Imaginary Friend, Unknown Artist
Happy Mother’s Day!
Welcome to Day 7 of my journey through the Author Up Challenge.
Today’s writing prompt was:
Day 7: Write From the Perspective of a Child
The extended part of the prompt was to write with a “childish” view of the world, with careful word choice and with dreamlike imagery.
The only thing that came to mind for this prompt was a piece I wrote from an image (above) a while back about a girl and her imaginary friend. I decided to revise and expand upon the original, because I so enjoyed the story idea and felt I could do it better. At first, I thought of taking off the beginning scene, with the mom and daughter, but decided to leave it, because I think it is a good intro and since today is Mother’s Day, I figured I could turn this piece into a lovely tribute to my mom. 🙂 So the book at the end is a Sesame Street book about Grover she read to me as a child, The Monster at the End of This Book, and the title and the story material were just too perfect. The theme of the book is basically, not all monsters are scary and bad. And that’s pretty much what this story is about. 🙂
~ Effy
Tea Party
Mom watched with amusement as Becca carefully spread the strawberry jam on her sandwich. Eight years old and already insisting upon doing so much herself. It almost made up for this imaginary friend business–the doctor had said children usually outgrew imaginary friends by age seven at the latest.
She ruffled her daughter’s bobbed blonde locks of hair, and Becca fidgeted out of her reach. “Mom…” the girl complained. She wrapped up the sandwich and placed it gently in her backpack with the other one–the sandwich for Casey, Becca’s imaginary friend.
“Sorry,” Mom said with a soft chuckle and threw her hands up in defeat.
“Well, I’m off. Casey and I are going to play.”
“Yes, and I’m sure Casey will appreciate the sandwich,” Mom replied, trying to keep a serious face.
“She will. Strawberry is her favorite too.”
Mom just continued to nod as Becca shouldered her backpack and skipped out of the kitchen’s backdoor. She watched as Becca crossed the yard and disappeared into the dense greenery of the trees lining the yard.
“Imaginary friends…” Mom said, trying to remind herself that it was the sign of a creative mind and nothing to be concerned with.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Green leaves shook on their branches in the spring breeze and Becca smiled and waved back. The young girl skipped over crunching pine needles and dried out old leaves, taking in the smells and sounds and sights around her. The sun snuck its rays between the closely standing trees and caught falling specks that glittered like flitting fairies.
Becca hopped and tried to catch one. Maybe a fairy queen would grant her a wish!
But she didn’t let fairy-chasing delay her too long. Casey was waiting.
“Casey? Are you here?” Becca called, cautious to keep her voice from being too loud, even though she was sure she had gotten far enough away from the house. She didn’t want Mom finding Casey.
“I am always here, little friend,” a deep voice replied. The voice seemed everywhere at first, surrounding the girl like a warm blanket.
Two golden orbs, like twin suns, appeared before the girl. The eyes, each easily the size of her head, hovered in the air among the tree branches for a moment. Then the greenery of the forest around the eyes shimmered in waves like hot pavement until a long, scaly muzzle the color of sunlit summer leaves appeared inches in front of Becca.
“Welcome back,” Casey murmured, twitching her lips. The edges of the dragon’s mouth curled up in a reptilian smile, showing the mouthful of teeth lining her muzzle.
The girl giggled and threw her arms around Casey’s nose. “I missed you,” the girl told the dragon. “I wanted to come visit you everyday! But school and Mom kept me away.”
Her annoyed pout lasted only a moment. She was so happy to see her friend.
“I missed you as well, little one,” Casey admitted, and nuzzled the girl back with the rounded end of her long nose.
“Oh, Casey!” Becca exclaimed, sprinting to her backpack. “I brought my favorite doll, Miss Heather. And her friend, Mister Teddy. And my favorite book. And sandwiches and tea–so we can have a real tea party!” The girl pulled items out of the bag in a flurry of motion, setting each on an old tree stump as she introduced them. The last item out of the bag was a bottle marked Lipton filled with light brown liquid that sloshed as Becca set it with a thunk onto the stump.
“Strawberry?” Casey asked, tilting her large head and widening her eyes.
“Of course! I know it’s your favorite!”
“Mmm,” Casey purred, and sniffed at the tree stump.
“Wait, wait!” Becca said, raising her hands. “Let me set everything up first.”
“Oh, all right.” A smooth rumbling noise came from the dragon as she chuckled.
Casey watched as her friend arranged the tea party. Becca draped a blue bath towel over the stump, making a lovely tablecloth of it. Then, she set out four tiny plastic tea cups on four tiny plastic saucers. Next, were the two sandwiches, set opposite each other–one for Becca and one for Casey–causing the dragon to twitch her nostrils and stir a soft breeze that made Becca giggle. Lastly, the girl set Miss Heather and Mister Teddy to either side of the table.
“Okay,” Becca said with a look of pride at her accomplishment.
Then, she changed to tea party hostess. “Thank you, everyone, for coming to have tea with me today. Please be seated and I will serve us.”
Casey smiled and rested her head on the ground in front of the table, listening and slowly blinking her large golden eyes.
“Now, you say ‘Thank you for inviting me and being such a gracious host,’” Becca prompted.
“Thank you, Becca, for inviting me and being such a gracious host,” Casey replied, her smile widening.
“Miss Becca,” the girl whispered beside her hand.
“My apologies, Miss Becca.”
Becca smiled and kneeled before the table. Then, she began pouring the tea into the tiny cups. As she did, she asked Heather and Mr. Teddy how the children were and what was new with them, nodding politely as they answered. Becca leaned over and tipped a tea cup first to Miss Heather’s mouth, then to Mister Teddy’s.
“Isn’t this fun?” Becca asked, a huge smile lighting up her face.
“I cannot recall ever having more fun. I’ve never been to a tea party before,” Casey replied.
The dragon looked fondly upon the little girl as Becca unwrapped the sandwiches and extended Casey’s toward her. Casey stuck out her tongue, a great pink thing, longer than Becca was tall, and took the sandwich with great care. It disappeared with one flick of Casey’s tongue and a satisfied look spread across the dragon’s face as she made a purring noise.
Becca giggled and took the biggest bite she could from her own sandwich in response. Casey chuckled back.
Then, the dragon dipped the tip of her tongue into her own tiny tea cup and looked happy with the taste of the sweet drink Becca had brought.
“Oh, I also brought a book!” Becca suddenly exclaimed, clapping her hands and holding the fingers tightly laced together. “It’s a book my grandma read to my mom and my mom reads to me and now I want to read it to you.”
“That sounds lovely,” Casey said.
“It’s called The Monster at the End of This Book.” With that, Becca scooted up against the side of Casey’s nose and settled herself onto the noisy bed of pine needles and leaves, opening the book and beginning to read.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
This story and all related material are the original works of Awaiting the Muse and Effy J. Roan AKA Effraeti. All rights reserved.
Awaiting the Muse by Effy J. Roan AKA Effraeti is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at https://awaitingthemuse.wordpress.com/.
Awaiting the Muse 