Address (former): the top bunk bed

  Family Members (former):

  Mom, Dad, Fleur, and (ugh!) François the evil wiener dog

  Have you ever been assigned by the Office of Reassignment in the past (Y/N):

  nope

  Are you legally qualified for imaginary employment?

  maybe? a little? Yes

  GENERAL

  Days Available:

  Monday

  Thursday

  Sunday

  Tuesday

  Friday

  Funday

  Wednesday

  Saturday

  Employment Category:

  Full-time imaginary friend

  Full-time imaginary nemesis

  SPECIALIZED SKILLS (check all that apply)

  Flight

  Tap dancing

  Pie making

  Mind reading

  Tree climbing

  High-shelf-reaching

  Cloud shaping

  Guessing wrapped gifts

  Pie eating

  Impeccable manners

  Piracy (high seas)

  Unicycling

  Evaporation

  Making echoes

  Glow in the dark

  Growing extra arms

  Roller skating

  Hearing seashells

  Liquification

  Breathing fire

  Super strength

  Math homework

  Karaoke

  Microsoft Word


  ONE FINAL QUESTION

  Is there any other information you would like us to consider?

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  THE OFFICE OF REASSIGNMENT

  “I have no skills!” I shouted, tossing my form aside in a fit of exasperation.

  The reassignment officer behind the desk gave me a look of disgust, then made a few marks on the clipboard in her hands.

  “Anxiety, rudeness, and poor self-esteem,” she said under her breath as she wrote.

  The officer wore glasses on a chain that kept getting tangled in her arms, but she still seemed to be getting a large amount of work done. This was most likely due to the fact that she had been imagined with not two but eight tentacle arms that were constantly moving and writing in every direction. That was good, since the office was stacked to the ceiling with files and papers. Or maybe it just seemed that way because the room was so small. The Office of Reassignment was always moving, I’d been told, and was currently located in a large cardboard box in a yard full of toys.

  “Sometimes the kids imagine it’s a spaceship,” explained the reassignment officer. “Other times a candy house, dragon cave, mud-pie factory, school for monsters, or runaway choo-choo train,” she continued. “Packed in every fiber with imagination, these kinds of places.”

  “Would it be possible,” I asked the officer, “for me to just go back to Fleur, the girl who originally imagined me? She set me free, but only because I asked her. She’d be thrilled to have me back.”

  “Thrilled, I’m sure,” said the officer with what I sensed was sarcasm. “But no. I’m running your paperwork through the system now.”

  “But . . .” I started to say. “I didn’t get to answer the last part yet . . .”

  Too late. A machine that looked as if it was made of old toilet paper rolls beep-bopped as it ate up my paperwork. After a moment of consideration, it spit out a wee card.

  “Very well,” said the secretary. “When you leave this office out that door”— she motioned to a flap of cardboard that looked like a doggy door—“you’ll be at your new destination. Thank you for choosing this branch of the Imaginary Office of Reassignment, and have a very nonexistent day.”

  As I got down on my knees to crawl out the door to my new home, I thought about the last conversation I’d had with Stinky Sock before I’d left Imaginaries Anonymous.

  “It was horrible,” I’d told him. “Changing shape again and again with Pierre. It made it perfectly clear how utterly unreal I am.”

  “Eh, shapes.” Stinky Sock shrugged the best he could without shoulders. “Even kids change shape eventually—get bigger, older, spottier, wrinklier, stooped over in old age like a fading flower. I wouldn’t worry about it too much. Spend less time thinking of that, and more time thinking about what’s in there.”

  The sock pointed to my chest, where my heart would be if it turned out I had one.

  “Why? What do you think is in there?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” said my friend. “But don’t you think it’s high time you found out?”

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  THE THING I HATE MOST

  What was inside me, I learned after crawling through the doggy door, was the thing I hate most.

  Allow me to explain.

  After I left the Office of Reassignment, I emerged into a cage. As soon as I entered, the door I’d come in through disappeared, trapping me in some sort of prison.

  “What are other people writing on their forms?” I shouted. “Is there some sort of manual I could read?”

  I decided to breathe, not panic, and take stock of the situation.

  I could smell about a zillion different smells.

  My hearing seemed to have greatly improved, as if the world were in surround sound. I watched a small beetle walk at the edge of the enclosure and could actually hear its steps.

  I must have become a superhero.

  Or another damsel in distress, locked in a tower . . .

  I was very itchy. Like covered-in-bug-bites-after-playing-outside-on-a-summer-night itchy.

  I was either a superhero or a princess with a rash.

  There were lots of dogs in this prison.

  Was it possible to be imagined by a dog?

  Did dogs even have imaginations?

  Uh-oh, people approaching . . .

