Imaginary

Bacon Lee Bacon

Description

The story of a boy and his imaginary friend-told by the imaginary friend Zach should've outgrown his imaginary friend by now. He knows this. He's 11, long past the days when kids are supposed to go on epic make-believe adventures with their invisible friends. But after the death of his father five years ago, all Zach wanted was an escape from the real world. So his imaginary friend, Shovel, hasn't faded away like the other kids' have. Their imaginary friendship grew stronger. But now Zach's in middle school, and things are getting awkward. His best friend ditched him for a cooler crowd. His classmates tease him in the hallways. He still misses his dad. Reality is the worst. Which is why Zach makes regular visits to a fantasy world with Shovel. But is Zach's overactive imagination helping him deal with loss or just pushing people away? Poignant, humorous, and breathtaking, Imaginary is an inventive story of friendship, loss, and growing up . . . as only an imaginary friend could tell it.

Informations

• Publié par: ABRAMS BOOKS
• Date de parution: 12 octobre 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781683359692
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

PUBLISHER S NOTE: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author s imagination or used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for and may be obtained from the Library of Congress.
ISBN 978-1-4197-4664-2 e ISBN 9781683359692
Text 2021 Lee Bacon
Illustrations 2021 Katy Wu
Book design by Marcie Lawrence
Published in 2021 by Amulet Books, an imprint of ABRAMS. All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher.
Amulet Books is a registered trademark of Harry N. Abrams, Inc.

