Confessions of an Imaginary Friend Page 8

  To tell the truth, I was beginning to think you would be in awe of anyone if you saw the parts of them that no one else gets to see. If you could watch them making up little songs, and doing funny faces in the mirror; if you saw them high-fiving a leaf on a tree, or stopping to watch a green inchworm hanging midair from an invisible thread, or just being really different and lonely and crying sometimes at night. Seeing them, the real them, you couldn’t help but think that anyone and everyone is amazing.

  I guess everyone, I realized, would include me.

  But what was special about me? I wondered. I guess you can’t always know what those things are about yourself. Maybe because you’re too close to see it, like a flower that looks down and thinks it is just a stem. I guess the important thing is to trust that you are. You’re special. And the people close to you see it in more ways than you could ever, ever know.

  Before I realized it, my feet had led me to the playhouse where I had been several times in the past for meetings of Imaginaries Anonymous. I wondered if anyone would recognize me. I’d never gotten around to asking what I looked like now. I’d been so busy helping Bernard that I’d forgotten all about it.

  “Hello?” I said quietly, creaking open the pink plastic door. “Is this still Imaginaries Anonymous . . .”

  “I’m only as invisible as I feel, imaginary or not.”

  After the group chant, I took a seat in the back and listened to the first speaker, even though I couldn’t actually see anyone at the front of the room. The speaker must have been extremely short, I thought. Must have accidentally included the term elfin or Lilliputian on the reassignment form, poor fool.

  “I mean, sure, it was hard at first,” said the wee imaginary. “But then I realized, maybe one day I’ll float around the entire world. Maybe I’ll waft down the Amazon, drift up the Eiffel Tower, get stuck to a fuzzy monkey and live in the top of the highest tree. All in all, I’m one lucky buckaroo.”

  The other members clapped, and thanked the imaginary for sharing. I felt thankful too, but for another reason. After everyone else shared, and after the cookies and juice, I found my way over to the tiny imaginary.

  “Cowgirl?” I asked. “Cowgirl, is that really you?”

  Chapter Fifty-four

  THE WORLD ON A PIECE OF FUZZ

  “You’re . . . you’re . . .” I stammered to Cowgirl, trying to find the word.

  “A tiny piece of fuzz,” she said, helping me finish the thought.

  “Well, yeah,” I said. “I mean, what are you? A dandelion seed? Lint? Who would imagine such a thing?”

  “His name is Marcel. He’s six. He read a book about an elephant that discovered a whole tiny city on a piece of fuzz. Decided he wanted a fuzz of his own, and that’s how he got me.”

  “Makes me wonder,” I said, “what you put on your form.”

  “Actually,” replied Cowgirl. “I didn’t fill mine out. I figured, hey, wherever the wind takes me is fine.”

  A breeze blew through the playhouse and Cowgirl fluttered around for a few moments before settling back down.

  “Literally,” I said, and we both laughed. “You know,” I added, “I’m still amazed I recognized you.”

  “Hey,” she said. “I recognized you when you were a hotdog-shaped mutt, didn’t I? It’s not so hard. You just have to look past the outside. Have you ever noticed that real people are the same way? One of them could age about seventy years, and you’d still recognize them. The secret is in the eyes.”

  I tried to imagine Bernard’s bespectacled eyes, and Merla’s full of energy. Not so hard. When I tried to picture Fleur’s eyes, the memory was a bit foggier, but Cowgirl was right—there they were, coming into focus after a moment: the color inside like a pond, with blue, and green, and shafts of golden sunlight; a place where you’d still expect a fish to break the surface and leap out at any moment.

  “Before you go,” said Cowgirl. “I have something of yours.”

  “Of mine?” I asked. “But I don’t own anything. You lose anything you’re carrying when you become a new kid’s friend.”

  Cowgirl floated over to the table and hovered near a napkin. I followed, picked up the napkin, and caught my breath when I saw what was underneath.

  “I made a trade for it,” she said.

  There, on the table, was the compass Fleur had given me, the one I thought I’d lost forever to the Oogly Boogly. It was rare, I knew now, for something you’d let go because you didn’t realize its value to then find its way back home to you. I clutched the compass, understanding its real magic—the magic to remind me of what I had lost, and to tell me to appreciate right now, because that too might soon be gone.

  Chapter Fifty-five

  HOLY FUTURE FAILURE

  “Bernard,” I said the next day after breakfast. “I’ve decided we’re entering the talent show at school.”

  Bernard just stared unblinkingly at his cereal spoon like it held a mini-apocalypse.

  “Did you hear me?” I asked.

  “No,” replied Bernard.

  “I SAID WE’RE ENTERING THE TALENT SHOW,” I shouted.

  “I heard you,” said Bernard, covering his ears. “I meant, no, there’s no way I’m entering. Just look at me!”

  “You look great,” I replied. “Is that a new shirt? Striped is your color, my friend.”

  “No,” said Bernard. “I mean I have no talents. Not a single one. I trip sometimes when I’m just walking. I almost died jumping rope once. I’m allergic to butterflies.”

