What happens when your writing buddies find out you didn’t make time to plan a project for this November. Short stories that you have to publish. This is an unedited version, but here goes. Be kind with your feedback please!
Imaginary Friends
Where was my Daddy? The last time he forgot to pick me up from school, I had to wait with a teacher. He was so mad at me for getting the school involved. I should just know that he would be there. That time, I waited an hour before a teacher found me on her way home. I was sitting on the school steps crying. That was before, I’m almost a year older now, she thought. “My tenth birthday is next month, and I hope I get to have a party with cake and everything. Well, I’ll be happy with just a cake with one candle that I can make a wish on.”
Roanna waited on the steps until everyone was gone. Every time a teacher opened the door to the building to leave, I ran around the wall and hid behind the big tree. All the cars are gone from the parking lot now and the janitor locked the gate. I’m locked in and it’s four o’clock. I think Daddy really did forget me this time. It’s been two hours. I’ve done all my homework and finished reading our book for this semester. There is nothing left for me to do except imagine. I don’t think playing the imagine game is a good thing right now. I can imagine a storm, a real one. Mom said I was silly, that no one can imagine a storm, but I think I really did.
So little Roanna’s thoughts went that day. She became more frightened the longer she waited for a father that would never come. He was currently speeding away on the interstate as fast as he could, checking the rear view mirror every so often to avoid getting caught. His thoughts were on freedom and the sexy new girlfriend sitting next to him with her feet up on the dashboard of the former family car. He never gave one thought to that little girl who had been crying on and off for the last hour. The tears she had shed barely dried before new ones spilled from her eyes.
Roanna thought she would find a way off the property and stand by the front gate. Earlier in the week, she overheard some boys talking about how to break into the school when everyone was gone. “If the boys can break in, I can break out.” She thought. She hefted her backpack on and thought better of it. “This is heavy and I’ve done my homework. It’s a long walk home and I don’t want carry them all the way home” Roanna made her way to the trashcan outside of the principals window. “No one uses this can very much and maybe I can find a plastic bag to put my books in.” Roanna peered into the can and found that the janitor had placed a brand-new bag in it. Smiling, she pulled the bag out and placed her books inside, carefully folding the bag around her heavy books. Next, she began searching for a place to stash them and went back to the front of the school to the wall she had used to hide. She crawled under the brush and pushed the bag into the bush with all the thorns. Hopefully, the extra wrapping would protect the books.
She made her way to the section of the fence the boys had mentioned. Part of it was undone at the top, just as they said. A voice in her head told her to jump up and use gravity to help her. She jumped and grabbed the chain link and swung her body to the side as hard as she could. The fence barely moved. Again, she thought. Three tries later, she had enough space to squeeze through if she dropped her backpack over first and went sideways. “You can do it,” she thought. Roanna felt the pinch of metal against her skin and hoped she wouldn’t get stuck. Finally, she made it with only scratches where her arm was bare and a drop of blood on the back of her hand.
Ignoring the gap in the fence, she left it and dusted herself off. Picking up her backpack she looked around, hoping her Daddy would be pulling up to the curb. Her hopes crashed and she felt the tears welling up. “Don’t you dare give up,” her inside voice said. She stiffened her spine and began climbing through the landscaping to the street. “Okay, which way is home. If I go the way Mom and Dad drive me, it will take longer, but I won’t get lost.” Her inside thoughts told her to start walking the way she knew and look for a shortcut. “Look confident with your head up, don’t look like a victim.” She did just that with her head held high she stepped out into the crosswalk, headed for home. She knew that the thoughts were not her own and struggled with the concept.
