Memoirs of an Imaginary Friend (6 page)

But if Max knew that there were other imaginary friends, and he was mad at me, like he is now, then maybe he would just forget about me and imagine a new imaginary friend. And then I would disappear like Graham is disappearing right now.

It’s been hard, because I want to tell Max about Graham. At first I wanted to tell him because I thought he could help. I thought that maybe Max could give me a good idea to help Graham because Max is so smart. Or maybe he could help us solve one of Meghan’s problems, like teaching her to tie her own shoes, and then he could tell Meghan that it was Graham’s idea, so Graham would get all of the credit.

But now I want to tell Max about Graham because I’m scared. I’m afraid that I might lose my friend and I don’t have anyone to talk to about it. I guess I could talk to Puppy, but I don’t know Puppy very well, and definitely not as well as I know Max or Graham. And even if Puppy can talk, talking to a dog is weird. Max is my friend, and he should be the one I talk to when I’m sad or afraid, but I can’t.

I just hope that Graham comes to school tomorrow and we aren’t too late.

Max’s father likes to tell people that he and Max play catch every night in the backyard, like they are doing tonight. He tells everyone he can, sometimes more than once, but he usually waits until Max’s mom isn’t around before he says it. Sometimes he says it just after she leaves the room if he knows that she’s coming right back.

But he and Max don’t really play catch. Max’s dad throws the ball to Max, and Max lets it hit the ground and roll, and when it stops moving, he picks it up and tries to throw it back. Except Max’s dad never stands close enough for Max to reach him, even though he tells Max to ‘Step into it!’ and ‘Throw with your body!’ and ‘Give it your all, son!’

Whenever they play catch, Max’s dad calls Max
son
instead of Max.

But even if Max
steps into it
or
gives it his all
(I don’t know what either of those things mean, and I don’t think Max does either), the ball never reaches his dad.

If Max’s dad wants the ball to reach him, why doesn’t he just stand closer?

Max is in bed now. He is sleeping. No temper tantrum, of course. He brushed his teeth, put on his Thursday-night pajamas, read one chapter in his book, and laid his head down on the pillow at exactly eight-thirty. Max’s mom is at a meeting tonight so Max’s dad gave Max a kiss on the forehead and said good night. Then he turned out the light in Max’s room and switched on the nightlights.

There are three.

I sit in the dark beside Max’s bed, thinking about Graham. Wondering if there is anything left to think about. Wondering if there is anything else I can do.

Max’s mom comes home a little later. She sneaks into the room, tiptoes over to Max’s bed, and kisses him on the forehead. Max allows his mom and dad to kiss him, but it has to be quick and always on the cheek or forehead, and Max always cringes whenever they do it. But when Max is asleep like this, his mom can give him a longer kiss, usually on the forehead but sometimes on the cheek, too. Sometimes she goes to his room to kiss him two or three times a night before she goes to bed, even if she was the one who put him to bed and kissed him already.

One morning at breakfast, Max’s mom told Max that she had given him a kiss good night after he was asleep. She said, ‘You looked like such an angel last night when I went to kiss you good night.’

‘Dad put me to bed,’ Max said. ‘Not you.’

This was one of Max’s questions-that’s-not-a-question, and I knew it. So did Max’s mom. She always knows. She knows even better than me.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I was visiting Grandpa at the hospital, but when I came home, I tiptoed into your bedroom and gave you a kiss good night.’

‘You gave me a kiss good night,’ Max said.

‘Yes,’ his mom said.

Later on, while we were riding the bus to school, Max hunkered down and said, ‘Did Mom kiss me on the lips?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘On the forehead.’

Max touched his forehead, rubbed it with his fingers and then looked at his fingers. ‘Was it a long kiss?’ he asked.

‘No,’ I said. ‘It was super-short.’

But that wasn’t the truth. I don’t lie to Max very often, but I lied that time because I thought it would be better for Max and better for his mother if I did.

Max still asks me if his mom gives him a long kiss on the nights when she is not home to put him to bed. I always say, ‘Nope. Super-short.’

And I’ve never told Max about all the extra kisses his mom gives him before she goes to bed.

But that’s not a lie, because Max has never asked me if she gives him extra kisses.

