Chapter 11 – Imaaaaginaaaation

Dad got home first. I stood in the hallway as he set his briefcase down.

“I don’t understand why they sent you home.”

I kept my distance from him but not so much it became suspicious. I settled into the couch I usually used and he leaned back on the other.

Rubbing his legs through his gray suit pants, my dad recounted, “They called me and said you were around some people who got really sick…? How they put it was very strange though….”

He verbally danced around parts of it. I let him talk a bit till he asked the eventual question, “So, what happened?”

Shifting my legs, I placed them underneath me and began, “Well, I had gym then biology. In biology, these two guys…had happen to them sorta what happened to you when we went out to eat last Friday.”

He rested against the couch and resolved, “I have no idea what happened then. But…uh… they started to look more like women?”

I shut my eyes and nodded back. He puffed out a long breath before shaking his head.

“…Tell me all that happened in order.”

In this version, I focused on how the two boys suddenly seemed different and then touched on their hair and faces. I mentioned their voices. I mentioned how Sophia seemed to change as well. I framed it so I didn’t get too involved because I could predict where my dad’s thinking might go.

Then, I mentioned Heather and Wes. Even with his flakey memory of stuff that happened in my life, the names were instantly familiar. He clenched his jaw and repeated Wes’s name. From there, I mentioned having to talk to the Vice Principal and how I was in the nurse’s office for a little bit before seeing Wes again and how he seemed like a girl.

My dad wanted to know what tests the nurse had done and I told him what I could remember. I reiterated to him that nothing seemed wrong with me.

Once he’d listened to it all, he sat up and said, “It’s obvious that someone around there is playing games with you and trying to get you in trouble. It’s bullshit. They blame you when who knows if anything actually happened.”

His words, vaguely incoherent and stubbornly frustrating in their usual way, were comforting because at least they were turned in my defense. I appreciated that. I didn’t look forward to when mom got home.

A quiet moment passed between us as the TV showed a rerun of an old detective show he liked. Soon, he stood up and moved closer to me.

I watched him as he settled down with a groan. He leaned towards me with his dense, bushy eyebrows raised. Another quiet moment passed. He had moved inside the radius I’d roughly tested with Heather. A whole lot of nothing happened right then and kept happening as he brushed at his rough mustache and turned his attention to the program.

I stayed where I was and waited. After several minutes, he smiled with certainty and declared, “It’s ridiculous.”

What he didn’t notice was his scruff was a little thinner than it had been when he came in. Barely enough to catch, but it was a beginning. I stood up, seized on what he’d said, and added, “You’re right. But is it okay if I walk around a little outside? I should probably water my little pine tree too.”

He gave an idle nod. I was about to leave when he asked, “Before you go, mind a hug? I figure you could use it.”

It was nice of him, but it wasn’t really what I wanted right then. Still, I had to tell him it was fine.

I tried not to act too nervous about the hug. I really had no reason to be nervous anyway. But reason and this day had nothing to do with one another. I casually wrapped my arms around my father’s suit-clad shoulders and gave him a relaxed hug. Making sure to breathe normally and not feel like I was rushing it (I’d trained myself that way when it came to my mom and hugs), the whole thing was over without any fuss or sign it had made a difference.

With that, I slipped away and out the sliding glass door on the side. Even then, we had psychotic neighbor dogs who tried to slam against the wooden fence if you so much as thought about approaching their direction. Their claws had worn their side of the fence bare. In later years, we would have to replace several boards on our own. The separate garage was still nice in those days and not yet a den for spiders and undead leaves with a multitude of black trash bags and an ancient fridge, from what seemed like the 1960s, which still managed to work perfectly.

I often idly dreamed about clearing it out and converting it into a nice little adjoining room to the house because, with the carport and the weather, there was never any need to put the cars inside.

