Memoirs of an Imaginary Friend (37 page)

When pigs fly
, I think.

For a moment, it seems as if the entire world stops. Even the moon’s blind eye turns to watch that tiny metallic pig fly through the air.

The piggy bank hits the window in its center. It is a throw that would make Max’s dad forever proud. It is a throw that will make me forever proud. A throw better than Tommy Swinden could have ever hoped for. The glass explodes and, seconds later, the alarm screams into the night.

Mrs Patterson reaches out with her free hand. It is bleeding where Max has bitten her. She wrenches it around Max and grabs him by the neck. Then she lifts him off the ground and runs as fast as she can with a wriggling, screaming boy in her arms. She is now running across the front lawn toward her bus.

Max has made the throw of his life. The picture window is broken. The alarm is screaming. The police are on the way. And still Mrs Patterson is getting away with Max. She is seconds from escaping for ever.

All I see is a blur as Max’s dad flies past me and slams his body into Mrs Patterson’s back like a runaway train. She cries out as he drives her body toward the ground. Mrs Patterson releases Max before she strikes the ground, trying to brace her fall. Max falls forward and rolls to the side, panting, heaving, clutching at his throat, trying to catch his breath.

Mrs Patterson was choking him to death.

Mrs Patterson crashes into the ground with Max’s dad still on top of her, his arms wrapped around her body like steel cables. He is wearing boxer shorts and a T-shirt, and his arms are torn and bleeding. Long gashes stretch up his arms and across his shoulders. His T-shirt is torn in the back and already covered in blood. I am confused, but then I look back at the house. The door to the house is still shut. Max’s dad jumped through the broken picture window. The broken glass cut him on the way through.

‘Max! My God! Are you okay?’ Max’s dad asks, still not letting go of Mrs Patterson. He has her pinned to the ground but still he presses all his weight into her back. ‘My God, Max. Are you okay?’

‘I’m okay,’ Max says. His voice is hoarse and scratchy and weak but he is telling the truth.

Max is okay.

‘Max!’

It is Max’s mom. She is standing in the picture window, looking out at the scene on her front lawn. Her bloody husband. Max’s kidnapper. And Max, sitting beside his father, rubbing his neck.

‘Max! Oh my God! Max!’

She disappears from the picture window. A few seconds later, the lights come on, brightening the front lawn. The front door flies open and Max’s mom runs out of the house, down the stoop and across the lawn. She is wearing a white nightgown and it looks like she is glowing in the moonlight. She drops to her knees and slides the last few feet over to Max, wrapping him in her arms and kissing his forehead one million times. I can tell by the look on Max’s face that he does not like this many kisses, but for once he does not complain. His mom is crying and kissing all at once, and Max does not even wince.

I look to Max’s dad, who is still holding Mrs Patterson to the ground. She is not moving, but Max’s dad has watched too many detective shows to let her go now. He knows that just when you think the bad guy is gone or dead, she can pop out from behind an oak tree and grab you.

Still, he is smiling.

I hear sirens in the distance. The policemen are coming.

Max’s mom, still holding Max in her arms, scoots over to Max’s dad and hugs him even as he holds Mrs Patterson down. Max’s mom is crying rivers.

Max looks up at me from his mother’s arms. He is smiling. Max is not grinning. He is smiling.

Max Delaney is smiling.

I am smiling, too. I am crying, too. These are my first happy tears ever. I give Max a thumbs up.

Through my fading thumb, I watch Max kiss his mom on her teary cheek.

CHAPTER 61

‘Do you know that you are—’

‘I know,’ I say. ‘I’ve been disappearing for two days.’

Teeny sighs. She does not say anything for a moment. She just stares at me. We are alone in the recess room. There were other imaginary friends in here when I arrived, but Teeny took one look at me and sent them away.

I guess everyone really does listen to a fairy.

‘Does it feel …?’ she asks.

‘It doesn’t feel like anything,’ I say. ‘If I was blind, I would have no idea that I was fading away.’

Actually, this is not true. Max has stopped talking to me. It’s not that he is angry with me. He just doesn’t know that I am around anymore. If I stand right in front of him and speak to him, he will notice me and talk back. But if I do not speak to him, he does not speak to me.