  “I don’t think any of those problems are a lack of talent,” I replied, adding, “Really? Butterflies? Never mind,” I said, waving my hand. “Focus. Do you perhaps play an instrument?”

  “My cousin once taught me to make armpit whoopee cushion sounds. Here, listen . . .”

  “No, it’s okay, I believe you,” I said. “Sounds like a real bonding experience.Can you juggle? Spin plates? Twirl a flaming baton?”

  “No, no, and haven’t yet tried but am willing,” replied Bernard.

  This was turning out to be harder than I’d imagined. We both slumped down on the front steps in defeat. As we did, I heard a clanking in my pocket, and reached in to find the compass that had been returned to me by the cowgirl.

  “What’s that?” asked Bernard.

  “Oh, this allegedly magic compass. I got it at a show with Maurice the Magnificent. He wasn’t that magnificent, actually, but a little funny, I guess, for an old guy.”

  And then, as I said the words, my brain-bulb finally lit up.

  “I know what your talent is,” I informed Bernard. I rubbed my chin like an evil genius or a coach on a makeover show.

  “Yes, yes . . .” I said. “Maaaaarvelous.”

  “Holy future failure,” said Bernard with a gulp.

  Chapter Fifty-six

  BERNARD THE WONDROUS

  It’s just like they say: Time flies when you’re forcing your best friend to do something against his will. Before I knew it, it was the night of the big school talent show.

  “Feeling magical?” I asked Bernard.

  We were standing backstage. Bernard was wearing a cape and magician’s hat. I was wearing a pair of sequined pants and a vest. I thought we looked great, except Bernard had turned a sickly shade of green and it was starting to clash with my sparkles.

  “Don’t be nervous,” I said. “It’s just a room full of people, and some judges, and oh! Look who’s on next! It’s Zoë-of-the-eye-patch. I forgot she was performing too.”

  Bernard’s face went from green to gray. We watched as Zoë performed with her group of friends, and continued watching as they got in a fight halfway through and had to be pulled off the stage. After that came a metal band, a poet, and three more groups of dancing girls who also got into fights onstage.

  “I’m liking these odds,” I whispered to Ber
nard. “Ooh, looks like we’re next.”

  “And now,” said the announcer reading off his note card, “the magic of Bernard the Wondrous and his handsome assistant!”

  Everyone, including Bernard’s dad in the front row and Zoë in the wings, clapped as we wheeled a cabinet out onto the stage.

  “For my first trick,” said Bernard in a whisper, “I will make my assistant disappear.”

  “What?” shouted someone from the back of the auditorium. “Speak up, kid, can’t hear you!”

  “I said,” said Bernard more audibly, “I will now make my assistant disappear!”

  I elbowed Bernard.

  “My handsome assistant,” he corrected.

  Whispers and mumbles went through the crowd.

  What assistant?

  Do you see someone?

  Is this kid crazy?

  I stepped inside the cabinet with my usual flair and grace. Bernard closed the door. Then, with a dramatic, albeit awkward, flourish, he pranced around, waved his arms, and shouted out several rounds of “Alakazam!” and “Abracadabra!” and “Shazam!” After that, he opened the door to reveal . . .

  An empty cabinet!

  “Ta-da,” said Bernard.

  Well, I have to tell you, it was so silent in that auditorium that you could have heard a baby mouse hiccup or a flea scratch an itch. I’d never seen so many people with their mouths hanging open and their foreheads scrunched up in confusion.

  But then—Huzzah!—from somewhere in the back of the room I heard a giggle. Actually, more of a guffaw. And this, it seemed, was contagious, because before we knew it, laughter was coming from every part of the room, louder and louder, like perfect, twinkling music.

  They clapped again for Bernard’s next trick, where he sawed his invisible assistant in half.

  They chuckled when he made invisible me levitate. They hooted as he passed my body through a silver hoop. And they simply howled when Bernard stuck a sword through my imaginary head.

  A comedic genius! they shouted.

  Funniest act by far!

  Bernard the Wondrous for the win!

  Chapter Fifty-seven

  AND HIS LOVELY ASSISTANT

  After the show I watched as Bernard was greeted by several of his classmates, some of whom I was fairly certain hadn’t known his name until that night.

  You should be a professional comedian, they said.

  How’d you ever come up with something so good? they asked.

  Maybe you should sit with us at lunch.

  And it just got better from there.

  On Monday Bernard got picked fourth-from-last for playground kickball. Fourth-from-last! Usually he wasn’t picked at all, so this was a huge improvement. And during the game he didn’t have to hide in the bushes or enlist the help of any foliage at all.

  On Tuesday Bernard put his hand up for the first time all year, and gave the answer to the capital of Idaho. At lunch he didn’t sit alone, and when the bus reached Bernard’s house, he was totally noticeable enough that the driver didn’t forget his stop.

  On Wednesday Zoë, who looked even nicer with both eyes, asked Bernard if he was going to the school dance. Bernard said he’d probably stop by, and Zoë said—wait for it—see you there. See you there! In the fourth grade, that basically means they were engaged.

  On Thursday the principal presented Bernard with his talent show trophy: first place, and it even had Bernard the Wondrous etched on a little gold plate on the front. Beneath that were the four most amazing words of all: and His Lovely Assistant. Holy fame! Holy fortune!

