Chapter 4 – Imaginary Friends
The girl was famous for being weird. That was all everyone seemed to remember about her. She was the weird one at the front of the class; the one who never wanted anything to do with any of the other students; the one who seemed happiest alone.
The spider had discovered her by accident. He had been watching the world from a leaf halfway up an oak tree when the girl had walked under that very tree, smiling at something the spider couldn’t see.
‘You know Dranz, I don’t think they will ever understand,’ the girl had started saying. Her voice so soft the spider moved a little closer to listen, and to try and see the person the girl was apparently talking to. ‘They will never understand, the small minded jerks.’ The girl almost yelled before sitting on the ground, picking up a stick and drawing a series of random shapes on the ground, one of which could almost have passed for a pretty good portrait of a voodoo doll.
She stayed that way for a few minutes before bursting into laugher and appearing to salute the air. ‘You are right you know,’ she said eventually. ‘They are just jealous. I bet they wish they had a friend like you; a friend who they could trust and believe in, one who they could tell everything to.’ The girl leaned back against the trunk of the tree and the spider decided to move even closer, leaving the cover of the leaves to move down the trunk. The girl was once again gazing intently at something, and the spider could now confirm to himself that only the air stirred in the place where her gaze was focused. This girl, he realised, was talking to herself.
But no! The spider suddenly remembered something else his mother had told him about: Imaginary Friends. She had told him that most humans had one at some point in their lives. They normally appeared when the human was really lonely or too young to know better. It was a defence again the world, she had said.
The spider stopped a few inches away from the girl and sighed to himself. She seemed too lovely to have to rely on her imagination to keep her company. He decided bold action was required and stepped on to the girl’s shoulder.
He was both surprised and relieved when she didn’t scream and instead just stared at him quizzically. He wanted to be her friend so her running away and screaming was not part of his plan.
‘Well hello there,’ she had said, smiling down at him. ‘I am Ezra, who are you?’ She didn’t bother to wait for his answer and instead turned to look at the air again. ‘Oh yea and this is Dranz, I almost forgot,’ she playfully hit herself on the head then gestured to the air. The spider made a huge effort not to point out the fact that nothing was standing in the space at which the girl was pointing and chose to just smile instead.
‘She is my best friend,’ Ezra continued, looking at the spider who she had randomly decided to name Victor. ‘My mum says I am too old to have a best friend but I think she is lying. You are never too old to have a best friend.’ She smiled again, placing her hand next to her shoulder. The spider had seen humans do this before and so casually stepped on to the hand, cautiously though because he had heard tales which told that such actions were generally followed by a long drop on to a hard surface outside a recently entered through window. The girl called Ezra though instead of throwing him out of a window simply smiled and placed him gently on the ground. The spider stepped off her hand and watched as the friendly girl spun in a circle, appeared to link her arm with the air and skipped happily off into the distance.
Suddenly Victor - as he came to call himself in Ezra’s honour - felt a deep longing inside himself. It was a strange and overwhelming desire to have a favourite imaginary friend as well because just then in the presence of Ezra they had seemed a lot more....real than he had ever expected, and he felt that he had missed out on something by not embracing them in his youth.
