Lots of us have imaginary friends. John had one and he talked to him every day. John’s imaginary friend was named Duncan. Since John was an only child, he had lots of time for Duncan. Whenever mom and dad were too busy, he and Duncan made up lots of fun games together. They would play in the yard and turn it into a wonderful forest full of wild imaginary creatures. Sometimes they were spacemen fighting the evil Lord Gnulle and his army of mutants. Duncan and John always won. Other times Duncan would just get in his jammies and watch movies with John and make funny remarks about the adults.
One day John and Duncan were working on a fort in a part of the yard where nobody ever went. Duncan had already talked John into taking scrap wood from building sites near by even though John didn’t really feel ok about it. “Go ahead.” Duncan said. “Look, they have so much wood. They won’t miss a few boards.” John never let himself he had stolen the boards and Duncan said was ok so he took them.
At home, he got busy building the fort. Duncan said it was ok to use John’s daddy’s tools because they both knew that John’s daddy wanted John to learn to use tools so this was a perfect way. Suddenly as he worked, John cut his finger. It was bleeding pretty badly so he ran crying into the house to have mommy fix it. As mommy was putting the band-aid on she asked, “How did you cut your finger John?”
“Don’t tell her it was on your daddy’s saw.” Duncan whispered. “Tell her you cut it stacking firewood.”
“But that’s a lie.” John answered his friend. Mommy didn’t see the chat happening because parents can’t see what happens with your imaginary friend.
“Don’t worry. I have a magic dust and I will throw it on her to turn the lie into the truth.” Duncan whispered.
“I cut it stacking up some of the firewood like you wanted me to do mommy.” John said feeling really guilty inside and just then, he saw Duncan blow the magic dust.
“Well, I am glad you were doing something good sweetie.” Mommy said. “Just try to be more careful next time.”
Wow it had worked. John’s mom really did believe it and when she did, it almost made it true. Well at least until John went back to building his fort and saw the blood on the saw. So he cleaned it up then the lie became the truth. Duncan and John worked all afternoon but as suppertime came close, it looked like rain.
“We better go in and tell mommy what we want for supper.” Duncan recommended. “I want macaroni and cheese.” He cheered which seemed odd to John because imaginary friends don’t eat.
“Ok, we better put daddy’s tools up or I will get caught and be in big trouble.” John told Duncan.
“Oh leave them.” Duncan said. “We will need them tomorrow to finish the fort and this way it won’t take so long getting them out. Anyway, daddy never uses them during the week so we can clean up on Friday.” So John listened to Duncan and left the tools out. He thought about it later when he was watching TV with his parents and it started to rain but it was too late to run out there now and daddy would know for sure. Then, just like Duncan said, they used the tools the next day and everything was fine.