  Everything was great.

  So great, in fact, that by Friday I realized the sad truth: It was time for me to go.

  The invisible boy was no longer invisible. He wouldn’t be able to just float around anymore. Or hide during games. Or not join in. Because now he had been seen.

  So I went.

  I didn’t have the heart to say good-bye.

  I knew he’d ask me to stay, and if he did, I would. Bernard was like a turtle that had just started to poke his head outside his own shell. If I stuck around, he’d retreat back inside to the safety of my company at the slightest spook. And I didn’t want Bernard to go back into hiding, that was for sure. I wanted to hold on to this feeling of pride that I had truly helped change someone’s life. And that, I thought, made me just a little less invisible. Yes, I’d go back to the reassignment office to explain it all, and they’d give me a new home.

  As I watched Bernard polishing his trophy and laughing with new friends, I realized he’d done many tricks and done them well, but there was one that made him truly great: Bernard the Wondrous had, finally, made himself appear.

  Chapter Fifty-eight

  EIGHT HUNDRED BILLION NEW STARS

  So I left, toward what I didn’t know. A new assignment, I supposed. A new spot on the Map of Me.

  Bernard, I thought, had a map as well. His was one of those really special maps. You know the kind where when you look at it, it just looks like a blank sheet of parchment, but with the right super-secret decoder glasses, you can see everything little by little. The mermaid lagoons, the magician’s mountain, and yes, the colors—all the colors that they don’t even have words for yet, there on the Map of Bernard.

  With nowhere else to go, I made my way to the Office of Reassignment. I told them I didn’t need to fill out a form. I answered no questions. I even crumpled up the sheet for dramatic effect, thinking just send me wherever I’m needed most. I waited in the empty waiting room, and when my number was called, I went through the small door to meet my new life, ready for whatever might come.

  But I had forgotten what had happened at the very start of my journey: If you don’t fill out a form, you are sent into the limbo. The dark. To wait. For what could be a very, very long time.

  And that’s exactly where I found myself.

  I decided to pretend I was just playing hide-and-seek. I reminded myself that lots of things were happening outside the dark. I imagined them all.

  One billion and sixty-four million babies have been born while you’ve been hiding in this toy chest, I would think. Also, eight thousand five hundred and eighty-six species went extinct; four hundred and eighty volcanoes erupted; twelve hundred people died from coconuts falling on their heads; four hundred sixteen Mondays passed, and Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays; the moon orbited the earth one hundred and four times; eight hundred billion new stars were born in the galaxy.

  But for me there were no new stars. There was only dark. And the dark was beginning to take me away.

  Everything was beginning to fade.

  It was like my memories were sculpted out of sand and then carelessly left too near the water. They were becoming ethereal, intangible, invisible. And I didn’t know what to do to make them stay.

  First, I watched my name leave.

  The J floated away like a fat bubble, followed by the A, C, Q, U, E, and S all taken in one swoop. The P-A-P-I-E-R took a tad longer, first the ink blurring and the letters finally falling apart into floating snippets—the moon-curve of a P, and the fork tongs of an E getting caught on each other, then finally fading in an origami letter tango. I let go of the maps I’d drawn, my favorite songs, and every person whom I’d met and known and cared for. Good-bye, Fleur’s kindness, my mother’s patience, and my father’s sense of wonder; good-bye, Pierre’s creativity, Merla’s huge heart, and Bernard’s bravery; farewell to Cowgirl’s sense of adventure, to Stinky Sock, Mr. Pitiful, and all the other imaginaries; good-bye to the way they cared more about the happiness of their friends than about their own. All those memories flipped fins and swam away like a school of impossible, invisible, imaginary flying fish.

  And then, I was really, truly alone.

  Who are you when everything you’ve ever known about yourself is gone?

&nbs
p; Who are you when there’s nobody around to remind you of your role, and no memories to regret or keep you warm?

  What would you look like if you couldn’t remember ever looking like anything? What form would you take?

  What would you dream at night if you had no memories? What notes would get stuck in your head if you remembered no songs?

  After everything had faded, there in the dark, I tried to see myself. I was no shape in particular, of course, but that’s okay. I’d learned that didn’t mean a thing. So what was I? My memories may have faded, but the people I’d known were a part of me. They had made me. And in that way, I realized, just by being myself, I am with them—with all their kindness and bravery and selflessness. I didn’t need any map or compass to find it, this place they had helped to build. And so I filled the home inside myself with furniture; with laughter and light, with love and a family. I imagined I could soar there through a sky full of Autumn Mist, and when I arrived, I would know I was home, finally, after so much time spent far, far away.

  Chapter Fifty-nine

  GILLS AND WINGS AND SCALES OF GREEN

  So much time had passed that when the dark limbo finally ended, I wasn’t quite sure what I was seeing. Had I experienced light before? Or had I only imagined it?

  I was in a child’s room. It looked like a dream, like a combination of all the bedrooms I had known before. The boards creaked. Somewhere in the distance I heard a dog barking. The air smelled like fresh laundry, and pine, and the hint of finally being free.