Confessions of an Imaginary Friend Read online

  The window was open, and the curtains blew around and danced. It sounds foolish, but I felt like crying then, just a tiny bit. Had windows dancing in the wind always been so beautiful? Had creaking floors, and barking dogs, and dancing dust in shafts of slanted light? I suppose it takes being locked away from everything to finally really appreciate anything.

  Where was I? What was I? I climbed out the window, and once on the grass I looked at my legs. They were covered in scales of vivid, bright, emerald green. I touched my neck and felt gills. I moved my back and realized, to my shock, that I had wings.

  I flexed my muscles and the wings moved.

  “I wonder . . .” I said, and pushed my feet off the ground. And wouldn’t you know it: It appeared I knew how to fly. Had I always known? It seemed too extraordinary to be something I had done before and forgotten.

  I got the hang of it rather quickly, and went up higher and higher into the sky.

  As I flew, I watched golden-yellow fields dotted with cows below, and rolling green hills with no houses, no fences. I saw the green give way to sand, and dunes, and then across the water more houses and more roads. I didn’t know where I was going—it seemed I had some sort of inner compass, so I followed it, flying on into the evening.

  Finally, I had the sensation, somehow, that I had arrived.

  I could see a street below. Like many things in life, it too went around in a circle. I landed softly, though a bit loudly, in the quiet neighborhood. The street sign said Cherry Lane, the sun had just set, and all the children were being called inside from their playing for the night.

  I felt as if my mind had been a black-and-white drawing, and somehow everything was starting to fill in with color. I looked at the yellow house in front of me, the red mailbox, the purple flowers. A square of warmth formed around the porch light. It looked like an invitation, like the last outpost in a huge world.

  Someone, I thought, left that porch light on for me.

  Chapter Sixty

  WELCOME HOME, JACQUES PAPIER

  I walked up the steps to the house with the warm light. There was something familiar about the peeling paint on the porch, and I stopped cold when I saw two letters, a J and an F, carved in the side of a tree.

  I’ve been here before, I thought. A long, long time ago.

  I was about to push open the screen door when I heard a snarl at my feet. I looked down, and there was the oldest dog I had ever seen. His body was long, his legs short, and his belly dragged on the ground. His fur was gray and patchy, and his eyes were clouded over with age. Even though he growled in a distinctly inhospitable way, I had the odd feeling we were very old friends.

  Or, at the least, very old enemies.

  “Don’t mind him.”

  I looked up, and standing on the other side of the door was a little girl of about seven, maybe eight. She had red hair, and when she smiled she did so with a twinkle in her eyes.

  “I’m Felice,” said the girl. “I’d invite you in, but I really don’t think you’ll fit.”

  So instead, she led me to the back of the house and gave me a cup of what she said was a cloud root beer float and a plate of moon grilled cheeses. I looked around as I ate. I’ve played here before, I thought again—I’ve jumped in leaves in this yard, and drawn maps, and made up endless games. But when? With whom?

  The back door opened, and out stepped a girl in her teens, with the same red hair as Felice.

  “You were right,” whispered Felice to the older girl. “I imagined a friend, and he actually came. I think he flew here.”

  “Ah,” said the girl, standing with her arm around her sister. “A flying friend. That’s special. What does he look like?”

  “Can’t you see him?” asked Felice. “He’s right there. He’s giant!”

  “No,” said the older girl. “People my age don’t have imaginary friends.”

  “Well, he seems to be part dragon and part fish,” explained Felice. “And he eats cloud root beer floats and moon grilled cheeses, but his favorite food is stardust.”

  “Oh!” said the older girl. Her face looked surprised, but she smiled again after a moment. “I know what he is,” she continued. “He’s a Dragon Herring.”

  Felice considered this, and then nodded, deciding her big sister was, as usual, absolutely right.

  “He’ll need a name,” said Felice.

  “I believe he already has one,” said her sister.

  And though she had said she could not see me, the older girl came closer and looked—I could swear—right into my eyes.

  And that’s when I realized there was something familiar in this girl’s eyes. The color inside was like a pond, with blue, and green, and shafts of golden sunlight. Why, I expected a fish to break the surface and leap out at any moment.

  I knew those eyes. Something inside me broke, and split open. I don’t know how, but when I lowered my head, the girl who could not see me leaned against my invisible emerald-green scales and closed her eyes. And there, for one brief moment, we were just a little boy and a little girl. They made up endless maps together—he would be captain of the forest and she would be navigator. In the glowing late summer light, they carved two initials, one J and one F, into the side of the tree. They gathered magic in their small hands, tumbled home each evening, and fell asleep with leaves of grass in their hair.

  So much love stirred in my heart, I thought it would burst. And though I knew she could not hear me, though I knew my words would be lost, I wanted to tell her anyhow.

  “Fleur,” I whispered. “I didn’t forget you.

  “Fleur,” I said. “I came back.”

  Then: “Welcome home,” she said. “Welcome home, Jacques Papier.”

  Acknowledgments

  For helping on this journey to tell my story, I would like to thank Fleur and Felice Papier, my mom and dad, Maurice the Magnificent, Cowgirl, Mr. Pitiful, Stinky Sock, The Everything, The Office of Reassignment, Pierre, Merla, and Bernard.

  Last (and least), I would like to thank François the Evil Wiener Dog: Every great tale needs a low-down, dirty villain, and nobody is closer to the ground than you.

  ~Jacques Papier, Memoirist

  I am grateful to Emily Van Beek for being someone I trust and admire more than words; Nancy Conescu, editor extraordinaire, this ending is as much yours as mine; Lauri Hornik, for her reflection, guidance, and for saying Yes! when I (nervously) asked to illustrate; Sarah Wartell, Josh Ludmir, Jake Currie, and Patrick O’Donnell for their enthusiasm of said silly drawings; and finally, to my family and friends, in the words of Jacques Papier:

  “Everyone feels invisible sometimes . . .”

  True. But you all make me feel infinitely less so.

  ~Michelle Cuevas, Author

  MICHELLE CUEVAS

  graduated from Williams College and holds a master of fine arts in creative writing from the University of Virginia, where she received the Henry Hoyns Fellowship. She is now a full-time writer living in Berkshire County, Massachusetts.

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