Memoirs of an Imaginary Friend (29 page)

The bald man with the red beard is still in his bed, machines still whirring and hissing and flashing. There is a man in the second bed, too. He is young and round and there is something wrong with his face. It looks rubbery and sleepy.

There is a third man in the room. He is sitting in a chair at the end of the sleepy face man’s bed. He is holding a magazine in his hands and he is reading it out loud to Sleepy Face. I hear only a tiny bit of it before Oswald is on top of me. It’s a story about baseball, I think. Someone threw a low hitter. But before I can hear anymore, Oswald’s hands grab me around the neck. He squeezes and turns, throwing me into the room. My body crashes into the bald man’s bed. If I was not an imaginary friend, the bed would have slid across the room. That’s how hard I hit it.

But I am imaginary so I bounce off the bed and land in a heap at Oswald’s feet. My head and chest and neck hurt. I can’t breathe for a moment. Oswald bends over, picks me up by the collar of my shirt and the waist of my pants, and flings me over the bald man’s bed and onto Sleepy Face’s bed. I bounce off him, too, without him ever feeling a thing, and roll off the side of the bed. I land in another heap on the floor against the far wall.

More parts hurt. Lots of them.

This was a bad idea. Oswald is not like a snowplow. He is like one of those giant cranes with the ball hanging from a chain. The kind that knock down old buildings. He just keeps pounding away at me.

I stand up quickly this time. I know that I must or Oswald will pick me up and throw me again or start kicking me again. The man in the chair, a young man with pale skin, keeps reading. He is in the middle of a fight, and he will never know it.

Oswald is moving again, filling the space between Sleepy Face’s bed and the wall, blocking my escape. I suddenly wish that I had stayed on the floor and rolled under Sleepy Face’s bed and then under Bald Lunatic’s bed and then out the door.

Oswald takes two steps forward, closing the distance between us. I still have not said a word to him. I decide that now is a good time to speak.

‘Stop,’ I say, trying to sound like I am begging. I do a good job because I am begging. ‘Please. I need your help.’

‘I told you to stay away,’ Oswald shouts. He shouts loud enough to drown out the baseball story for a second. Then he steps forward and puts his hands on my neck again.

I try to block him this time but he swats my hands away like they are made of paper. Like Wooly’s hands. Oswald starts squeezing. He is choking me. If I breathed air, I might be dying. I breathe the idea of air, but even that is getting squished out of my throat now.

I think I might be dying.

I feel my feet leave the floor when I hear another voice in the room.

‘Let go of him, Oswald.’

Oswald lets go, but not because he is obeying the command. He is surprised. No, he is shocked. I can see it on his face.

My feet hit the floor and I stumble for a moment, catch my balance and my breath at the same time, then turn in the direction of the doorway. The fairy from the recess room is standing in the doorway, except she is not standing. She is flying. She is hovering in place, her tiny wings moving so fast they are a blur.

I have never seen an imaginary friend fly before.

‘How did you know my name?’ Oswald asks.

I think about taking advantage of the moment and shoving Oswald to the ground and escaping. Hitting him while he is distracted. But I still need his help, even if he wants to kill me, and I think that this might be my one chance to turn things around.

Might be the fairy’s one chance to turn things around.

‘Budo is my friend,’ the fairy says. ‘I don’t want you to hurt him.’

‘How do you know my name?’ Oswald asks again. His surprise is quickly turning to anger. His hands ball up into fists. His nostrils flare.

‘Budo needs your help, Oswald,’ the fairy says.

I don’t know how I know, but I am sure that the fairy is avoiding Oswald’s question on purpose. I think she might be trying to figure out the best answer.

‘How do you know my name?’ Oswald shouts the question this time and moves toward the doorway, straight toward the fairy.

I follow.

I will not let him hurt the fairy like he has hurt me. But as I reach out to grab him, to pull him back and give the fairy enough time to escape, the fairy’s eyes and my eyes meet, and she shakes her head ever so gently. She is telling me to stop. Or to wait at least.

I obey.

The fairy is right to tell me to stop.

As Oswald approaches the doorway, he stops, too. He does not reach for the fairy with his giant hands. He can throw me around the room and kick me and choke me but he does not touch the fairy.