Max’s mom is eating dinner. She heated the plate of food that Max’s dad made for her from the leftovers. Max’s dad is sitting at the table across from her, reading a magazine. I am not a very good reader but I know this magazine is called
Sports Illustrated
because Max’s dad gets it from the envelope and magazine delivery man every week.

I’m annoyed because it doesn’t look like Max’s mom and dad are going to watch television soon, and I want to watch television. I like to sit on the couch next to Max’s mom and watch the television show and listen to them talk about the show during the commercials.

Commercials are tiny little shows in between the big show, but most of them are stupid and boring, so no one really watches them. People use the commercials to talk or go to the bathroom or fill their glass with more soda.

Max’s dad likes to complain about the television shows. He thinks that they are never good enough. He says the stories are
ridiculous
and that there were too many
missed opportunities
. I’m not really sure what this means, but I think it means that the television shows would be better if he was allowed to tell the people on the show what to do.

Max’s mom sometimes gets annoyed at the complaining because she just likes to watch the shows and not look for the
missed opportunities
.

‘I just want to take a break from the day,’ she says, and I agree. I don’t watch the shows to find a way to make them better. I just like the stories. But most of the time Max’s mom and dad just laugh at the shows that are funny and bite their nails when the shows are scary or suspenseful. I don’t think Max’s mom and dad know that they both bite their nails at the exact same time when they watch television.

They also love to predict what will happen on the next show. I’m not sure, but I think that Max’s mom and dad must have had Mrs Gosk as a third-grade teacher, because she is always asking her students to make a prediction about the book that she is reading, and it seems like making predictions is what Max’s mom and dad like to do the best. I like to make predictions, too, because then I can wait and see if I’m right. Max’s mom likes to predict that good things are going to happen even when everything looks bad. I usually predict the worst possible ending, and sometimes I’m right, especially when we watch movies.

That’s why I’m so nervous tonight about Graham. I can’t stop thinking about the worst.

Some nights I have to sit in the cozy chair because Max’s dad sits next to Max’s mom and puts his arm around her, and she squeezes in real close and they smile. I like those nights because I know they are happy, but I feel a little left out at the same time. Like I don’t belong. Sometimes on those nights I just leave, especially if they are watching a show without a story, like the one where people decide who sings the best and the winner gets a prize.

Actually, I think it’s more fun to figure out who is singing the worst.

Max’s mom and dad are quiet for a long time. She is eating and he is reading. The only sounds are the tinkles of the fork and knife on the plate. Max’s mom is never this quiet unless she wants Max’s dad to talk first. Usually she has lots and lots to say, but sometimes, when they are fighting, she likes to wait and see if Max’s dad will talk first. She’s never told me this, but I’ve watched them for so long that I just know.

I don’t know what they are fighting about tonight, so it’s almost like watching a television show. I know they are going to argue soon, but I don’t know what it will be about. It’s a mystery. I predict that it will have something to do with Max, because that’s what they argue about the most.

When she is finished with her dinner, Max’s mom finally speaks. ‘Have you thought about seeing a doctor?’

Max’s dad sighs. ‘You really think we need to?’ He doesn’t look up from his magazine, which is a bad sign.

‘It’s been ten months.’

‘I know, but ten months isn’t a long time. It’s not like we had any trouble in the past.’ Now he is looking at Max’s mom.

‘I know,’ she says. ‘But how long should we wait, then? I don’t want to wait a year or two before we talk to someone and then find out that there’s a problem. I’d rather know now, so we can do something about it.’

Max’s dad rolls his eyes. ‘I just don’t think ten months is that long to wait. It took Scott and Melanie almost two years. Remember?’

Max’s mom sighs. I can’t tell if she is sad or frustrated or something else.

‘I know,’ she says. ‘But it wouldn’t hurt to just speak to someone. Right?’

‘Yeah,’ Max’s dad says, and now he sounds angry. ‘That’d be fine if speaking to someone was all we had to do. But talking to a doctor isn’t going to help if we have a problem. They’re going to want to do tests. It’s only been ten months.’

‘But don’t you want to know?’

Max’s dad doesn’t answer. If Max’s mom was Max, she would repeat the question, but sometimes adults answer questions by not answering them at all. I think that this is what Max’s dad is doing.

When he finally speaks, he answers Max’s mom’s first question instead of her last. ‘Okay, we can go see a doctor. Will you make the appointment?’