ABRAMS The Art of Books 195 Broadway, New York, NY 10007 abramsbooks.com
For Clara
There was a time when everyone had imaginary friends. Everyone your age anyway.
The polka-dot panda on a unicycle.
The green blob with a ferret for a hat.
The taco with arms made of cheese sticks.
It was a strange crowd.
I fit right in.
But as you got older, your classmates lost touch with their imaginary friends. Kids were growing up, moving on, finding other things to care about. Real things.
Until.
One day.
I looked up and realized
All the other imaginary friends were gone.
I was the only one left.
An imaginary friend is like a carton of eggs.
We come with an expiration date.
Like all the other worn scraps of childhood-the tattered blanket, the fluffy bear with the face that s been smooshed from too much cuddling-there ll come a time when you ll outgrow me.
Sends a shiver down my fur just thinking about it.
When you were little, you d lead me around proudly, introducing me to the people you met.
But now you re eleven. And I ve stuck around long past the usual expiration date.
These days, you don t brag about me. You don t talk about me at all. Not to your friends, not to your teachers, not even to your mom.
I m a lot less popular than I used to be.
I remember the day we met. You were much smaller then. Standing in your backyard, beneath a ceiling of branches and leaves. There was a yellow plastic shovel in your hands and a shallow hole at your feet. Chunks of your backyard were strewn everywhere.
Your eyes were bright and blue. Your face was smudged with dirt and grape juice. There was a single leaf in your hair.
If you were surprised to see me, suddenly, standing at your side, you didn t show it.
You grinned and said, Hi!
I smiled back. Hello.
You examined me for a second. You look weird.
Did I? I d only existed for twelve seconds. I hadn t even had a chance to check myself out yet.
I looked down. This is what I saw:
Fur.
Purple fur.
Lots and lots of purple fur.
I pieced the rest of my appearance together over time. You might describe me as a ball of purple fuzz. Except a whole lot bigger than any ball of fuzz you d see drifting around the house. I have two arms and two legs, two eyes and one mouth.
I suppose I did look weird. But then again you were the one who imagined me. So I guess that made you a little weird too.
You ran a hand across your cheek, adding another smudge to your face. I m Zach.
Nice to meet you, Zach. My name is uh
My voice fell into silence. I was just beginning to realize something a bit awkward.
I didn t have a name.
But you were about to change that. Your eyes dropped to the shovel in your hand. Your face lit up. How bout we call you Shovel?
Shovel?
You nodded.
Like the thing you dig with?
You nodded again.
Okay, then. I smiled. My name s Shovel.
Hey, I have an idea! You can help me and Ryan with our project!
I tilted my head. Ryan?
A sound from the other end of the yard. A door opening and closing. I turned just in time to see a kid step out of the house next door. He looked about your age. A gangly boy with wild black hair that stood up in every direction.
That s Ryan, you said. He lives next door. And he s also my best friend.
Ryan came running across the yard, barreling right through a pile of leaves.
You called out to him. Guess what! I made a new friend. He s gonna help us with our project!
I still didn t know what this big project of yours was. And I don t think I ever actually agreed to help. But if I seemed clueless, Ryan was even more confused.
He glanced around. New friend?
You pointed. He s right here. His name s Shovel.
Ryan looked in the direction you were pointing and saw-
Nothing .
Which wasn t a surprise. To everyone but you, I m invisible. I m nothing at all.
But Ryan didn t mind. It s like I said already: At that age, everyone had imaginary friends.
You pointed to the hole and explained, Me and Ryan are digging a tunnel!
To the other side of the earth, Ryan added.
When I glanced down at my hand, I was surprised to see that I was holding a shovel too.
We got started. You and me and Ryan. Dirt crunched under our shovels as we dug.
Deeper .
Deeper .
Deeper .
Before long, we d gone far below the surface. The sky was nothing more than a tiny speck of light above us. We kept going. Our tunnel plunged farther into the earth.
Finally, the ground broke open.
We d made it!
All the way to the other side of the earth!
And it had only taken twenty minutes!
We climbed out of the hole. Brushing away the dirt, I looked around. Grass, trees, a house. That s what we saw. I scratched at my furry head. The other side of the earth looked a lot like your backyard.
Hey, buddy. Watcha doin ?
The voice caught me by surprise. I spun and saw a future version of you standing on the back deck. A man who shared your bright blue eyes and curly tangle of hair.
Hi, Dad! You waved a filthy hand. We just dug a tunnel to the other side of the earth.
Really?
For some reason, he sounded like he didn t believe you. Following his gaze, I realized why. All of a sudden, our incredibly deep tunnel didn t look so deep after all.
It was just a small hole in the grass.
So that s why the other side of the earth looked so much like your backyard. Because it was your backyard.
The tunnel was never really there. It was a lot like me.
Imaginary.
Later that same day, Ryan s mom had called him back home, but you and I were still in the backyard. We d abandoned our tunnel and moved on to more important things.
First, we fought a horde of zombies.
Then we hunted for treasure under the trampoline.
Our work was interrupted when a T. rex came barreling through the fence.
The two of us ran away screaming. Being your imaginary friend was dangerous!
Your parents were on the deck. They didn t seem too worried about the dinosaur attack. Your mom was sitting in the shade, reading a book. Your dad was seated at the wooden table. He d covered the table with newspaper. About a dozen plastic toys were scattered across the pages. They were small, about the size of his thumb. Fantasy characters. A dragon, a troll, an elf.
A tiny paintbrush was in your dad s hand. He dipped the brush into a bottle of paint and carefully applied it to one of the toys.
When I noticed this, I stopped running. So did you.
And so did the T. rex.
All three of us were distracted by your dad.
Why s he painting your toys? I asked.
They re not my toys, you said. They re his .
The T. rex let out a surprised growl. He hadn t been expecting this. Neither had I.
I thought only kids played with toys, I said.
The dinosaur nodded in agreement.
He doesn t really play with them, you explained. He just paints them. Then he puts them on a shelf so he can look at them.
This just kept getting stranger. Why have toys if you re not gonna play with them?
You thought about this for a moment, then called out across the yard. Hey, Dad?
Your dad looked up. Yeah?
Shovel wants to ask you a question.
He blinked. Shovel?
You pointed to me. My new friend!
Oh! Your dad nodded. That Shovel.
He wants to know why you have toys if you aren t gonna play with them.
Your mom lowered her book, revealing a grin. Because your father s a nerd.
Your dad set down the paintbrush. These aren t toys . They re custom-made miniatures.
Like I said. Your mom winked at you. Nerd .
What re they for? I asked.
What re they for? you asked.
Your dad explained. He sometimes got together with friends for something called Dungeons Dragons. Which involved making up stories about characters that don t exist doing things that never actually happened. They had to roll dice and keep up with character sheets, and the whole thing sounded really complicated.
As he described all this, surprise settled over me. I didn t know grown-ups also played pretend!
You approached the table. The T. rex and I followed. As we got closer, I gained a better view of the toy-sorry, miniature -your dad was working on. A knight with glittering silver armor. A shield was strapped to his back. The visor of his helmet was raised, showing a very serious face underneath.
There was only one part of the knight that still needed to be painted. His sword.
Tell you what, your dad said. Why don t you paint that part?
You raised your eyebrows. Really?
He nodded and you took a seat beside him.
What color should the sword be? you asked.
That s up to you.
You thought for a second. It should be green.
Green?
I d only existed for a few hours, but I already knew: Swords aren t green. But you weren t letting that stop you.
See um the knight stuck his sword into a swamp, you explained. A magical swamp. And that turned his sword green.
Oh! It s a swamp-sword.
Yeah!
I looked from you to your dad. I could see where you got your imagination from.
With a little help from your parents, you carefully painted the knight s sword a swampy green.
Nice work, kiddo! Your mom tousled your hair.
That s the awesomest swamp-sword I ve ever seen! your dad said.
He