‘How do you know my name?’ Oswald shouts again, and this time I hear something in his voice that I missed the first time. Oswald is angry, but I think that he is curious, too. Hopeful, even. Underneath his anger is something else. I think Oswald is hoping that the fairy’s answer to his question is a good one. I think he wants help, too.

‘I am a fairy,’ the fairy says. ‘Do you know what a fairy is?’

‘How do you know my name!’ Oswald roars the question this time. If Oswald was a human person, every window on the eighth floor would have rattled and every single person in the hospital would have heard his voice.

I have never been more afraid.

The fairy turns and points to the bald man in the bed. ‘He is your friend. And he’s hurt. Right?’

Oswald stares at her and says nothing. I am standing behind him so I cannot see the expression on Oswald’s face, but his fists unclench and I can see the muscles in his arms and back relax a little.

‘Oswald,’ the fairy says again. ‘He is your friend. Right?’

Oswald looks to the bald man and then back to the fairy. He shakes his head up and down.

‘And he’s hurt?’ she asks.

Oswald nods slowly.

‘I’m so sorry,’ the fairy says. ‘Do you know how it happened?’

Oswald nods again.

‘Can we go into the hallway and talk?’ the fairy asks. ‘I can’t think straight with that man reading that book.’

I have forgotten that Sleepy Face and his pale friend were even in the room. I stopped hearing about the low hitter once the fairy started speaking. It was like watching a lion-tamer calm down a lion with a toothpick instead of a whip and chair.

No, not a toothpick. A Q-tip. But somehow it worked. The fairy has done it.

Oswald agrees to move into the hallway. But as the fairy turns to leave, she notices that Oswald does not move. She turns back.

‘What?’ she asks.

‘He has to leave, too,’ Oswald says, turning and pointing at me.

‘Of course,’ the fairy says. ‘Budo is coming with us.’

Oswald turns and follows the fairy into the hallway. I follow behind him. We walk down a little ways to a space with chairs and lamps and short tables piled with magazines. The fairy sits on a chair. Her wings stop moving. When they are still, they look small and weak and flimsy. I can’t believe that she can fly.

Oswald sits on a chair opposite the fairy.

I take a seat in a chair next to the fairy.

‘Who are you?’ Oswald asks.

‘I’m Teeny,’ the fairy says.

I feel bad. I never asked her name.

‘How do you know my name?’ Oswald asks again. Anger is now pure curiosity.

Teeny pauses. I wonder if I should say something to give her more time to think. She looks uncertain. But then she speaks before I can think of something to say.

‘I was going to tell you that I am a magical fairy who knows everything in the world, and that you need to listen to me. But I don’t want to lie. I know your name is Oswald because Budo told me.’

Oswald says nothing.

I open my mouth to talk but it is Teeny who speaks.

‘Budo needs your help, and I was afraid that you might be mean to him like the last time you saw him. So I followed him here.’

‘I told him to leave,’ Oswald says. ‘I warned him.’

‘I know. But he needs your help. He had to come.’

‘Why?’ Oswald asks.

‘Because Budo said that you can move things in the real world,’ Teeny says. ‘Is that true?’ She asks the question like she can’t believe it herself.

Oswald’s bushy eyebrows come together like two caterpillars kissing. He has the same eyebrows as the bald man, I suddenly realize. He looks a lot like the bald man. It’s easier to see the resemblance now that I’m not being thrown around the room.

‘I saw you push the door to that room open,’ I say. ‘You can move things in the real world. Right? Like this table? Or these magazines?’

‘Yes,’ Oswald says. ‘But it’s hard.’

‘Hard?’ Teeny asks.

‘Everything in the real world is heavy. A lot heavier than you,’ he says, pointing to me.

‘You would know,’ I say.

The caterpillars kiss again.

‘Never mind,’ I say.

‘And I could never move a table,’ he says. ‘Even a little one like this is too heavy.’

‘But you can move small things,’ I say. ‘Right?’

Oswald nods.

‘How long have you been alive?’ Teeny asks.

‘I don’t know,’ Oswald says. He looks down at his feet.

‘What is your friend’s name?’ Teeny asks.

‘Who?’

‘The man in the bed.’

‘Oh,’ Oswald says. ‘He is John.’

‘Did you know him before he was hurt?’ I ask.

I think about the little girl without a name in the Intensive Care Unit. I wonder if Oswald is like her.

‘Only for a second,’ Oswald says. ‘He was on the ground. His head was broken. He looked up at me and smiled and then he closed his eyes.’