Max’s mom nods. I thought she would be happy that Max’s dad agreed to go to the doctor, but she still looks sad. Max’s dad looks sad, too, but neither one of them looks at the other. Not once. It is like there are a hundred dining room tables between them instead of just one.

I feel sad for them, too.

If they had just watched television, this would never have happened.

CHAPTER 11

I tell Max that I’m going to check on Tommy Swinden again. He doesn’t mind because he made a poop this morning, so he won’t need me to check the bathroom until lunch. And Mrs Gosk has started the day by reading aloud to the class. Max loves it when Mrs Gosk reads aloud. He becomes so focused on her voice that he forgets everything else, so he probably won’t even know I’m gone.

I don’t go to Tommy Swinden’s class. I go to Mrs Pandolfe’s classroom. I almost don’t want to go, because I’m afraid of what I will find. Or what I won’t find.

I step into her classroom, which is much neater and more organized than Mrs Gosk’s classroom. All the desks are in perfectly straight rows and there are no sliding mountains of papers on Mrs Pandolfe’s desk. It’s almost too clean.

I look from one side of the room to the other and then back again. Graham is not here. I look in the corner behind the bookshelf and in the coatroom. She is not there.

The children are sitting in their rows, staring at Mrs Pandolfe, who is standing at the front of the classroom. She is pointing at a calendar and talking about the date and the weather. The chart paper with the list of this week’s spelling words is gone.

I see Meghan. She sits near the back of the classroom. Her hand is raised. She wants to answer Mrs Pandolfe’s question about the number of days in October.

It’s thirty-one. I know that answer.

I don’t see Graham.

I want to walk over to Meghan and ask her if she stopped believing in her imaginary friend last night.

‘Did you stop believing in the pointy-haired girl who kept you company when you didn’t know how to talk and everyone made fun of you?’

‘Did you forget about your friend when you forgot how to stutter?’

‘Did you even notice that she was fading away?’

‘Did you kill my friend?’

Meghan can’t hear me. I’m not her imaginary friend. Graham is.

Graham was.

Then I see her. She’s standing just a few steps away from Meghan, near the back of the class, but I can barely see her. I was looking right through her, straight through to the windows, and I didn’t even know it. It’s like someone painted her picture on the window a long time ago and now it’s all faded and worn. I don’t think I would have even noticed her, had she not blinked. It was the movement that I saw first. Not her.

‘I didn’t think you’d see me,’ Graham says.

I don’t know what to say.

‘It’s all right,’ Graham says. ‘I know how hard it is to see me. When I opened my eyes this morning, I couldn’t see my own hands at first. I thought I had disappeared.’

‘I didn’t know you sleep,’ I said.

‘Yeah. Of course I do. You don’t?’

‘No,’ I say.

‘Then what do you do when Max is asleep?’

‘I hang out with his parents until they go to sleep,’ I say. ‘Then I go for walks.’

I don’t tell her about my visits to the gas station on the corner and Doogies and the hospital and the police station. I have never told any imaginary friends about my visits. I feel like they are mine. My own special thing.

‘Wow,’ Graham says, and I notice for the first time that her voice is starting to fade, too. It sounds wispy and thin, like she’s talking through a door. ‘I never knew that you didn’t need to sleep. I feel bad for you.’

‘Why?’ I ask. ‘What good is sleep?’

‘When you sleep, you dream.’

‘
You
dream?’ I ask.

‘Of course,’ Graham says. ‘Last night I dreamed that Meghan and I were twin sisters. We were playing in the sandbox together, and my fingers could touch the sand. I could hold it in my hands and let it run though my fingers, just like Meghan does.’

‘I can’t believe you dream,’ I say.

‘I can’t believe you can’t.’

Neither one of us says anything for a minute.

There is a boy at the front of the classroom named Norman, and he is talking about his visit to a place called Old Newgate Prison. I know what a prison is, so I know that Norman is lying about his trip. Kids aren’t allowed to visit prisons. But I can’t figure out why Mrs Pandolfe isn’t making Norman tell the truth. If Mrs Gosk heard Norman telling this story, she would say, ‘Shame! Shame! Let all the boys and girls know your name!’ Then Norman would have to tell the truth.