She was confidently walking home when a dog ran out from between two houses. She ran from the dog before some boys saw her running and screaming and chased the dog away with sticks and rocks. Roanna kept on running until she realized that the dog and boys were nowhere to be seen. She didn’t know where she was. She was frightened and didn’t know what to do. Her imaginary friend spoke to her. His voice was in her head, but it was as real to her as if he was standing in front of her. He spoke to her with soothing words and begged her not to cry. That things would be o.k. to look around for a solution. She should have realized that it was odd that her imaginary friend would use a word like solution, a word that just wasn’t in an eleven-year-old vocabulary. The voice calmly spoke to her to look for road markers, street signs, businesses, something that she remembered or a place to safely get help. She began to catalog the street signs out loud and came to a speedy mart on the corner. It was a bit run down and the windows were all covered by advertisements. They might let her use a phone to call her mom or dad. She stepped inside and into the aisle just like her mom taught her when she took the gas money in. She knew to get in line right away or the cashier wouldn’t help you. There were three men at the counter. They looked rough and she instinctively stepped back a little further. She couldn’t see what was taking so long when the cashier held up his hands and his eyes went wide.
Immediately, her inside voice became loud and told her to “Get Out, Get Out Now. Run.” Run she did, straight out the door. “Around the corner, quickly, hide!” She didn’t recognize her own thoughts, but she felt compelled, almost as if a hand was shoving her along. She saw a yard with a low fence and quickly hid behind it. There was a loud pop, was it a gun? Then the sound of tires screeching. She was wondering if she should go back and check on the cashier when her thoughts were interrupted by someone. “No! Absolutely not, you’re a kid for crying out loud, one with a lousy father.” Roanna looked around expecting to see someone she knew. Maybe it was her imagination and the words were out loud.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t know you could hear my thoughts.” She was frightened, but curious and asked, “Who are you?”
“I’m just a friend who is far away, you can call me Nic.”
“Are you an imaginary friend?” she asked.
“No, but it is easier to explain that way. If you didn’t have a superior imagination, you wouldn’t be able to hear my thoughts. I have to concentrate really hard. If you hadn’t been scared, you probably wouldn’t have heard me.”
“Thank you for helping me. I think something bad happened at the market.”
“I think so too, but let’s hope for the best that everything was ok and the men got scared and ran away,” Nic said. “You need to find a way home Roanna,” he gently urged. “I’ll look up all the speedy marts near you, if you know the street names, I can find you on a map,” Nic spoke in a gentle tone that calmed her.
Roanna climbed from her hiding spot and looked around. “I think I am on Farrell Street and the house number in front of me is 1324 if that helps.”
“That helps a lot, you did great. I’ll just look it up on my computer and see if I can map to you,” Nic said. “Yep, I’ve got you, now where is home?” he asked.
It seemed so strange to think her own address, but she did it anyway. “You’re almost two miles from home and it will be getting dark by the time you get there. If you can walk fast, we can get you back to where you recognize your surroundings. I know you are probably tired, but do you think you can do it? We can always find someone to call the police to take you home.” Nic said.
“No, no police. My Dad would be very mad if I had the police called on him. He drinks sometimes and isn’t reasonable. He doesn’t usually hit me, but he has a mean fast ball and throws things.”
Nicolas was seething and was doing his best to keep his emotions in check. Roanna didn’t need to deal with his reactions on top of being lost. He hoped he never met her pos father. How could someone hurt a child? He never understood it before, and especially now. Instead, he decided he would walk her home from school. Man, that was old fashioned sounding. His phone was ringing, but he ignored it, afraid to break his concentration and not be able to connect with Roanna again.
He guided her down the streets and found a wide alleyway and encouraged her to walk/run down it. “Don’t slow down, keep your head up. If anyone notices you and looks at you the wrong way, just yell out loud, Hey guys wait for me.”
She laughed and thought it was a good idea. The shortcut meant she could avoid the main road. They always waited at the red light for a long time to get across. With the shortcut, she didn’t need to cross it and would cut off at least six blocks. Her feet were starting to hurt and in another hour it would start to get dark out.
Roanna grew up knowing she was different. She had a very active imagination, complete with imaginary friends, or friend as it were. But, Nic was in a new class. People already looked at her funny when she told one of her fantasy stories. They would really give her a hard time if she tried to explain what happened today with Nat.
Nicolas was seventeen, six years older than Roanna. But this wasn’t the first time he had connected with her mind. It was the third. This time was different, he wasn’t just an observer trying to sort out her thoughts in a cloud bank. This time, her thoughts were clear and she could feel him.
Tessa Bertoldi 