‘And you followed him here?’ I ask.

‘Yes.’ Oswald pauses, and then he says, ‘I wish John would open his eyes and smile again.’

‘Can you help Budo?’ Teeny asks.

‘How?’

‘I need you to help my friend,’ I say. ‘He isn’t hurt like John, but he is in big trouble, and I can’t save him without you.’

‘Will I have to go down the stairs? I don’t like the stairs.’

‘You will have to go far away,’ Teeny says. ‘Down the stairs and outside and far away. But it is important and John would want you to do it. And when you’re done, Budo will bring you right back here. Okay?’

‘No,’ Oswald says. ‘I can’t.’

‘Yes you can,’ Teeny says. ‘You have to. A little boy is in trouble and only you can save him.’

‘I don’t want to,’ Oswald says.

‘I know,’ Teeny says. ‘But you have to do it. A little boy is in trouble. We can’t say no to little boys in trouble. Right?’

‘Right,’ Oswald says.

CHAPTER 49

‘How did you do that?’ I ask as we walk down the hallway toward the elevators.

I am walking alongside Teeny, who is flying down the hall. Her wings make a humming sound that I did not hear when I was in the bald man’s room. Even this close, her wings move so fast that they are nothing but a blur.

Oswald is behind us, head down, looking like a snowplow again.

‘How did I do what?’ Teeny asks.

‘Everything,’ I say, lowering my voice to a whisper. ‘How did you know that Oswald wouldn’t attack you like he attacked me? How did you convince him to help me? How did you even know where I was?’

‘The last question is easy,’ Teeny says. ‘You told us what floor you found Oswald on the first time. A couple minutes after you left, I decided that you might need some help. So I walked over to the grown-up hospital and flew up the stairs to the eighth floor. By the time I got up here, finding you was easy. The two of you were making such a racket that I knew right where to go.’

‘That racket was me getting tossed around the room like a doll.’

‘I know,’ Teeny says, smiling.

‘Okay, how did you know that Oswald wouldn’t attack you like he attacked me?’ I ask.

‘I didn’t go into his room,’ Teeny says. ‘I stayed at the doorway.’

‘I don’t get it.’

‘You told us that Oswald found you sneaking up behind him the first time you met. Right outside his room. And later on he found you in his room. I thought that if I didn’t go into the room, he probably wouldn’t hurt me. Plus I’m a girl. And a fairy. You’d have to be a real stinker to hit a fairy.’

‘You were imagined smart,’ I say.

Teeny smiles again.

‘How long have you been alive?’ I ask.

‘Almost three years.’

‘That’s a long time for someone like us,’ I say.

‘Not nearly as long as you.’

‘No, but it’s still a long time. You’re lucky.’

We turn a corner and pass a man in a wheelchair talking to himself. I look around for an imaginary friend but see none. I turn to check on Oswald. He is about three steps behind us, plowing away. I turn back to Teeny.

‘How did you get Oswald to help me?’ I whisper. ‘All you did was ask him to help, and he said yes.’

‘I did what Mom always does when she wants Aubrey to do something.’

‘Aubrey is your human friend?’ I ask.

‘Yes. She has something wrong in her head that the doctors have to fix. That’s why she is in the hospital.’

‘What does your mom do when she wants Aubrey to do something?’ I ask.

‘When Mom wants Aubrey to do her homework or brush her teeth or eat her broccoli, she doesn’t tell Aubrey to do it. She makes it sound like it’s Aubrey’s choice. Like it’s Aubrey’s only choice. Like not eating the broccoli would be wrong.’

‘That was it?’ I ask. ‘That’s all you did?’

I try to remember everything that Teeny said to Oswald but it all happened so fast.

‘It was easy with Oswald, because not helping you was a really wrong thing to do. A lot more wrong than not eating broccoli or not brushing his teeth. And I asked him questions, too. I tried to show him I cared, because I thought that he was probably lonely. There aren’t too many imaginary friends in a grown-up hospital. Right?’

‘You really were imagined smart,’ I say.

Teeny smiles again. For the first time since Graham disappeared, I think I may have found an imaginary friend who could be my friend, too.

We reach the elevators and I turn to Oswald. ‘Do you want to ride on the elevator or take the stairs?’

‘I never rode on the elevator before,’ he says.