I dreamed big, a comfy loft with a bed high in the rafters. Along the side sat my dad’s old, gray wedge-box Corolla. Mom’s teal minivan was absent. Wandering into the backyard, I relaxed under the covered porch. The picnic table was covered in dirty potting soil bags and seed which the birds had found a way to get into (and poop all over). The little pine my parents planted on the day I was born caved over a dark spot on the lawn because of a sudden, heavy snowfall a winter ago.

It would later get propped up by a support pole which it would eventually outgrow and burst forth with a strong trunk and spreading branches which sought light through the shadows of the fruitless mulberry it cowered under. It would push against the porch and the garage with desires for even greater. Then, it would be unceremoniously hacked to a dead stump one day. Such is life.

The old peach tree beside the doghouse still stood as skeletal, leafless remains. It would take a literal stiff breeze sometime later before it would officially be gone. I crouched and glanced inside the doghouse. It had a weathered, cloth flap over the front and windows on all sides. It had been for Lady, a mutt my parents adopted a few years before I was born. She was the closest thing I had to a sibling growing up.

She would tease me and steal my stuff until I finally learned to talk. We got along, after a fashion, but she was always really my dad’s dog. She had a light-brown coat which reminded me of my hair when I was young, before the reddishness set in. She was pretty big compared to me but always docile. Never barked unless it was important. Never bit at anyone. Only ran off occasionally if the fence was open but always howled for home wherever she wound up. Despite being my dad’s dog, mom was the one who had to put her to sleep. She was the one who took care of that kind of stuff.

I sat on the bench next to the outside part of the fireplace. The fall wind was listless, which was nice. Usually, around Brookville, it rushed and pressed and scorched and scoured until your eyes were bleary and your nose raw.

When I was tired of sitting, I tugged on the clothesline set in a triangle between the porch and the tree. It sprung like the bows I’d pulled on during gym. That felt like ages ago and mom coming home felt too near.

Leaning on the line, I made my way to the tree. It had been there when my parents moved in, mature by that time. The one in front had surpassed it and conquered the front lawn like a beast. This one, I liked more.

If you climbed up slightly, it had a little nook where you could position yourself and comfortably sit. Even at that age, I was still small enough to avoid the branches and slip between. It was a rough, scratchy place to sit with hidden ants and other insects, but I liked it. Not so high I felt scared but still away from everything else.

I used to dream up so many things in that tree. Would I have dreamed up a mysterious force around me that made things girlier?

My dreams were typically weirder than that. Stuffed animals come to life who lived on different planets. Henrietta Bunnara Rokello, a white, fluffy bunny, was often the heroine of my little mental tales.

Lefferson Frenzel, a stuffed dinosaur from some animated movie, was her semi-romantic love interest and the main explorer of the group. Turd…a turtle (my imagination had its peaks and valleys) was an engineer/inventor. Mewsithia was a dastardly rogue assassin cat with a hidden heart of gold.

The evil they faced throughout the universe was Dr. Mitten Hands and Mister Black. They controlled the Slimies, half-insect, half-goo creatures made of ‘dark energy’ that came out of the blackness of space to consume everything in their way. All light, all hope. Everything.  

Rather than tea parties, there were strategy meetings about how the Forces of Good and the Federation of Friendship could defeat these evil things. Of course, aside from goddess creator and supreme commander, I also played the role of the evil ones with an old black hat and a pair of bright red mittens that no longer fit.

I made terrible sketches of their light-year-long ships that functioned as arks and battle forces. I cringed at the memory.

I stayed in the tree until I heard my mom’s car thunder up the side pavement and close to the garage. I hopped down, brushed myself off, and walked over to greet her.

She stepped out of the driver’s seat and didn’t say anything to me. She just loomed despite the fact we were the same height. She pushed a lump into my throat without touching me. Her eyes scanned me with a practiced intensity as she said, “I need you to bring a few things in for me.”

No mention made of the phone call. Instead, she was going to wait me out. It made me feel like I was already guilty in her eyes. But I said nothing. I just brought the stuff in and placed it on the counter.

Art by Alexis Rillera/Anirhapsodist