It has been sad.

‘Where’s Oswald?’ Teeny asks. But I can tell by the way she looks down at her feet that she already knows.

‘He’s gone,’ I say.

‘Where?’

‘Good question,’ I say. ‘I don’t know. Wherever I’m going, which probably isn’t anywhere.’

I tell Teeny the story of Max’s escape and how Oswald the Giant broke open Max’s basement prison and touched the real world one final time to slow down Mrs Patterson and knock her off her feet, giving Max time to run. I tell her about the chase through the forest and Max’s trap at the tree line and the final battle on the front lawn of Max’s house. I tell her how Max’s dad held Mrs Patterson down until the police arrived, and how his father was bragging to the police officers about how his son had ‘matched wits with that crazy bitch and won’.

Then I tell her how Oswald knew that he was dying, and how I tried to bring him back to the hospital to save him.

‘But he wouldn’t come back,’ I say. ‘He sacrificed himself to save Max. He is a hero.’

‘So are you,’ Teeny says, smiling through her tears.

‘Not like Oswald,’ I say. ‘I stood around and told Max to run and to hide. I can’t touch the real world like Oswald could.’

‘You told Max to throw that pig through that window. And you told Max that you were imaginary so he could save himself. You sacrificed yourself, too.’

‘Yes,’ I say, feeling anger boil up in me. ‘And now I won’t exist anymore because of it. Max is free and safe but I am dying. And when I’m gone, he won’t even remember me. I’ll just be a story that his mom tells him someday. How he once had an imaginary friend named Budo.’

‘I think he’ll always remember you,’ Teeny says. ‘He just won’t believe that you were ever real. But I will.’

But Teeny is going to die someday, too. Probably soon. Her human friend is four years old. Teeny will probably be gone in a year or less. Kindergarten will kill her like it kills so many imaginary friends. And when she dies, that will be it. No memory of Budo ever existing. Everything I ever said or did will be gone for ever.

Teeny’s wings flutter. She lifts off the couch and hovers in the center of the room.

‘And I will tell others,’ she says, seeming to read my mind. ‘I will tell every imaginary friend I meet, and I will tell them to tell all the imaginary friends they meet. I will tell them to keep the story going from one imaginary friend to the next, so that the world will never forget what Oswald the Giant and Budo the Great did for Max Delaney, the bravest little boy in the world.’

‘That’s nice,’ I say. ‘Thank you, Teeny.’

I don’t have the heart to tell her that it doesn’t make dying any easier. Or that I don’t trust the imaginary friends of the world to carry our story. There are too many imaginary friends out there like Puppy or Chomp or Spoon.

Not enough Teenys or Oswalds or Summers or Grahams.

Not nearly enough.

‘How is Max doing?’ Teeny asks, landing back on the couch beside me. She wants to change the subject and I am glad that she is.

‘He is good,’ I say. ‘I thought that after everything that happened, he would be different. But he’s not. Maybe a little different, but not much.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Max was great in the forest and even in his front yard because that was what he is good at. He has spent his life reading books about war and weapons and snipers. He has planned a thousand battles with his army men. There were no people in the woods to bother him. No one to talk to or make eye contact with. No one trying to shake his hand or punch him in the nose or zip up his coat. He was running away from a person, and that is what Max always wants to do. Run away from people. He was great out there, but it was almost like that is where he belonged.’

‘And now?’ Teeny asks.

‘When he went back to school yesterday, it was really hard for him. Everyone wanted to talk to him. It was too many people, too fast. He almost got stuck. But Mrs Gosk saw what was happening and told all the other teachers and older kids and even the school psychologist to “Scram!” Max is still Max. Maybe a little braver now. A little better at taking care of himself. But still Max. Still worried about bonus poops and Tommy Swinden.’

Teeny furrows the spot on her face where her eyebrows would be if she had any.

‘Never mind,’ I say. ‘Long story.’

‘How long before—’

‘I don’t know,’ I say. ‘Maybe tomorrow, I think.’

Teeny smiles, but it is a sad smile. ‘I’ll miss you, Budo.’

‘I’ll miss you,’ I say. ‘I’ll miss everything.’