  The group was made up of a man in a stained uniform, a husband and wife, and a pigtailed girl in a pretty white dress who was bouncing off the walls and running from cage to cage. She looked like a moth in a lightbulb factory. She looked like a frog at a fly family reunion.

  “And that one is so SPOTTY!!” she shouted. “And that one is so big! And look at the ears! And the wagging tail. Do you think that one is soft? And look at that one’s WITTLE BITTY FACE! Ahhhhhhh!!”

  “I told you this was a bad idea,” the woman said to the man. “She’s not responsible enough for a dog.” Then more loudly to the girl: “Remember, Merla, sweetie, we’re just visiting.”

  “I WANT THEM ALLLLLLLLL!!” shouted the girl in reply, running up and down the aisles of cages like a bee in a botanical garden.

  Merla stopped outside my enclosure and, to my surprise, pointed right at me.

  “That,” she said in a reverent tone, “is the dog I want.”

  “Who are you calling a dog, kid?” I asked.

  “EEEEeeeeeeeeeEEEEeeeeeee!!” screamed Merla. “It can TALK!”

  “Oh. Oh man, oh geez,” I said, the reality knocking me upside the head. (Or should I say snout.)

  “I’m a dog now, aren’t I?”

  The girl’s parents joined her outside my enclosure. They looked at each other, then at Merla, then at me. Well, sort of at me. They were actually looking at the opposite end of the cage.

  “Of course,” said Merla’s father in a false, grand voice. “You can have as many dogs from that cage as you want, button.”

  “There’s only one,” replied Merla. “One perfect dog. Gimme, gimme, gimme!”

  Now the parents stared at the slovenly kennel keeper. Well, their look said. Give the kid her invisible dog.

  The kennel keeper, clearly unsure what to do, made a big pantomime show of unlocking my cage. He swept his arm as if to present me, then said in a robotic voice, “Look. It is a dog. In this cage. You may take him now.”

  And so, Merla ran inside the enclosure, scooped me up in her arms, and squeezed me so hard that—oh, the embarrassment to admit it!—well, I took an imaginary piddle right there on her pretty white dress.

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  MERLA + DOG 4-EVER

  Once we arrived in Merla’s bedroom, I realized she might have an ever-so-slight obsession with dogs: There were food and water bowls, chew toys, posters, Milk-Bones, a frilly doggy bed, and even a scrapbook with the words MERLA + DOG 4-EVER printed in a heart on the front cover.

  “A bit non-specific, don’t you think?” I grabbed a marker, crossed out DOG and in its place wrote JACQUES PAPIER: TEMPORARY DOG.

  “Oh. My. Gosh,” said Merla, mesmerized. “You can write too?”

  “Of course I can write,” I said, puffing up my chest. “The English teacher may not have been able to see me, but in my opinion, I was top of my class in the second grade in both spelling and cursive writing.”

  “A dog who can do cursive writing,” said Merla, shaking her head. “I really hit the jackpot.”

  I started poking around, taking stock of my new belongings.

  “That,” I said, pointing to a bone, “is not going to work for me. I’ll eat what you eat. I also enjoy warm bubble baths and classical music, and for some reason I feel I’d like you to scratch behind my ear.”

  Merla leaned over and scratched the exact right place. Not bad.

  “Anything else?” she asked.
r />   “Yes,” I said. “I’d like to know what I look like.”

  “I could take a photo with Daddy’s camera,” she offered.

  “That won’t work. Sadly, they’ve yet to invent film or a mirror that captures imaginary things. No, Merla, you hyperactive fool,” I said, pushing a box of crayons in her direction. “You’re going to have to draw me.”

  “Fun!” said Merla. “Where do you want to pose?”

  I looked around.

  “Here,” I said, languishing across my frilly dog bed like I’d seen in old paintings of fancy women at the museum.

  “And make sure you capture my good side,” I said. “That is, if I still have one.”

  Chapter Forty

  A PORTRAIT OF JACQUES PAPIER

  When Merla the artiste finished the drawing, she held it up to admire, then turned it around with dramatic flair. I stood up from the bed and moved closer for inspection.

  It’s an odd thing, I thought, only being able to see yourself through someone else’s eyes. My denial had been so deep with Fleur, I had never registered the fact that I didn’t show up in mirrors or photos. But I had finally come to terms with the reality of my situation.

  “Merla,” I asked. “Would you say you’ve had . . . much experience with this medium?”

  “Crayons?” asked Merla. “Oh sure. Just look, half these colors are worn right down to nubs.”

  “Well then, are you going through some sort of Picasso phase? Is this your banana period? Because looking at these ratios . . . I mean, I hate to critique, but the legs are far too short, and it almost looks as if my stomach would drag on the . . .” I stopped. I stared. I stuttered. “On the, uh . . . the ground,” I finished.