CHAPTER 62

I was right. It is happening today. When Max turned on the light this morning, I could barely see myself. I said hello to Max and he did not answer. He did not even look in my direction.

And then I started having this feeling a little while ago. I am sitting in Mrs Gosk’s class. Max is sitting on the rug with the rest of the kids. Mrs Gosk is reading a book called
The Tale of Despereaux
. It is a book about a mouse. I thought it was going to be stupid because it is about a mouse, but it is not stupid at all. It is great. It is the best book. It is about a mouse who loves the light and can read and must save the Princess Pea.

Mrs Gosk is only halfway through the book. I will never hear the end of the story. I will never know what happens to Despereaux.

Despereaux is a little like me in that way. I will never know Despereaux’s fate and no one will ever know mine. I will stop existing, stop persisting, today, but only I will know it. I will die a silent, unknown death in the back of this classroom, listening to a story about a mouse whose fate I will never know.

Max and Mrs Gosk and everyone else will go on like nothing has happened. They will follow Despereaux on the rest of his adventure.

I cannot.

I feel like there is a soft, gooey balloon in my belly. One of the balloons that float all by themselves. It doesn’t hurt. I just feel like I am being pulled up, even though I am still sitting in this chair. I look at my hands and can see them only if I wave them in front of my eyes.

I am glad to be in Mrs Gosk’s classroom when I die. Max and Mrs Gosk are my two favorite people in the whole wide world. It is nice to think that they will be my last memory.

Except I will have no memory. It is nice to die with Max and Mrs Gosk only until the moment that I die. At that moment, nothing will matter anymore. Everything from that second on will never mean anything to me ever again. But not just everything after I die, but everything before I die, too. When I die, everything dies.

It all feels like such a waste.

I look at Max, sitting at Mrs Gosk’s feet. He loves this story as much as I do. He is smiling. He smiles now. That is the one big difference between the Max who believed in Budo and the Max that doesn’t. He smiles. Not much, but sometimes.

Mrs Gosk is smiling, too. She is smiling because Max is back, but she is also smiling because she loves this story as much as anyone else in the room. Despereaux has been thrown into the dungeon with the rats for being different than the rest of the mice, and in a way Max is like Despereaux, too. He is different than everyone, and he was trapped in a basement, too. And, just like Max, I think Despereaux will escape the dark and save the day.

The balloon in my belly is getting bigger now. It feels warm and good.

I move over and sit at Mrs Gosk’s feet. I sit right beside Max.

I think about all the people I have lost over the last two weeks. Graham and Summer and Oswald and Dee. I imagine each one standing before me. I try to imagine each one of them when they were at their best.

Graham sitting beside Grace as she faded away.

Summer making me promise to save Max.

Oswald dropping down on one knee in that doorway, hands outstretched, toppling Mrs Patterson.

Dee shouting at Sally because she loved him like a brother.

I loved them all.

I miss them all.

I look up at Mrs Gosk. When I am gone, she will have to protect Max. She will have to help him with the bonus poops and Tommy Swinden and all the other little things that Max cannot do because he lives so much of his life on the inside. That big, beautiful inside that once made me.

And she will. Oswald the Giant was a hero, and maybe even I was a little bit of a hero, too. But Mrs Gosk is an everyday, all-the-time hero, even though it’s only kids like Max who know that she is a hero. She will be a hero long after I am gone because she has always been a hero.

I turn to Max. My friend. The boy who made me. I want to be angry at him for forgetting about me, but I am not. I cannot be angry at Max. I love Max. Nothing will matter when I stop existing, but somehow I think I will still love Max.

Death is not scary for me anymore. It is just sad. I will never see Max again. I will miss all the thousands of days in his future, when he will grow up and become a man and have a little Max of his own. I think if I could just sit somewhere, quiet and still, and watch the little boy who I love so much grow up and live his life, I would be happy.

I do not need to exist for me anymore. I just want to exist for Max. I want to know Max’s story.

My tears are warm. My body is warm. I cannot see myself, but I can see Max. His beautiful face stares up at the teacher he loves, the only teacher he has ever loved, and I know that he will be happy. He will be safe. He will be good.